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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

#151

Post by mvindahl »

Spooky23 wrote: post #110
WhitneyLand wrote: post #60

There is something weird about the tactics of Uber execs. I don't think it's all an ethics failure. A lot of the lying and cheating they do seems like an objectively poor risk/reward proposition and I think many companies would not even get to the ethics question because they would stop when realizing the ideas are stupid when you add up the negatives. Stealing Google's autonomous auto IP could be a crime that actual…

It's not weird at all. It looks pretty obviously like a pump and dump scheme. This behavior is fraud, and i bet the juiciest stuff is yet to come. I'm sure the criminal complaint coming from some US Attorney will reveal that somebody was cashing out in private markets. This is no different than a boiler room.

Excellent point. I, too, had been wondering about Uber's priorities. Realizing that the stock valuation at the time of IPO is their only guiding metric has made the pieces fall into place for me.

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

#152

Post by cookiecaper »

khedoros1 wrote: post #149
cookiecaper wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Did you have to impersonate someone who's supposed to have access to it in order to watch it? That seems more like the question that would decide it. Is it impersonation if I just don't go in wearing the opposing team's colors? What if I go wearing the playing team's jersey? What if I'm the coach of that other team so I wear a hat and sunglasses? Where's the line of "impersonation"? This can't be taken as an absolut…

> Is it impersonation if I just don't go in wearing the opposing team's colors? What if I go wearing the playing team's jersey? What if I'm the coach of that other team so I wear a hat and sunglasses? Where's the line of "impersonation"? You're playing with the words, rather than the meaning behind them, and you're smart enough to know that. You're mixing up morality and legality a lot, which I find interesting. I wo…

>I'd argue that it crosses the threshold into behavior that should fall outside the bounds of legal competition. We're better off with many weaker competitors than we are with one strong one.

That's the funny thing about this. I completely agree that we're better with many smaller competitors. The CFAA, like most such laws, is routinely used to stop small competitors. The CFAA is a huge reason that tech incumbents are able to keep their de-facto monopolies, exactly because they make up licensing agreements that say "Reading our site means you swear you won't compete against us" and then send out a firm full of $1k/hr lawyers to do their dirty work.

An "even playing field" would not put force of law behind such fantastical, unrealistic, and anti-competitive assertions. Signing up for the other guy's ToS is not something that would fire off moral alarm bells in your average person. It's naive to believe that anyone adheres to these absurdities, and you have to be a huge company to enforce them.

The false belief that businesses actually restrain themselves to align with such regulations instead of fighting hard to get in a winning position is exactly what leads to damaging laws like the CFAA in the first place.

The net effect is that small innovators get obliterated and denounced for trying to get some leverage while companies playing in the hundreds of millions (Lyft and Uber) can squabble in court before deciding to save some dough and draw up a settlement that says they'll stop accessing the other guy's API (at which point they'll find a proxy or replacement).

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

#153

Post by beedogs »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #2

So, no one was really able to answer my question last thread. In fact, I mostly got snarky condescending replies. I've stopped caring about such things though, so hopefully good-faith questions are still welcome: What's wrong with Uber tracking Lyft drivers? What is wrong with using a competitor's API to get real-time tactical information about them? Not only did it not harm Lyft drivers, but it actually aided them:…

HN proves, in the comments of nearly every story about Uber, that there's nothing wrong with any of the shitty things this company does to its competitors or customers.

Straight-up stealing code from Google? I've seen it justified here. Stalking people? That's okay, too. Screwing over competitors with software like this? Totally fine!

Uber can do no wrong on HN. It disgusts me, but I'll be satisfied when they've been destroyed through one or more of the myriad gigantic lawsuits they're fighting. The comments on that story ought to be amusing.

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

#154

Post by mdpopescu »

venture_lol wrote: post #86
zvpxdlk wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you set up a server to respond to only people you choose, it's on you to make sure it's only people you choose that use it. Then you can make any restrictions you want and invalidate access for anyone who goes against your rules

So if you forgot to lock your front door, everyone can walk into your house and help themselves to your properties?

Quoting @zaphar:

> The Lyft API is authenticated

In other words, the door was locked and you gave the key to a guy, who then peed on the carpet. While that was impolite, he was definitely not guilty of breaking and entering.

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

#155

Post by cookiecaper »

foxylad wrote: post #145
cookiecaper wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 do have a fair bit of business experience, including seeing how destructive anti-competitive behaviour (both others and my own) can be. Successful businesses have lots of customers, and customers like the businesses they patronise to behave fairly. So although you are right that it's a competitive world, you have to compete fairly - and be seen to compete fairly - or you will drive your customers away. You do need…

>So although you are right that it's a competitive world, you have to compete fairly - and be seen to compete fairly - or you will drive your customers away.

I think you're right that you have to be seen as fair. I think it's important to actually be fair, but as I said above, the popular conception of "fairness" does not necessarily map. It really comes down to how good your PR dept is at framing your company and making sure you're in the news for things that no one can fault, and that your strategic moves are never publicized.

The short version is that people don't want to hear "how the sausage is made", but the environment, ultimately including your customers, still demands that you make it.

>You do need consider what people have been "socialised" to think (which is what morals are, really) because otherwise your competitors will have a significant edge.

Yeah, again, this is PR. I agree you need good PR. You also need to be realistic enough to know that the crap someone's PR department pumps out is not the end of the story. You have to make winning plays.

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

#156

Post by beedogs »

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.

It would be nice if they'd target someone -- like Uber -- who really deserves to be punished for it.

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

#157

Post by [deleted] »

mdpopescu wrote: post #154
venture_lol wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if you forgot to lock your front door, everyone can walk into your house and help themselves to your properties?

Quoting @zaphar: > The Lyft API is authenticated In other words, the door was locked and you gave the key to a guy, who then peed on the carpet. While that was impolite, he was definitely not guilty of breaking and entering.

[deleted]

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

#158

Post by beedogs »

Spooky23 wrote: post #105
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #2

So, no one was really able to answer my question last thread. In fact, I mostly got snarky condescending replies. I've stopped caring about such things though, so hopefully good-faith questions are still welcome: What's wrong with Uber tracking Lyft drivers? What is wrong with using a competitor's API to get real-time tactical information about them? Not only did it not harm Lyft drivers, but it actually aided them:…

Nothing at all. We should all aspire to such bold visionary behavior.

I really hope that's sarcasm, but I can't tell anymore. There are people all over HN who really think this kind of disgusting behavior is acceptable.

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

#159

Post by cookiecaper »

mquander wrote: post #132
cookiecaper wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

As a baseline, deception is immoral. If you want to be deceptive, you should have a good reason. Your winning a zero-sum game isn't a reason anyone else should be happy about. In the football tapes example, I don't think there is anything deceptive happening, because everyone understands that other teams are doing this. However, if it were explicitly against the rules or implicitly against established norms to review…

>In the football tapes example, I don't think there is anything deceptive happening, because everyone understands that other teams are doing this. However, if it were explicitly against the rules or implicitly against established norms to review other team's tapes, doing so and not telling the other teams is deceptive and wrong.

I agree. The implicit context is that it is in-bounds to investigate your competitors through their public-facing offerings, even if they try to stop you. You don't have to stop competing just because they say please. Through an accident of law (the CFAA was enacted before it was possible to get home internet service), Lyft was able to make this illegal. Lyft is trying to block public information from getting into their competitor's hands. IMO, that's the anti-competitive activity here.

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

#160

Post by cookiecaper »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #121
cookiecaper wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"…

>This ethos from some of the other commenters that you shouldn't do something because it might make your competitors unhappy is absurd. I'm not sure that's what these other commenters are really saying. It seems to me that this sort of competition actually ends up being bad for the consumer . Good faith competition where you make your product better is what we hope our markets will do. When companies like uber instea…

>I'm not sure that's what these other commenters are really saying. It seems to me that this sort of competition actually ends up being bad for the consumer. Good faith competition where you make your product better is what we hope our markets will do.

Why should you not be able to use your competitor's public offerings to gather information that will be used to improve your product? Seeing the other guy's moves is a massive motivating factor to improve your own product, and provides useful feedback as much as modifications to your own product.

>When companies like uber instead try to hamstring the competition that's bad for consumers and should be discouraged.

Uber isn't trying to hamstring the competition. They're just trying to compete by learning about their competitor. This is how competition works. As far as I know, they didn't do anything that impeded Lyft's ability to operate (other than outcompeting them).

It sounds like the problem people have is just that Uber is the larger company right now. If Lyft had gotten into Uber's API (and there's no reason to necessarily assume they haven't), this thread would be much different.

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