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How Uber Used Secret “Greyball” Tool to Deceive Authorities Worldwide

nytimes.com

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Re: How Uber Used Secret “Greyball” Tool to Deceive Authorities Worldwide

#271

Post by maldusiecle »

hammock wrote: post #252
nemacol wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can vote, run for office, petition, volunteer, protest,etc to the local, state, and federal government to have policies that reflect your values. The only thing you can do with Uber is use it or not. Maybe you could write Uber a letter. You have a say in government - that is its stated goal and purpose. Of the people for the people.

>You can vote, run for office, petition, volunteer, protest,etc to the local, state, and federal government to have policies that reflect your values. You can do ALL of those things with uber. You can vote as a shareholder, apply for a job, petition, volunteer, protest, etc...

I would've thought that the difference between "vote" and "vote as a shareholder" would have been obvious enough, but just to make it clear: I don't consider it a good thing if the only people with a say in things are the ones who have money. This is the difference between a democracy and a corporation.

I find it really unsettling how many people on HN seem to need this distinction explained.

Re: How Uber Used Secret “Greyball” Tool to Deceive Authorities Worldwide

#272

Post by dqv »

alphonsegaston wrote: post #178
dqv wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What if you were just robbed or assaulted by a driver and Uber sends fake data about nearby cars when a cop is trying to use the app to track them down? Then I'd say "wow, why is this cop using an inaccurate and highly-likely-to-be-thrown-out-in-court method when the LEA has a stingray that allows them to track the driver directly and accurately?" >this is local law enforcement Yes, the poor, good, moral, ethical lo…

Yeah, every cop investigating every crime is on shaky ground and up to no good because they have Stingrays. That's quite the logical Deus Ex Machina.

The point being made is that a cop is not ever going to need to use Uber, that they shouldn't use Uber, and that (if for some reason they get all the way to court having used Uber as the basis for their evidence) they should have known that they shouldn't use Uber. Further, if they did need Uber, it would be by way of tracking the app's use from the suspect's phone directly.

Re: How Uber Used Secret “Greyball” Tool to Deceive Authorities Worldwide

#273

Post by trimbo »

striglia wrote: post #35

So I ask this mostly out of horrified curiosity -- is there any negative press or revelation that could actually sink Uber at this point? What would it take for the company to fail? We've seen: * Systematic flouting of laws in public * Even further hidden avoiding of laws * Sexism complaints across the board * What appears to be a pervasive toxic culture, inspired (if not explicitly encouraged) straight from the CEO'…

> Are they actually too big to fail?

Enron's peak valuation was $70bn. Worldcom's peak was ~3x Uber's ($186 billion).

Re: How Uber Used Secret “Greyball” Tool to Deceive Authorities Worldwide

#274

Post by tyingq »

SilasX wrote: post #111

It took me about 8 paragraphs in to figure out what Greyball is, so to save you the time: Uber used various data sources to identify which people are likely government officials who are trying to collect incriminating data on them, and then blocks them from the service so they can't be caught in sting operations. But there's a lot in the article that doesn't make sense: >Other techniques included looking at the user’…

"blocks them from the service" doesn't quite capture it right. It doesn't tell them they are blocked. It displays fake cars circling that never show up.

Re: How Uber Used Secret “Greyball” Tool to Deceive Authorities Worldwide

#275

Post by Karunamon »

sgift wrote: post #264
Karunamon wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure I read it that way, but okay. But that reading requires you to ask "why", and sometimes it feels very much like the government lost the consent of the governed a looooong time ago..

If the government had lost the consent of the governed it wouldn't have been elected / it won't be elected again. That's basically what all this is about. Sure, democracy, elections, all this things may not be the best system, but it is very effective at damage control. You don't govern well? You're out after four or five years. All other system known have far worse damage control.

Alternative view: The government has lost the consent of the governed, but people are so engrossed in other stuff that they don't do anything about it due to how painful the upheaval would be.

In other words, it's tolerated rather than accepted.

Roman poets would call this "bread and circuses".

Re: How Uber Used Secret “Greyball” Tool to Deceive Authorities Worldwide

#276

Post by anigbrowl »

striglia wrote: post #35

So I ask this mostly out of horrified curiosity -- is there any negative press or revelation that could actually sink Uber at this point? What would it take for the company to fail? We've seen: * Systematic flouting of laws in public * Even further hidden avoiding of laws * Sexism complaints across the board * What appears to be a pervasive toxic culture, inspired (if not explicitly encouraged) straight from the CEO'…

I think this probably counts as an iceberg-scale problem. It's like taxes; avoiding them by gaming the system in every way you can find is unethical but not illegal. Actively deceiving people (with fake updates to the app) and collecting and acting upon PII to screen out public officials is getting into criminal conspiracy territory.

I'm extremely surprised their lawyers signed off on it. Maybe they're libertarians though, I've heard some really odd arguments that turned out to be predicated on various 'natural law' theories.

Re: How Uber Used Secret “Greyball” Tool to Deceive Authorities Worldwide

#277

Post by bmelton »

throwaway729 wrote: post #64
maldusiecle wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My perspective is the opposite. In a world where large multinationals have the power to evade the law in a deliberate and systematic way like this, it's easy for governments to claim they need the same kind of power. Things like this are exactly what bureaucrats point to when they make their arguments for a surveillance state. I don't like the US government much, but I like it a lot better than the average multinatio…

In a world where multinationals have the power to evade the law in a deliberate and systematic way, AND the government uses the same techniques to spy on its own people for its own motives, it's easy for individuals to claim that neither group of entities need this kind of coercive power over others. Or at least, it should be.

I agree with your statements at large, but considering Uber was not aware of any active investigations, they're under no obligation to assist police in enacting a sting.

I'm not suggesting that it is, as there are semantically many problems with it, but an argument could be made that this is more of an extension of one's fifth amendment rights to remain silent than it is evading the law. Starting a company to drive people around is (depending on one's interpretation) either presumptively legal or presumptively illegal. Let's assume that many people view it as the former. Is it silly to assume that Uber might have anticipated the Portland government's assumption that it was the latter?

What if it were considered legal in every municipality worldwide except for Portland? That doesn't make Portland wrong or right, but at the same time, it doesn't make Uber wrong for the assumption that someone might find it to be presumptively unlawful.

I think that there are plenty of valid reasons to hate Uber, but anticipating a law enforcement response to something Uber deemed presumptively lawful seems like a pretty rational set of actions.

Re: How Uber Used Secret “Greyball” Tool to Deceive Authorities Worldwide

#278

Post by eddieplan9 »

eridius wrote: post #74
lacampbell wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like the US government much, but I like it a lot better than the average multinational. When it comes down to it, we don't have more than our choice of devils. If I don't like Uber, I can... stop using Uber. What can I do if I don't like the service a state provides - can I opt out and stop paying? No, my only option is to flee - which the state will often try and prevent you doing anyway. The state is a huge…

Did you just make the argument that the government enforcing the laws is immoral?

Yes. We were happy when the border control releases folks detained at airport after the immigration ban.

Re: How Uber Used Secret “Greyball” Tool to Deceive Authorities Worldwide

#279

Post by pklausler »

snappyTertle wrote: post #137
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What can I do if I don't like the service a state provides You can vote. >The state is a huge corporation No.

Voting is an illusion of choice. You have the choice to use Uber or not, You don't have a choice when it comes to following the law. How is state not a huge corporation?

> How is state not a huge corporation?

Um. A state is a place that happens to constitute the jurisdiction of its government. A corporation, huge or not, is a legal entity chartered (in the U.S.) by the government of a state (q.v. supra).

Re: How Uber Used Secret “Greyball” Tool to Deceive Authorities Worldwide

#280

Post by alphonsegaston »

JorgeGT wrote: post #202
alphonsegaston wrote: post #46

What if local law enforcement officer was posing undercover as an Uber customer as part of a sexual assault investigation or trying to track down all drivers in relation to a recent crime? This is framed as getting around restrictions on taxi services, but any time you proactively thwart law enforcement, you're inviting a lot of dangerous unintended consequences. None of which I'm sure Uber is concerned about.

> any time you proactively thwart law enforcement, you're inviting a lot of dangerous unintended consequences. I'm curious, what do you think about Google's "State-sponsored attackers are trying to compromise your account" warning? [1] Maybe it's police officers trying to break into the Gmail account of a pedophile or a terrorist, and Google is thwarting these efforts by warning the suspect. --- [1] https://arstechni…

That's interesting. I hadn't thought about that set of circumstances. It would take me more time/length than a message board comment to work through the ethics of that, but point well taken.
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