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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

#281

Post by lowpro »

ABCLAW wrote: post #29

It is surprising that Google did not push the court to appoint a third party discovery firm to handle the device imaging process and to provide a report to the court. Maybe both parties' intense desire for privacy in this matter has driven Google to this strategy. The seeming ludicrousness of the result - Alsup's "go try again, harder this time" - is not caused by this case's parties playing badly. It is caused by po…

It's not so surprising given that if Uber doesn't find anything, Google would have a much better chance at the Prelim. Injunction. Hiring a 3rd party firm isn't needed since Google is ahead either way, and Uber doesn't need a third party firm to search its own system (or at least, hopefully they don't).

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

#282

Post by mikekchar »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #270
dlgeek wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Continue to be impressed: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3524990/Gov-Uscou... https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3524989/d99f25c8-...

Interesting to note from the pdf titles that they use Wordperfect. I didn't even know it still existed.

Word Perfect is used for many court cases because it is the only WYSIWYG word processor that paginates footnotes according to the US legal rules. In fact, it had a lock on the DoJ market for ages (and maybe still does) based solely on that. Word could never accommodate it because it breaks backwards compatibility (and whatever you say about MS's shady past, this is something that they stuck to even though it cost them a fair amount). I worked on WP when Corel first acquired it...

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

#283

Post by Lazare »

elastic_church wrote: post #17
themgt wrote: post #2

'“To the extent Uber tries to excuse its noncompliance on the grounds that Mr. Levandowski has invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to provide Uber with documents or assistance, Waymo notes that Mr. Levandowski remains — to this day — an Uber executive and in charge of its self-driving car program. Uber has ratified Mr. Levandowski’s behavior and is liable for it,” Waymo attorney Charles K. Verhoeven wrote in a le…

Its actually really impressive that Uber is standing behind him at all. Nobodies get fired from their job from any old baseless accusation.

Uber has shown little adherence to principle but a great fondness for game theory. Game theory does not yield a lot of positive reasons why Uber would be backing Lewandowsky.

> from any old baseless accusation

The accusations may be false, but they are not baseless. They're so strong, in fact, that Uber is probably going to be hit with a preliminary injunction. Baseless accusations, by definition, would not have brought Uber to this stage.

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

#284

Post by nstj »

matt4077 wrote: post #260
dangoldin wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish his behavior led to some side effects on the justice system.

The courts are actually pretty first-class. Take a look at the transcript posted elsewhere in this thread for a reference to the transparency of the system, and how this judge is defending it. Supreme Court cases also make for pretty fun reading sometimes, and there's no denying that judges tend to be extremely smart and conscientious.

He's definitely the kind of judge who is able to avoid all kinds of procedural problems which are typically an issue in this type of justice system.

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

#286

Post by andreareina »

wapz wrote: post #238
ABCLAW wrote: post #29

It is surprising that Google did not push the court to appoint a third party discovery firm to handle the device imaging process and to provide a report to the court. Maybe both parties' intense desire for privacy in this matter has driven Google to this strategy. The seeming ludicrousness of the result - Alsup's "go try again, harder this time" - is not caused by this case's parties playing badly. It is caused by po…

I'm really surprised at how the search is going too (by the article). "Go find these documents." "Didn't find them." "Okay go again." "Okay." Now if you're an employee that has any of those documents and you weren't searched the first time, there's no way you'll be caught with the documents by the time the second search starts.

My reading is that it's not the results being judged, but the process of the search. Given the high confidence that seems to be assigned to the claim that 14,000 documents were downloaded, "we asked our employees to give us what they have, and this is all we got" isn't good enough.

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

#287

Post by nstj »

faitswulff wrote: post #93
akiselev wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those who don't recognize the name, this is the same judge that learned some Java for the Oracle v. Google case (and has an undergrad degree in mathematics). Every time I read his name I know it's going to be a fun ride and the lawyers will not be able to get away with anywhere near as much shenanigans as they usually do. Although his ruling regarding API copyright in the Google case was overturned, he has a real…

His middle name is Haskell :p - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Haskell_Alsup

Unrelated but I heard that after a fair bit of therapy he was able to get rid of his childhood lisp too?

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

#288

Post by WalterSear »

bartvk wrote: post #280
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know where this guy stands on the political spectrum, but I know that I respect the crap out of him. He's got my support!

> don't know where this guy stands on the political spectrum (N/W-European here) Is that really a thing that US citizens pay attention to?

You have to :(

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

#289

Post by Animats »

bravo22 wrote: post #225
oh_sigh wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

A court can draw adverse inference based on defendant's actions. So yes the judge can say that, but you'll note he says "we're not there yet, I don't know." and words to that effect. He is warning them that this doesn't look good for you but I haven't made up my mind so don't take this as judgment.

The case is not at trial yet. They're still in discovery and coming up on a possible preliminary injunction. Evidence is coming in and going on record, but it's not evaluated at this stage. That's why the judge makes remarks like "we're not there yet".

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

#290

Post by mschwar99 »

filereaper wrote: post #276
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…

I hate to piggyback on the top comment, but could somebody explain the 5th Amendment and its implications here. I'm not a lawyer, nor am I from the USA. I've heard of the fifth, but never fully understood it in scenarios like this.

The 5th covers several rights of a person accused of a crime. In this context they are referring to the amendment's protection against self incrimination: "nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself."

A person has the right to decline to answer questions if they believe that their answers could be used against them as evidence of a criminal act. This particular proceeding is civil rather than criminal so its outcome can't result in any criminal convictions. However, if he were later to be charged with a crime and tried in a criminal court any testimony he gave in this civil action could be used against him as evidence in the criminal trial.

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