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Uber gets sued over alleged ‘Hell’ program to track Lyft drivers

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Re: Uber gets sued over alleged ‘Hell’ program to track Lyft drivers

#111

Post by nols »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #33
clishem wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read this article ( https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/12/hell-o-uber/ ) you'll find it goes much futher then just accessing Lyft's public API. They created fake customer accounts, spoofed their locations and even linked the data about drivers they got from this to their own drivers. So what's wrong with this? To quote the article, possibly: "breach of contract, unfair business practices, stealing trade secrets an…

"and violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act" This I'm most interested in, as the DoJ has frequently used the hammer against those who violate the act. EDIT: Would love to get your opinion rayiner if you read this comment on what the odds are the DoJ prosecutes for this.

The CFAA is absurdly broadly worded, so much so that it's extremely easy to wield against people accused of violating it. The DoJ uses it as their hammer, if they targeted everyone who violated it the jails would be overflowing.

Re: Uber gets sued over alleged ‘Hell’ program to track Lyft drivers

#112

Post by cookiecaper »

zacharyvoase wrote: post #91
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, good reply. Thanks! I think this convinced me. My issue was that I see myself as a pretty moral person, but if I were working for a startup and was tasked with "Implement a way to know how many Lyft drivers are out on the road," I could see myself doing something very similar to what Uber did, and also feeling mildly clever about it. Isn't that what we call out-of-the-box thinking? It seems like there's a fine l…

It’s not a fine line: signing up for a Lyft account requires explicitly agreeing to a ToS, which is a legally-binding contract.

This assumes that Lyft's ToS forbids this type of access, which I'm sure it does, but it also conflates legal behavior with moral behavior.

Read literally, many terms of service would block any access whatsoever, as phraseology blocking "any automated or manual access" is popular. [0] Isn't all access either automated or manual?

The question is not if you're going to violate the ToS, since in most cases, just using the service invariably does so. Rather, the question is whether your misuse is going to make the company upset enough to sue you. And if it does, it doesn't necessarily mean anything unethical or unfair occurred; it just means something that upset that company occurred.

[0] https://www.google.com/search?q=%22automated+or+manual%22+%2... ; 131,000 results

Re: Uber gets sued over alleged ‘Hell’ program to track Lyft drivers

#113

Post by venture_lol »

cookiecaper wrote: post #109
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, good reply. Thanks! I think this convinced me. My issue was that I see myself as a pretty moral person, but if I were working for a startup and was tasked with "Implement a way to know how many Lyft drivers are out on the road," I could see myself doing something very similar to what Uber did, and also feeling mildly clever about it. Isn't that what we call out-of-the-box thinking? It seems like there's a fine l…

I have to wonder how much business/competition experience some of these guys replying to you have. Tech people live in a bubble. Because our skills are in high demand and there's a pretty strong natural aptitude barrier limiting the number of new competitors, our experiences competing in the tech bubble can be very misleading. It's a dog-eat-dog world out there. If you are lazy about competing, or trying to "go easy"…

"I've found the guiding star to be "Is this really immoral, or have we just been socialized to believe it's impolite or in bad taste?" One should realize that a lot of this socialization is provided by people who simply don't want you to become a strong competitor, and have indoctrinated this imaginary, soft, cushiony world into everyone's brains so that it's easier for them to come in and take what they want, and their constant empty blathering draws attention away from their dirty deeds. There's no need to allow ourselves to be victimized like that."

Simply brilliant!

Re: Uber gets sued over alleged ‘Hell’ program to track Lyft drivers

#114

Post by nulagrithom »

cmahler7 wrote: post #57
dinedal wrote: post #28

How does anyone, when asked to build such a program, not raise an objection, or say something? The ethical compromise made on behalf of all involved is startling, if this is true.

silicon valley has filled up with the types of money chasing individuals who would have once become investment bankers on wall street and brought similar morals with them

Today I was asked for the 10th damn time to build something that could expose a small amount of HIPAA data. The last 9 times I explained how building this feature would, at the least, require a security audit, but nobody understood why I was making such a big deal.

Today, I almost said "Fuck it, if you want to make a blatantly negligent mistake then just reply to this email detailing once more how stupid this is and I'll just build it." If I get asked once more, I still might.

Does that make me an unethical money chasing individual? I dunno, maybe. And maybe I'm wrong and it's not a big deal -- I honestly don't know if that feature is a HIPAA violation or not. But most of all, I just want to keep my job and keep feeding my family.

I wouldn't be too quick to condemn the people that wrote this for Uber.

Re: Uber gets sued over alleged ‘Hell’ program to track Lyft drivers

#115

Post by venture_lol »

Mz wrote: post #106
tfinniga wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a good exercise to do that kind of self-examination, to honestly evaluate situations which are morally ambiguous to various degrees, figure out where you stand and why, and plan what you would do when such a situation presents itself. It's very likely that you might just go along with something in the moment, unless you've thought about it in advance and are able to recognize it. When I was in grad schoo…

Run faster, don't kick the other racer's ankles. That sounds like a good rule of thumb for trying to apply to questions of business morality. "Are we trying to run faster than them? Or are we trying to kick them in the ankles?" I mean, lots of people are young and just starting out and haven't had the time to think a lot of things through. Or they are busy developing expertise in things other than law and morality, b…

Both are perfectly fine, within limits, within laws, and certain moral guidance and generally accepted social principles.

An example:

In American football, it's perfectly fine to take down the other guys hard if you cannot catch up.

That said, rules such as "don't kick other racer's ankles" are generally for the overall good -- we don't want a wild west approach and end up with wounded and hurt players all over the place and hence, the game gets less fun. Notice: there is a balance here between absolute ruthlessness and let's have some rules so we don't all end up with no functioning legs.

However, at the goal line, if touchdown is about to take place, I can guarantee you a player will go for other guy's ankle hard even if it would mean suspension, penalty, etc. Why? Because in that moment, the primary overriding priority is to prevent the touch down. That said, it is possible to cross the line in "kicking the other guy's ankle".

Re: Uber gets sued over alleged ‘Hell’ program to track Lyft drivers

#116

Post by alain94040 »

venture_lol wrote: post #84
Chaebixi wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would prefer businesses compete on the services they provide to their customers, not on how effectively they can sneakily torpedo their competitors (by, in this case, trying to deny them their suppliers).

You can make a good argument that's exactly what Uber did. They tried to obtain field data to make competitive decision. Market intelligence, market research, competitive analysis, swot, opposition research, take place everyday. The way they went about it does seem to have put them in hot water. Question is did they cross a line with serious legal and business (as in cost) ramifications?

You are definitely crossing a line when you provide burner phones to sabotage your competition. This article[1] on Verge even has screenshots of the app that Uber used internally to generate phone numbers that Lyft couldn't trace and that Uber people could use to create fake Lyft accounts. If you are part of the development team that wrote that internal app, you seriously miss a moral compass.

[1] http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/26/6067663/this-is-ubers-play...

Re: Uber gets sued over alleged ‘Hell’ program to track Lyft drivers

#117

Post by cookiecaper »

nols wrote: post #111
toomuchtodo wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"and violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act" This I'm most interested in, as the DoJ has frequently used the hammer against those who violate the act. EDIT: Would love to get your opinion rayiner if you read this comment on what the odds are the DoJ prosecutes for this.

The CFAA is absurdly broadly worded, so much so that it's extremely easy to wield against people accused of violating it. The DoJ uses it as their hammer, if they targeted everyone who violated it the jails would be overflowing.

Yes, my understanding is that criminal prosecutions under the CFAA are relatively rare. It's primarily wielded in civil cases. It seems very unlikely that Kalanick et al would be brought up on criminal charges for this. I'm not a lawyer.

Re: Uber gets sued over alleged ‘Hell’ program to track Lyft drivers

#119

Post by sillysaurus3 »

cookiecaper wrote: post #109
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, good reply. Thanks! I think this convinced me. My issue was that I see myself as a pretty moral person, but if I were working for a startup and was tasked with "Implement a way to know how many Lyft drivers are out on the road," I could see myself doing something very similar to what Uber did, and also feeling mildly clever about it. Isn't that what we call out-of-the-box thinking? It seems like there's a fine l…

I have to wonder how much business/competition experience some of these guys replying to you have. Tech people live in a bubble. Because our skills are in high demand and there's a pretty strong natural aptitude barrier limiting the number of new competitors, our experiences competing in the tech bubble can be very misleading. It's a dog-eat-dog world out there. If you are lazy about competing, or trying to "go easy"…

how are you supposed to compete if you can't see what your competitor is doing?

Well, that's the issue, isn't it? I had your mindset going into this, but Uber is getting sued for exactly that, and public opinion is (apparently) strongly against the idea that you should use your competitor's API's at all. So how do you look objectively at this and conclude "Well, even though a popular company is now being sued for this, and all of my friends would think less of me for doing this, I should go ahead and do it anyway"?

I'm genuinely curious since you hit on exactly what I've been struggling to figure out.

I tried to say "It's hard to believe Lyft isn't doing exactly the same thing" at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14104646 and the reply was "No, it's actually really easy to believe that Lyft isn't tricking Uber's computer systems into giving Lyft real-time info on Uber's drivers and fare prices. Please stop trying to make excuses for Uber's shitty behavior." And that's probably a fair reply. So how do you figure out whether you're doing something shitty, or just "breaking rules in a sporting way?" Is it just a coin toss? Is there an objective way to navigate these questions? It feels important to figure out answers to this kind of thing.

Re: Uber gets sued over alleged ‘Hell’ program to track Lyft drivers

#120

Post by cookiecaper »

mquander wrote: post #99
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, good reply. Thanks! I think this convinced me. My issue was that I see myself as a pretty moral person, but if I were working for a startup and was tasked with "Implement a way to know how many Lyft drivers are out on the road," I could see myself doing something very similar to what Uber did, and also feeling mildly clever about it. Isn't that what we call out-of-the-box thinking? It seems like there's a fine l…

I think the relevant part that distinguishes whether it's ethical is whether you are deceptively taking advantage of another party. If Uber wouldn't be willing to tell Lyft what they are doing with their API, and Lyft would stop them if they knew, then that's a good signal that it's not very ethical to do it. (Of course, if you're a consequentialist, then you might still like the action if it were serving some greate…

Lyft is making this information available to anyone who signs up and accesses it, there's no subterfuge going on. They didn't plant a mole in Lyft to send them secret internal documents. They didn't steal their code and copy its innovations.

The mere fact that Lyft "would [try to] stop them" makes it immoral? How does that work?

Is it immoral if I watch tapes of the competing team's last football game to figure out what plays they like to use? Surely they would try to stop me from doing this if they could, because they want me to know as little about their playbook as possible, because they'd prefer to win. They might even tell the clerk not to sell the tape to anyone who is wearing my team's colors to try to keep it out of enemy hands. But there's nothing wrong with reviewing the tapes, even if they've tried to stop me from doing so.

What makes your competitors pleasure a barometer of morality? Almost always, winners are going to be happy and losers are going to be sad. Is it immoral for anyone to win or lose?

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