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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

#171

Post by dragonwriter »

komali2 wrote: post #168
gameshot911 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you then went to work at a competitor and the competitor claimed that you were copying their trade secrets, then it would certainly be relevant.

How? A competitor is obligated by capitalism to do everything they can to level the competition. An accusation doesn't make fact. This is such a classic justice tale I'm sure it's memorialized in fable. You get accused of witchcraft: well that's weird, you sure have a lot of herbs around, huh? (bay leaves and garlic) What's that giant kettle for? (making soup. With bay leaves and garlic) Etc. The mere accusation can…

> An accusation doesn't make fact.

An accusation with even a tiny bit of evidence supporting it can rightly be the basis of a conclusion of fact when the standard (as is generally the case in civil court) is preponderance of the evidence, and no evidence is presented on the other side.

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

#172

Post by komali2 »

matt4077 wrote: post #151
komali2 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

The taking of 14,000 documents is actually assumed to be true currently for the purposes of this case. That's because Uber is in no position to deny it, only Lewandowsky could. And he can't deny it, because then he could no longer invoke his right to remain silent. Of course, the documentation from Waymo/Google is also pretty strong apparently. Simply saying "I didn't do that" would be insufficient.

> Uber is in no position to deny it, only Lewandowsky could. And he can't deny it, because then he could no longer invoke his right to remain silent.

So he should give up his 5th amendment right to fend off an accusation? I don't think so, that doesn't sound like justice to me.

>documentation from Waymo/Google is also pretty strong apparently.

pretty

apparently

Come on man, you know what angle I'll go for here. Why are you letting that slip? The documentation aka evidence hasn't been seen yet because this case hasn't gone to court. None of the most relevant facts of the case have come to light.

I'm happy to hop on the "Uber is evil" train after the case, but it is painful to watch the normally quite rational people on HN fall for such a typical fallacy of justice.

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

#173

Post by dragonwriter »

WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #170
chki wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a very american perspective though. In Germany you are not allowed to fire someone for these reasons (you might be able to dismiss him for no reason at all but the contract will not be over for quite a long time) So the authority of a company firing somebody over not handing over their laptop can be reasonably questioned.

As long as it's not discrimination based, you can fire someone for any reason. My boss could fire me for disliking the color of my T-Shirt this morning.

> As long as it's not discrimination based, you can fire someone for any reason.

Every decision to choose one course of action over another is "discrimination-based"; you mean as long as it is not discrimination on an expressly-prohibited basis.

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

#174

Post by matt4077 »

This judge is mighty impressive, and since it's so much in fashion these days to be suspicious of institutions, I want to highlight this passage:

THE COURT: If you all keep insisting on redacting so much information, like -- and you're the guilty one on that, Mr. Verhoeven -- then arbitration looks better and better. Because I'm not going to put up with it. If we're going to be in a public proceeding, 99 percent of what -- 90 percent, anyway, has got to be public. [..]

THE COURT: The best thing -- if we were -- one of the factors that you ought to be considering is maybe you should -- if you want all this stuff to be so secret, you should be in arbitration. You shouldn't be trying to do this in court and constantly telling them not to, or you putting in -- the public has a right to see what we do. [..] And I feel that so strongly. I am not -- the U.S. District Court is not a wholly owned subsidiary of Quinn Emanuel or Morrison & Foerster or these two big companies. We belong to the public. And if this continues, then several things are going to happen. One, we're going to call a halt to the whole -- we're going to stop everything. And we're going to have document-by-document hearings in this room,

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

#175

Post by [deleted] »

08-15 wrote: post #119
bradleyjg wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really the issue. The issue is whether the judge is going to impute Levandowski's failure to cooperate to Uber. From the transcript: MR. GONZÁLEZ (Uber's lawyer): So, Your Honor, first of all, we have searched and we are in the process of searching all of our computers for the sorts of information that you referred to. And if we find those documents, we intend to produce those. In addition, Your Honor, we…

> 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!

[deleted]

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

#176

Post by komali2 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #171
komali2 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? A competitor is obligated by capitalism to do everything they can to level the competition. An accusation doesn't make fact. This is such a classic justice tale I'm sure it's memorialized in fable. You get accused of witchcraft: well that's weird, you sure have a lot of herbs around, huh? (bay leaves and garlic) What's that giant kettle for? (making soup. With bay leaves and garlic) Etc. The mere accusation can…

> An accusation doesn't make fact. An accusation with even a tiny bit of evidence supporting it can rightly be the basis of a conclusion of fact when the standard (as is generally the case in civil court) is preponderance of the evidence, and no evidence is presented on the other side.

>preponderance of the evidence

has not been demonstrated yet. Only the accusation. Furthermore, there's been no judgement.

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

#177

Post by dragonwriter »

komali2 wrote: post #143
vuln wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

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

It is, but that's a much later part of the case. The present part of the case is complying with discovery orders and considering preliminary injunctions, which does weigh what the parties are claiming and able to offer to support those claims, but does not involvethe kind of formal, detailed presentation and weighing of evidence that will happen at trial.

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

#178

Post by dragonwriter »

komali2 wrote: post #176
dragonwriter wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An accusation doesn't make fact. An accusation with even a tiny bit of evidence supporting it can rightly be the basis of a conclusion of fact when the standard (as is generally the case in civil court) is preponderance of the evidence, and no evidence is presented on the other side.

>preponderance of the evidence has not been demonstrated yet. Only the accusation. Furthermore, there's been no judgement.

> has not been demonstrated yet.

No kidding. However, the present issues with a request for a preliminary injunction I require the court weighing, based on the information provided by the parties, a number of factors, including likelihood of success on the merits. As the "preliminary" part of the name hints, that's not a final assessment of the evidence, however deliberately wotholding exculpatory evidence now has adverse consequences.

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

#179

Post by chc »

komali2 wrote: post #139
chc wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leveling an accusation isn't hard, but making somebody plead the fifth in a civil case where they haven't done anything wrong is. When one of your executives is refusing to cooperate with an internal investigation because it might expose him to criminal liability, that's a little past "From my point of view, Waymo is evil."

Making somebody? How should he have reacted? What exactly is the point of pleading the fifth if by doing so you incriminate yourself? I plead the fifth when I get pulled over, am I a criminal? I don't understand. It seems to me the absolute smartest course of action - place the burden of proof entirely on the opposition, give them nothing to work with you don't have to.

You seem to have missed the point that this is not a criminal case, so the Fifth Amendment doesn't apply here. By pleading the fifth, he's not just declining to testify — he's claiming that the result of cooperating here would open him to a whole different criminal case.

In other words, nobody is saying that he has incriminated himself by pleading the fifth. But in Uber's civil case, he has created some very bad implications and greatly worsened their position, and it wouldn't be unreasonable for them to see him as a liability at this point. This is not a mere accusation by Waymo — his actions indicate that there's something going on here.

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

#180

Post by matt4077 »

komali2 wrote: post #139
chc wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leveling an accusation isn't hard, but making somebody plead the fifth in a civil case where they haven't done anything wrong is. When one of your executives is refusing to cooperate with an internal investigation because it might expose him to criminal liability, that's a little past "From my point of view, Waymo is evil."

Making somebody? How should he have reacted? What exactly is the point of pleading the fifth if by doing so you incriminate yourself? I plead the fifth when I get pulled over, am I a criminal? I don't understand. It seems to me the absolute smartest course of action - place the burden of proof entirely on the opposition, give them nothing to work with you don't have to.

The problem is: they have enough. Like a logging system with documented external audits and the sworn testimony of the engineers that run it, and it shows him downloading those documents.

And the fifth amendment protects you from "adverse inference" in criminal proceedings. It doesn't protect you in a civil suit, nor does it bind me or others in this thread or the general public to conclude that yes, Levandowsky's trucking company is probably heading for a wall.

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