Tesla sues former employees for allegedly stealing data, Autopilot source code • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla sues former employees for allegedly stealing data, Autopilot source code

#41

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 5:42 PM UTC

sigmar wrote: post #13

gamblor956 wrote: post #4

Tesla is suing former employees for stealing its logistics (warehousing, inventory control, etc.) trade secrets. Tesla has to show that Zoox is using the information the employees allegedly stole. In a nutshell, Tesla would have to show similarities between its logistics processes and Zoox's. ( https://www.fenwick.com/FenwickDocuments/Trade_Secrets_Prote... for a good summary) But given the shitshow that is Tesla's l…

>If anything, Zoox used the information allegedly taken from Tesla as an example of what not to do logistically, and trade secrets law doesn't let you sue for that. Any other lawyer want to sound off on if this is right? Because it doesn't seem right. If I'm using stolen trade secrets to decide what not to do, I'm still making very good use of that information. Edit: added "other" to first sentence since original com…

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Re: Tesla sues former employees for allegedly stealing data, Autopilot source code

#42

Post by gamblor956 » Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 5:44 PM UTC

throwaway5752 wrote: post #28

gamblor956 wrote: post #4

Tesla is suing former employees for stealing its logistics (warehousing, inventory control, etc.) trade secrets. Tesla has to show that Zoox is using the information the employees allegedly stole. In a nutshell, Tesla would have to show similarities between its logistics processes and Zoox's. ( https://www.fenwick.com/FenwickDocuments/Trade_Secrets_Prote... for a good summary) But given the shitshow that is Tesla's l…

The company claims that Turner, who was a manager at a Tesla distribution center, sent confidential documents containing information about the company’s receiving and inventory procedures, along with “internal schematics and line drawings of the physical layouts of certain Tesla warehouses” to his personal email address with the words “you sly dog you...” Turner allegedly sent another document to his personal email l…

It is definitely poor judgement by Zoox. And if Tesla had its act together, Zoox would be totally f'd (assuming the unlikely scenario that China would actually enforce a court judgement against a Chinese company).

The issue though is that Tesla has to show that Zoox is actually using that information in its products or processes. It's possible--even likely--that they'll be able to do so with respect to the Autopilot secrets (I didn't address that in my comment edit: since that was a separate lawsuit from the one against Zoox) but with respect to the logistics secrets there's a snowball's chance in hell that Zoox modeled any of their logistics after Tesla's processes.

Re: Tesla sues former employees for allegedly stealing data, Autopilot source code

#43

Post by gnode » Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 5:48 PM UTC

ddoolin wrote: post #3

This might be unpopular here, but I kind of wish this and other similar systems were more open source, or even just shared between companies. If companies are going to be putting a system out there on the streets anyway, and Tesla's is comparatively more quality and perhaps thus safer (I'm not making a claim, just positing a hypothetical), then it would only be to everyone's benefit if every company didn't have to (o…

The source code of this system may not be all you'd need, or even the most valuable or competitively differentiating element. As I understand it, the system is based on machine learning with a large training dataset gathered from customers (the "fleet learning" technology).

From a discussion about determining whether to interpret radar-detected objects as obstacles:

"Initially, the vehicle fleet will take no action except to note the position of road signs, bridges and other stationary objects, mapping the world according to radar. The car computer will then silently compare when it would have braked to the driver action and upload that to the Tesla database. If several cars drive safely past a given radar object, whether Autopilot is turned on or off, then that object is added to the geocoded whitelist."

https://www.recode.net/2016/9/12/12889358/tesla-autopilot-da...

It may be that much of what makes autopilot effective is just data, rather than intelligent algorithms.

Furthermore, giving away such data used to tune the system may create customer privacy concerns.

Re: Tesla sues former employees for allegedly stealing data, Autopilot source code

#44

Post by Rebelgecko » Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 5:48 PM UTC

rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #24

duxup wrote: post #15

It's hard to know what to think of these things with the past strange comments about "saboteurs" and Elon's own strange legal choices related to the SEC. Is this real or more of a sort of blame game strange conspiracy theory thing?

Strange legal choices wrt to the SEC? Just wait for the judge decision: the SEC is in a clear overreach here, as all the tweets they cited in their filing are non material. They even misquoted the tweet to say "500K" instead of " about 500K" and anyone can add up the previsouly published numbers to conclude the company should reach a runrate of 500K at the end of the year (Musk tweeted nothing new, it was already dis…

There's potentially a very large difference between the number of cars made in 2019, and the extrapolated production rate at the end of 2019 (e.g. number of cars made in the last week of December * 52). I could be wrong but I don't think that before the tweet there were any previous filings or announcements saying that Tesla would build 500,000 cars this year.

Re: Tesla sues former employees for allegedly stealing data, Autopilot source code

#45

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 5:49 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #18

gamblor956 wrote: post #4

Tesla is suing former employees for stealing its logistics (warehousing, inventory control, etc.) trade secrets. Tesla has to show that Zoox is using the information the employees allegedly stole. In a nutshell, Tesla would have to show similarities between its logistics processes and Zoox's. ( https://www.fenwick.com/FenwickDocuments/Trade_Secrets_Prote... for a good summary) But given the shitshow that is Tesla's l…

This is a company that had enough spare parts laying around that they could build an entirely new assembly line out of them[1]. They are also notorious for making customers wait months for replacement parts [2]. Tesla has a lot of successes and a lot of valuable IP that competitors might want to steal. Logistics might be the last thing on my list of things worth stealing. Although I guess that doesn't necessarily mea…

[deleted]

Re: Tesla sues former employees for allegedly stealing data, Autopilot source code

#46

Post by Klathmon » Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 5:52 PM UTC

penny45 wrote: post #38

I have a unpopular opinion here but I actually think Tesla is a tech company and has valuable information worth stealing.

I agree with you. Tesla is far from perfect, and they make plenty of mistakes, but you can't deny that they basically built a car company from nothing in just a handful of years.

And if you take into consideration that they had to spend lots of time to make up for mistakes made along the way (Musk's infamous "we tried to automate too much" statements), that just makes it that much more impressive that they are where they are today.

Other commenters here are talking about how their famous difficulty in ramping up production or problems with sourcing parts as if it means there's nothing of value for someone to steal. But I just can't see that being true.

I can't see Tesla having absolutely nothing of value in their logistics processes at all. And if there is even one worthwhile thing, something they are doing right that others are hesitant to try, or can't do for other reasons, that's something that is very valuable to Tesla as a company.

Re: Tesla sues former employees for allegedly stealing data, Autopilot source code

#47

Post by Xorlev » Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 5:53 PM UTC

jeltz wrote: post #40

nwah1 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open source tends to work great for re-implementing technology that is already understood. It tends not to work for exploratory research, since that requires risk and ingenuity, not a designed-by-committee approach. R&D of this sort is funded best with a strong profit motive, unless the government is willing to shell out for it.

I would not describe many open source projects as designed-by-committee, and while open source might be less suited for exploratory research there have been quite many novel things first implemented in open source projects. Look at the various video codecs or the innovations in compiler technology gcc has contributed to, or the plenty of innovations made in various open source databases.

Much of the Apache foundation projects come to mind when thinking about the GP's assertion, though certainly it doesn't hold for all projects: many are fairly novel and exploratory.

Re: Tesla sues former employees for allegedly stealing data, Autopilot source code

#48

Post by dontbenebby » Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 5:54 PM UTC

gamblor956 wrote: post #4

Tesla is suing former employees for stealing its logistics (warehousing, inventory control, etc.) trade secrets. Tesla has to show that Zoox is using the information the employees allegedly stole. In a nutshell, Tesla would have to show similarities between its logistics processes and Zoox's. ( https://www.fenwick.com/FenwickDocuments/Trade_Secrets_Prote... for a good summary) But given the shitshow that is Tesla's l…

>But given the shitshow that is Tesla's logistics , that's extremely unlikely, as Tesla's logistics processes simply aren't valuable IP. Tesla has displayed a chronic inability to manage their own supply chain, especially during the period the employees were at Tesla.

Hypothetically, what if their supply chain issues are caused by dogmatically following a flawed and proprietary supply chain algorithm?

If their rival did indeed steal and use the algo, does it matter if it's flawed, for the purposes of a suit?

(Ex: maybe they decided it's easier to prove use of the flawed algo than some of the crown jewels for whatever reason)

Re: Tesla sues former employees for allegedly stealing data, Autopilot source code

#49

Post by dessant » Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 5:56 PM UTC

twblalock wrote: post #36

dessant wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There needs to be a shift in how proprietary technologies that have universal benefits for our society are viewed. It may be normal for a company to withold information to keep a competitive edge in a nascent industry, but it will also mean that their press releases lauding reduced death rates in their products will be double edged swords, unless they make the ethical decision to share their improvements with other p…

Sharing technology would reduce death rates. But if technology was not shared, competitors would need to reduce death rates even further in order to compete, which might be better for society overall.

They'd also have an easier time further reducing death rates by getting access to tech from competitors sooner, and improve from there.

Re: Tesla sues former employees for allegedly stealing data, Autopilot source code

#50

Post by dkislyuk » Thu, Mar 21, 2019, 6:04 PM UTC

gamblor956 wrote: post #4

Tesla is suing former employees for stealing its logistics (warehousing, inventory control, etc.) trade secrets. Tesla has to show that Zoox is using the information the employees allegedly stole. In a nutshell, Tesla would have to show similarities between its logistics processes and Zoox's. ( https://www.fenwick.com/FenwickDocuments/Trade_Secrets_Prote... for a good summary) But given the shitshow that is Tesla's l…

Oh come on. Tesla's logistic processes have problems but this kind of glib sentiment does not contribute to a productive discussion. They still have managed to get to a state of manufacturing thousands of electric vehicles a week, which has _some_ value for any startup getting into manufacturing business (i.e. Zoox). If anything, Tesla's IP in this space likely captures a lot knowledge about what is necessary in an intense bootstrap phase where requirements are constantly changing and iterative flexibility is paramount (more-so than raw scalability).