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

techcrunch.com

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

#31

Post by Natsu »

bradleyjg wrote: post #22
jerf wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's a completely non-substantiative quote from an attorney for one side that contains the implicit assumption that Uber really does have the documents and is actively committing crimes in discovery to prevent the discovery from working. Not only is it not an unbiased source, it's basically a source being paid to be biased. Which is fine; I am generally down with the philosophy of adversarial justice. But you s…

"that contains the implicit assumption that Uber really does have the documents and is actively committing crimes in discovery to prevent the discovery from working" I don't think the paragraph implies that at all. Rather it says that Uber has not threatened Levandowski with employment sanctions in order to get him to cooperate with its discovery obligations. Uber could do so without running afoul of the 5th amendmen…

He invoked the fifth. Uber could fire him, but I don't seriously expect them to be able to get more out of him than the court itself can. Would you rather lose your job or go to prison isn't a hard question to answer, after all.

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

#32

Post by CalChris »

komali2 wrote: post #27
CalChris wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, that's a completely non-substantiative quote from an attorney for one side that contains the implicit assumption that Uber really does have the documents Implicit assumption? The first paragraph of the TechCrunch article says: Uber admitted today that it had found one of the documents Waymo alleges was stolen by a former employee — who left its self-driving car effort to join Uber’s — on the employee’s personal…

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?

Uber admitted today

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

#33

Post by aresant »

This resolved to the Judge ordering a deeper search:

"[The Judge] told Uber to search using 15 terms provided by Waymo, first on the employees’ computers that had already been searched, then on 10 employees’ computers selected by Waymo, and then on all other servers and devices connected to employees who work on Uber’s LiDAR system."

Seems interesting that there's not a more comprehensive system or way to search for these since Google is clearly in possession of the specific documents they claim are stolen.

The way they're continuing the Judge's order to look for "15 terms" almost makes it seem like the extent of the original search was tied to file name or document titles or something?

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

#35

Post by ergothus »

oh_sigh wrote: post #25
YCode wrote: post #3

Offhand, this kind of sounds like a parent asking their teenager to go and search their own room for drugs. "Nah, I didn't find anything. I found this plastic bag that looks like it mighta had something in it, but I'm pretty sure my friend left it here and it was empty when he brought it." "Okay son, go search again."

Also, there is no reason to believe that a bad actor would steal 14,000 documents from a previous company, and then on the first day on the job go and upload them to the company git server. If I knew I was being nefarious, I would keep those documents on a completely airgapped computer in a private (non-company) space, only reference them when I was alone, and then bring information into the company only through my b…

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 clever ones are often able to do it without even getting accused. So you're left with a group that has a LOT of facepalm-inducing members.

And sad to say, even filtering the list for people in high ranking positions doesn't help that much. Apparently "actually be a clever criminal" and "be a successful business person" don't overlap a lot. (I imagine "ABLE to be a clever criminal" has more overlap...but most decide not to.)

Side story: When I was a young kid (8?) my mom sternly told me "I don't EVER want to hear of you...committing a crime you can't retire on". Oddly enough, that was far more valuable than just saying "don't commit a crime". It had a logic my young brain could understand more easily than base morals or even evaluating the odds of getting caught. It inured me to a fair amount of peer pressure until I was old enough to decide for myself (and kids have few opportunities to commit huge crimes). Each kid is different, of course, but I recommend this to all parents of young children.

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

#36

Post by vuln »

komali2 wrote: post #27
CalChris wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, that's a completely non-substantiative quote from an attorney for one side that contains the implicit assumption that Uber really does have the documents Implicit assumption? The first paragraph of the TechCrunch article says: Uber admitted today that it had found one of the documents Waymo alleges was stolen by a former employee — who left its self-driving car effort to join Uber’s — on the employee’s personal…

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 as described they company would lose.

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

#37

Post by problems »

MegaButts wrote: post #21
seangrogg wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been kicking around the idea of Popcorn as a Service.

I would like to invest in this idea. Food delivery is hot, and we need to disrupt the entertainment industry!

You just write the app that matches popcorn providers with popcorn buyers in their area and charge a 2x markup - 5x during popcorn surges!

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

#38

Post by kovacs »

MegaButts wrote: post #21
seangrogg wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been kicking around the idea of Popcorn as a Service.

I would like to invest in this idea. Food delivery is hot, and we need to disrupt the entertainment industry!

This is a straight up corny idea but I do think there's a kernel of something that could pop if the market heats up. OK, I'm in too!

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

#39

Post by handedness »

YCode wrote: post #3

Offhand, this kind of sounds like a parent asking their teenager to go and search their own room for drugs. "Nah, I didn't find anything. I found this plastic bag that looks like it mighta had something in it, but I'm pretty sure my friend left it here and it was empty when he brought it." "Okay son, go search again."

Which is so absurd on the face of it that it almost certainly can't be what's happening here.

Having had an inside view into several situations which received public coverage, it's clear to me that the old adage of, “a man always has two reasons for what he does—a good one, and the real one,” applies not just to people, but to the entities they wield.

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

#40

Post by fowlerpower »

This story is fascinating for tech people everywhere and we should all pay attention.

We all have big dreams of starting our own company some day (I know do) and many of us work for big corporations that would rather we never go anywhere and work for as little as possible. (admittedly the markets are forcing them to pay us a lot but they aren't doing it out of good will).

The outcome of this will teach us all very valuable lessons. I can't be the only one who is a little paranoid that if I start my own shit I'll be sued or that I may even be sued for some of the side projects I'm working on even though I've never taken any code or resources from my company.

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