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Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

nytimes.com

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Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#281

Post by dllthomas »

jacquesm wrote: post #271
dllthomas wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have we established that Uber knew about the files?

If you invest in / buy a company for its IP then you normally - especially when the field is 'hot' and the IP is voluminous and created in record time - do some research to verify the origin of the IP is in fact what the company says it is. If you forgo such a check then you open yourself up to two potential problems: - if the IP ends up being stolen then you may not have recourse against the person that sold it to y…

While that's all true, it seems entirely unrelated. If Levandowski stole "a large treasure trove of files" but then drew information judiciously from those files in creating Otto's IP, Uber might not have been much able to pick that apart - and in particular, your characterization would be grossly misleading.

Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#282

Post by joshuamorton »

gnicholas wrote: post #263
joshuamorton wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing to note here, is that as far as Alsup is concerned, Levandowski isn't a party to the case. There's Uber and Waymo. Uber has been instructed to get information for Waymo as part of a civil proceeding in which Levandowski is not a party. To do anything less than their fullest to compel Levandowski to give that information to Waymo would make Uber liable. Its worth remembering that, at this point, this is only…

legalese note: I think you mean "adverse inference", not "adverse interference". I only note this because "interference" is a word used in some legal jargon (e.g., "tortious interference"), so this typo could be confusing to others.

You're correct. That was a typo on my part.

Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#283

Post by Arizhel »

Arizhel wrote: post #229
xhedley wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arizhel, I have never been subjected to rape and attempted strangulation myself. But someone that I know well has. In the country that I live in, the justice system rightly requires that guilt in criminal cases is proved "beyond reasonable doubt". In court, the accused has every reason to allege that the alleged victim was "up for it" and "consenting" and "enjoyed it". The victim who "lets it drop" in these circumsta…

OK, but that still doesn't explain why it's a "spectacularly bad idea" for police/DA to not bother prosecuting in cases like this. What exactly are they supposed to do when they don't have a cooperative victim? Why is it not-stupid for the victim to avoid the costs of an adversarial court case, but it's stupid for the DA to avoid a case that he or she is guaranteed to lose?

I love how there's still no response on this question.

Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#284

Post by hluska »

Arizhel wrote: post #229
xhedley wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arizhel, I have never been subjected to rape and attempted strangulation myself. But someone that I know well has. In the country that I live in, the justice system rightly requires that guilt in criminal cases is proved "beyond reasonable doubt". In court, the accused has every reason to allege that the alleged victim was "up for it" and "consenting" and "enjoyed it". The victim who "lets it drop" in these circumsta…

OK, but that still doesn't explain why it's a "spectacularly bad idea" for police/DA to not bother prosecuting in cases like this. What exactly are they supposed to do when they don't have a cooperative victim? Why is it not-stupid for the victim to avoid the costs of an adversarial court case, but it's stupid for the DA to avoid a case that he or she is guaranteed to lose?

My Dad was a police officer for 41 years and, by chance, he is visiting me. I read him your comments. Based on his 41 years of extremely high level investigative experience (including lead investigator in more sexual assaults than he cares to remember) , you literally don't know what you're talking about. He laughed at your comment and said, "Wow, another asshole armchair investigator with no experience."

First, the DA in the American system is not guaranteed to lose. Rather, unless the alleged perpetrator is extremely wealthy, the DA has a tremendous advantage. This is unbelievably common knowledge and something he picked up working closely with FBI and DEA agents.

Second, when you don't have a cooperative victim, a skilled investigator will investigate why. Often this happens because either the perpetrator made a very graphic threat and/or the victim suffers from post traumatic stress disorder. In this case, a highly skilled investigator would make sure that the victim had access to the best victim services people around.

Further to that, a skilled investigator/prosecutor combination will take steps to shield and protect the victim from an adversarial system. One common method would be to overcharge, announce they're going for a max sentence and plea down to avoid trial, while still guaranteeing a sentence, probation and sex offender registries.

There is your precious answer. Now, take some time to evaluate what kind of heartless asshole calls a victim 'stupid'.

Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#285

Post by hluska »

Arizhel wrote: post #283
Arizhel wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, but that still doesn't explain why it's a "spectacularly bad idea" for police/DA to not bother prosecuting in cases like this. What exactly are they supposed to do when they don't have a cooperative victim? Why is it not-stupid for the victim to avoid the costs of an adversarial court case, but it's stupid for the DA to avoid a case that he or she is guaranteed to lose?

I love how there's still no response on this question.

And, I love how someone who clearly has no investigative experience considers him/herself enough of an expert to call a victim stupid.

Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#286

Post by Arizhel »

hluska wrote: post #284
Arizhel wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, but that still doesn't explain why it's a "spectacularly bad idea" for police/DA to not bother prosecuting in cases like this. What exactly are they supposed to do when they don't have a cooperative victim? Why is it not-stupid for the victim to avoid the costs of an adversarial court case, but it's stupid for the DA to avoid a case that he or she is guaranteed to lose?

My Dad was a police officer for 41 years and, by chance, he is visiting me. I read him your comments. Based on his 41 years of extremely high level investigative experience (including lead investigator in more sexual assaults than he cares to remember) , you literally don't know what you're talking about. He laughed at your comment and said, "Wow, another asshole armchair investigator with no experience." First, the…

Both you and your dad sound like complete assholes to be throwing that term around, esp. when all I did was ask a question. Of course, your dad is a cop, so being an asshole is normal there.

Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#287

Post by [deleted] »

amyjess wrote: post #132
ooqr wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In spite of what you see on TV, it's not up to a victim to decide whether or not to press criminal charges in the end. That's up to the attorney general usually.

Though police do often drop criminal charges if the victim is uncooperative. Here's a recent example: a friend of mine was raped and strangled to death last month. They caught her alleged murderer last week. When the media got a hold of it, they found out that he had been accused of rape and attempted strangulation five years ago, but police decided not to press charges because the victim wanted to let it drop. So ye…

[deleted]

Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#288

Post by throwaway13234 »

kbenson wrote: post #257
throwaway13234 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you show me where in the expert testimony this is? I haven't yet found this exact allegation myself. I've seen the media parrot this over and over again. The expert testimony identified a specific model card reader attached to the computer a full three days later. It didn't say that a memory card was ever inserted into the card reader and mounted a logical volume. Nor did the expert testimony mention any files co…

> Does the lack of these details but specificity of other details not strike anyone else as odd? Not particularly. There's only so much they can log easily by tying into the system. Card reader insertions are easily tracked through OS level event logs in most operating systems, but generating a log entry for every file copy that happens is quite another level of granularity. It's sort of like street level cameras. Th…

Yeah, I wouldn't expect logs for every file, but I would expect logs for the insertion of a card into the card reader and mounting a logical volume from that card. How big was the card/volume, if any? And if there even was one, was it even big enough to hold the entirety of that repo.

Also, while copying isn't auditable on windows, windows can audit object reads and writes. Were there any logs showing that the directory with the files were read while the card reader was inserted into the machine? It's off by default however. Does anyone know the default audit settings of a new google windows installation to know what folders it turns on logging for if any?

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc976403.aspx

These are all issues and details I would expect to be mentioned in an expert's report if they weren't trying to be selective in the details they provided. Since this expert works for Google, omitting details in Google's favor wouldn't surprise me. I didn't see any statement in the expert's report where they had to make a statement under oath where they declare that they aren't omitting any other details that may be relevant to the court. Without such a declaration, it's possible to be truthful, but deceptive without perjuring yourself.

Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#289

Post by tajen »

CydeWeys wrote: post #276
btown wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for writing this up. The court of public opinion IMO should adhere to "innocent until proven guilty," and summaries like yours are the only things that make that possible.

This is a civil suit, not a criminal one, so the standard of judgment at play is "preponderance of evidence", not "innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt". The summary does seem to make it pretty clear which way the preponderance of evidence goes. That'd be an awful lot of coincidences to have all that stuff lining up in one particular way -- it just seems unlikely.

Or he just installed Windows to see whether the sources compiled, then switched back to Goobuntu. And plugged his Yubikey in.

Re: Uber Fires Anthony Levandowski

#290

Post by sillysaurus3 »

jacquesm wrote: post #139
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but the topic had diverged somewhat. OT, have you noticed an increase in superfluous downvoting? I'm not really complaining, just trying to figure out if I'm imagining it or if it's randomness doing its thing. Since HN has become so much bigger, I wonder if the mods could scale down the effect of downvoting. E.g. make it take two downvotes to make a comment appear at 0.

Happens all the time, I wouldn't worry about it, just ignore it.

Ok, I wrote a tampermonkey extension to hide the effects of being downvoted: https://gist.github.com/anonymous/9d681310f4714277a37832643c...

It removes scores from your comments and replaces your karma counter with "(9999)".

HN is much more pleasant now.

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