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Uber finds one allegedly stolen Waymo file on an employee’s personal device

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Re: Uber finds one allegedly stolen Waymo file on an employee’s personal device

#21

I get the feeling 2017 is going to be a very entertaining (from a news perspective) year for tech.

I've been kicking around the idea of Popcorn as a Service.

I would like to invest in this idea. Food delivery is hot, and we need to disrupt the entertainment industry!

Re: Uber finds one allegedly stolen Waymo file on an employee’s personal device

#22
post #7
post #2

'“To the extent Uber tries to excuse its noncompliance on the grounds that Mr. Levandowski has invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to provide Uber with documents or assistance, Waymo notes that Mr. Levandowski remains — to this day — an Uber executive and in charge of its self-driving car program. Uber has ratified Mr. Levandowski’s behavior and is liable for it,” Waymo attorney Charles K. Verhoeven wrote in a le…

No, that's a completely non-substantiative quote from an attorney for one side that contains the implicit assumption that Uber really does have the documents and is actively committing crimes in discovery to prevent the discovery from working. Not only is it not an unbiased source, it's basically a source being paid to be biased. Which is fine; I am generally down with the philosophy of adversarial justice. But you s…

"that contains the implicit assumption that Uber really does have the documents and is actively committing crimes in discovery to prevent the discovery from working"

I don't think the paragraph implies that at all. Rather it says that Uber has not threatened Levandowski with employment sanctions in order to get him to cooperate with its discovery obligations. Uber could do so without running afoul of the 5th amendment as that only binds the government.

Google's lawyer is arguing that the court ought to treat that as constructive non-compliance. There's no implied allegation of perjury or other criminal behavior.

Re: Uber finds one allegedly stolen Waymo file on an employee’s personal device

#23

"Judge William Alsup, who is presiding over the case, ordered Uber to search more thoroughly for the documents." Judge Alsup always winds up with the most interesting cases :-)

Ohh, didn't realize this is the same judge who taught himself Java (https://www.wired.com/2012/05/google-schmidt-page-damages/)

Re: Uber finds one allegedly stolen Waymo file on an employee’s personal device

#24
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's a completely non-substantiative quote from an attorney for one side that contains the implicit assumption that Uber really does have the documents and is actively committing crimes in discovery to prevent the discovery from working. Not only is it not an unbiased source, it's basically a source being paid to be biased. Which is fine; I am generally down with the philosophy of adversarial justice. But you s…

> No, that's a completely non-substantiative quote from an attorney for one side that contains the implicit assumption that Uber really does have the documents Implicit assumption? The first paragraph of the TechCrunch article says: Uber admitted today that it had found one of the documents Waymo alleges was stolen by a former employee — who left its self-driving car effort to join Uber’s — on the employee’s personal…

How can they access an employee's personal computer?

Re: Uber finds one allegedly stolen Waymo file on an employee’s personal device

#25
post #3

Offhand, this kind of sounds like a parent asking their teenager to go and search their own room for drugs. "Nah, I didn't find anything. I found this plastic bag that looks like it mighta had something in it, but I'm pretty sure my friend left it here and it was empty when he brought it." "Okay son, go search again."

Also, there is no reason to believe that a bad actor would steal 14,000 documents from a previous company, and then on the first day on the job go and upload them to the company git server.

If I knew I was being nefarious, I would keep those documents on a completely airgapped computer in a private (non-company) space, only reference them when I was alone, and then bring information into the company only through my brain(and probably, with a reasonable parallel reconstruction already determined).

Re: Uber finds one allegedly stolen Waymo file on an employee’s personal device

#26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, that's a completely non-substantiative quote from an attorney for one side that contains the implicit assumption that Uber really does have the documents Implicit assumption? The first paragraph of the TechCrunch article says: Uber admitted today that it had found one of the documents Waymo alleges was stolen by a former employee — who left its self-driving car effort to join Uber’s — on the employee’s personal…

How can they access an employee's personal computer?

By asking.

Re: Uber finds one allegedly stolen Waymo file on an employee’s personal device

#27
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's a completely non-substantiative quote from an attorney for one side that contains the implicit assumption that Uber really does have the documents and is actively committing crimes in discovery to prevent the discovery from working. Not only is it not an unbiased source, it's basically a source being paid to be biased. Which is fine; I am generally down with the philosophy of adversarial justice. But you s…

> No, that's a completely non-substantiative quote from an attorney for one side that contains the implicit assumption that Uber really does have the documents Implicit assumption? The first paragraph of the TechCrunch article says: Uber admitted today that it had found one of the documents Waymo alleges was stolen by a former employee — who left its self-driving car effort to join Uber’s — on the employee’s personal…

Until the facts of the case come out, don't fall into the dangerous dark hole of fully buying into either story.

The other day I booted my old galaxy s3 to put a new ROM on it and turn it into a dashcam. I found on it that google drive had offline backed-up some documents from a company I had worked at several years ago, and no longer did. Should I be sued for trade secret theft?

Re: Uber finds one allegedly stolen Waymo file on an employee’s personal device

#28
post #2

'“To the extent Uber tries to excuse its noncompliance on the grounds that Mr. Levandowski has invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to provide Uber with documents or assistance, Waymo notes that Mr. Levandowski remains — to this day — an Uber executive and in charge of its self-driving car program. Uber has ratified Mr. Levandowski’s behavior and is liable for it,” Waymo attorney Charles K. Verhoeven wrote in a le…

Good, I'm happy he still works there. People should not be fired because of accusations. It opens the door for abuse of the justice system.

Let's not fall into the trap of assuming Waymo is the "good guys" and Uber is the "bad guys." Leveling an accusation isn't hard. Anybody can sue anybody as long as you have enough evidence or a good enough argument to convince a judge to hear the case.

Re: Uber finds one allegedly stolen Waymo file on an employee’s personal device

#29
It is surprising that Google did not push the court to appoint a third party discovery firm to handle the device imaging process and to provide a report to the court.

Maybe both parties' intense desire for privacy in this matter has driven Google to this strategy.

The seeming ludicrousness of the result - Alsup's "go try again, harder this time" - is not caused by this case's parties playing badly. It is caused by poorly defined and understood laws surrounding what constitutes a defensible search. Data handling in this stage of legal proceedings is imperfect, and can be manipulated by both parties to drive up the cost of litigation, or to strategically avoid disclosing the key breadcrumb documentation that would otherwise have led to the smoking gun(s).

Edit: Please find the court reporter transcript here: http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3533784-Waymo-Uber-3-...

Judge Alsup's comments are fairly aggressive in comparison to most commercial litigation, but the no-nonsense tone is par for the course.

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