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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

#141

Post by revelation »

oh_sigh wrote: post #124
Animats wrote: post #62

Judge Alsup: "If your guy is involved in criminal activity and has to have criminal lawyers of the caliber of these two gentlemen, who are the best, well, okay they got the best. But it’s a problem I can’t solve for you. And if you think I’m going to cut you some slack because you’re looking at—your guy is looking at jail time, no. They [Waymo] are going to get the benefit of their record. And if you don’t deny it—if…

Is it normal or appropriate for a judge to make assumptions about a defendant's guilt based on the lawyers they hire to represent them?

Levandowski isn't a defendant in this case, Uber is. By all accounts he could tell them to fuck off, and he pretty much does that if you read the transcript.

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

#142

Post by neom »

gsnedders wrote: post #131
throwaway4job wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth remembering a few other things: 1) If the suit is true, then it will almost certainly zero out the investors, and destroy the careers and fortunes of the executives. 2) Uber has a long history of keeping and promoting executives who lack integrity and show a willingness to break the law. As such, it is reasonable to assume that Google is making a good faith effort to argue the strongest possible case on th…

> 2) Uber has a long history of keeping and promoting executives who lack integrity and show a willingness to break the law. Knowing almost nothing about US Federal civil law, can inferences be drawn from that (and other previous behaviour of Uber)?

Because it's civil it would need to be presented or entered with relevance.

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

#143

Post by komali2 »

vuln wrote: post #36
komali2 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I don't find this to be the same. What you did could be defended easily by saying it was an accident and you behavior would have been nonmalicious. You didn't purposely back up some old files, start a new company with the same exact tech from those said files then sell the new company 2 months later for a cool 680mill. If you did that then yes your old employ would definitely have a case against you. If your story is…

All of the first part of the things you said is a part of the accusation.

>Waymo says he took 14,000 documents, while Kshirsagar and Radu Raduta took only a few. Waymo is now asking for Uber to turn over those stolen documents as part of the discovery process

My understanding is that part of the case is deciding if it is true that 14,000 documents were taken.

So again, the only known truth is that a single document was found on a guy's device.

What I am concerned with is that we all fall into the "Uber BAD, Waymo GOOD" trap simply because Waymo is kicking up a big shitstorm. Let the process of law happen, let the facts of the case arise, before we pass judgement.

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

#144

Post by throwaway729 »

dmritard96 wrote: post #82

Are there any opensource autonomous/driverless car projects with substantial momentum. This seems like something so foundational to the next 50 to 100 years that it needs to be 'owned' by everyone.

https://github.com/commaai/openpilot

Not self driving, but ACC

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

#145

Post by johncolanduoni »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #129
08-15 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Uber has the authority to say to its employees, "If you have anything at home you bring it in here Wait, what? In the opinion of the court, a company has the authority to demand that their employee hands over the contents of his personal computer? That doesn't sound right... please, somebody tell me the US judicial system isn't that retarded!

I mean, can't it? California is an "at-will" employment state, right? They could presumably fire an employee for refusing to straight up burn their own house down.

As that would be arson I have some doubts it goes that far. It would be a very interesting whistleblowing case I suspect.

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

#146

Post by komali2 »

__jal wrote: post #55
komali2 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Given that your example has essentially no similarity with the situation in question, why would you ask? That is not a rhetorical question - I'm pretty sure you're capable of distinguishing the facts of the Waymo case[1] from "some documents ...[from] several years ago". So, why? [1] Meetings and other shady activity before quitting, logs of ~14k documents pulled, immediate aqui-hire, etc. etc. etc.

We have exactly as much actual evidence as what is in my situation.

Unless I am mistaken, all that I have read indicates that the 14k doc pull is a part of Waymo's accusation, AKA unproven. The immediate aqui-hire etc could just be a slimy poach.

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

#147

Post by matt4077 »

IshKebab wrote: post #48
ergothus wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree with your assessment in general, the problem is that when you take the set of "criminals", and then further drill in to "criminals that actually get accused", you rapidly change the ratio of "clever" to "think-they-are-clever". I'm not saying all criminals are stupid [Edit: stupid, careless, ignorant, poor at prediction, poor at risk calculation, take your pick] ...just that many are. And the really…

This isn't about criminals exactly. It's about an engineer thinking "My future job is going to be a huge pain without access to the shared drive that has all our notes and matlab scripts and research papers. Maybe I'll just make a copy and keep it for occasional reference in case I need to look something up.".

"Also I'll set up a company through a straw man and convince my employer to buy it for a few hundred million, in case I ever need a few hundred million.

Then, I'll abscond with those documents and few select google employees and start my own thing. With matlab and LIDARS! Which reminds me: I should really take a long walk with this Travis guy. Maybe he has a need for 'occasional reference'".

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

#148

Post by [deleted] »

defen wrote: post #90
Animats wrote: post #62

Judge Alsup: "If your guy is involved in criminal activity and has to have criminal lawyers of the caliber of these two gentlemen, who are the best, well, okay they got the best. But it’s a problem I can’t solve for you. And if you think I’m going to cut you some slack because you’re looking at—your guy is looking at jail time, no. They [Waymo] are going to get the benefit of their record. And if you don’t deny it—if…

How is Uber supposed to prove that they don't have the files? I'm asking purely from a legal / process perspective - would they have to turn over all their data to discovery, or something? If they legitimately don't have the files, how could they satisfy the judge? Or is it not possible that they don't have the files? What if Levandowski has the files on his home computer or something but they never touched Uber's sy…

[deleted]

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

#149

Post by throwaway2048 »

08-15 wrote: post #127

Why did Waymo sue Uber? They should have sued Levandowski---he copied (no, he didn't steal!) the files in question, after all.

they claim (with very strong evidence) that uber is using waymo's designs.

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

#150

Post by neom »

08-15 wrote: post #127

Why did Waymo sue Uber? They should have sued Levandowski---he copied (no, he didn't steal!) the files in question, after all.

They want to prevent uber from using the technology to develop autonomous vehicles, this will severely knee cap uber.
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