Uber finds one allegedly stolen Waymo file on an employee’s personal device • Hacker News Board

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

#341

Post by elastic_church » Thu, Apr 06, 2017, 6:28 PM UTC

Lazare wrote: post #283

elastic_church wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 br…

Oh I see why my comment perturbed the collective conscious, but I wasn't making any statement on the merit of the accusation, just his continual employment and how impressive that is.

I was saying that most people get fired for any accusation whether they have merit or not.

This employee has an accusation that has substantial merit and is still employed. So thats actually broadcasting confidence amongst current and future employees regardless of what kind of thing gets slung their way.

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

#342

Post by bravo22 » Thu, Apr 06, 2017, 7:14 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #289

bravo22 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

This is a hearing for a preliminary injunction. It comes before the actual trial. So we're pretty close to "there", for the purposes of the injunction. The idea is you stop the (possibly) bad behaviour based on the evidence at hand, to prevent long term damage while the trial winds its way through the courts.

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

#343

Post by dllthomas » Thu, Apr 06, 2017, 9:02 PM UTC

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…

> all the people are from Google's project.

Didn't they earlier hire away CMU's self-driving car folks?

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

#344

Post by Lazare » Thu, Apr 06, 2017, 10:12 PM UTC

elastic_church wrote: post #341

Lazare wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 br…

Oh I see why my comment perturbed the collective conscious, but I wasn't making any statement on the merit of the accusation, just his continual employment and how impressive that is. I was saying that most people get fired for any accusation whether they have merit or not. This employee has an accusation that has substantial merit and is still employed. So thats actually broadcasting confidence amongst current and f…

Your suggestion could be true, yes. In theory.

But the obvious explanation (and the one Occam's Razor points us to) is quite different: That Uber would fire Lewandowsky if they thought they could benefit, but they believe standing behind him will minimize their legal liability and/or maximise their chances of benefitting from the purchase of Otto. A normal guy accused of something baseless doesn't have any pull on Uber and their top exec's; Lewandowsky might.

In other words, your conclusion is that "if they're standing behind this guy when everything is pushing them to fire him, they'd NEVER fire a normal guy!" A better conclusion is probably "if they're standing behind this guy when everything is pushing them to fire him, there must be something really strong forcing them not to. A normal guy would still be screwed, because they don't have...whatever Lewandowsky has."

I mean, obviously we don't know what Uber's top execs are thinking, or what really happened with Lewandowsky and Otto. But we know a bit about how Uber think in general, and we've seen some past decisions they've made. Do you really argue selfless altruism and employee loyalty is the most likely explanation here?

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

#345

Post by komali2 » Thu, Apr 06, 2017, 10:41 PM UTC

matt4077 wrote: post #180

komali2 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tr…

Nobody seemed to mind when Shkreli plead the fifth all the way through a congressional hearing, not sure how this is different. Other than the obvious fact that it's not a congressional hearing.

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

#346

Post by komali2 » Thu, Apr 06, 2017, 10:43 PM UTC

life_on_mars2 wrote: post #252

HaloZero wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was found on another person's laptop who helped found Otto though.

If enough engineers leave company A and join company B and all are working in the same field, I would expect at least some of those employees to have documents from their previous employer, even if only accidentally. The fact that they've only found one document and only on the personal laptop of a single employee seems to suggest that they actually did a good job in due diligence. Does anyone know how many former Wa…

Why's this guy being downvoted? In an era of "but her emails" are we really surprised that an employee's phone could have hundreds of for example corporate emails leftover, if not other documents depending on what tech they use.

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

#347

Post by life_on_mars » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 10:43 AM UTC

matt4077 wrote: post #254

life_on_mars wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has this other evidence even been presented yet? edit: given that even a simple question was downvoted, I can only conclude that there are likely a lot of Google employees downvoting anything that doesn't support Google's side in this dispute.

I downvoted you because–considering your strong opinions–it seems unlikely that this is a question asked in good faith. And even if, it is answered both in the article, as well as pretty much implied in the headline. GOOG-ACCOUNTING-REF:3FX/ASTRO/15/TURFWAR/PROJECTSOROS

The document in question was found on the personal laptop of a different former Waymo engineer. This neither supports nor refutes the original evidence Google claims to have regarding 14,000 files they claim that Lewandowsky downloaded.

They should have to present that evidence publicly first before discovery, otherwise this looks like just a fishing expedition.

In 2017, it's not uncommon to do work on your personal machine and handle personal issues on your work machine. In 2017, interfaces encourage archiving documents instead of deleting them, so it's not uncommon for people to still have documents they've long since forgotten about.

I wouldn't be surprised if searches of the personal machines of most people in the world would turn up documents that belonged to that person's previous employers.

Here's an experiment: If you acquired your current personal laptop prior to leaving one or more past employers, try searching your personal machine and personal email for documents or information that belong to any of your former employers. I suspect that many people would find at least one document showing up accidentally.

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

#348

Post by tajen » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 10:46 AM UTC

joshuamorton wrote: post #89

tajen wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm happy some people still think like you. The respect for trials was lost at one point in recent history (and I don't know whether the million-dollar coffee and counter-argument explains it [1]), but the theory of justice is that the judge determines what is fair. I'm especially disgusted that so many men lose their jobs upon women's accusations: Without a judge, I can't verify that said men were guilty or just tha…

This argument doesn't follow. Your link explains why frivolous lawsuits are more of a myth than most people believe. You then proceed to lambaste people for people bowing to lawsuits which, your source contends, are probably more reasonable than you think.

I don't really understand what you point out, and I believe this is the misunderstanding:

> You then proceed to lambast people for people bowing to lawsuits

GitHub and other cases aren't lawsuits, that's my point: They're just people being fired without fair trial. It doesn't prove there was harassment/theft/conflict/etc. What I'm saying is we should apply the presumption of innocence and not demote people preemptively, but help the real justice system investigate whether accusations are true.

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

#349

Post by biot » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 8:37 PM UTC

ridgeguy wrote: post #275

biot wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From your link: For purposes of this paragraph, arson of property does not include one burning or causing to be burned his or her own personal property unless there is an intent to defraud or there is injury to another person or another person’s structure, forest land, or property.

Thank you - I agree it turns on mens rea. Burning one's own property can be criminal arson, depending on intent or result.

Just as you'd expect. Whether the property in question are books you own, or a shed, or your entire house it's your property and it's not a crime to turn your property into a bonfire so long as doing so doesn't break other criminal laws.

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

#350

Post by candiodari » Sat, Apr 08, 2017, 2:18 PM UTC

mbreese wrote: post #117

revelation wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_inference Levandowski is asserting his right to remain silent and right now that is sinking Ubers ability to fight any preliminary injunction, given he is working in the exact leading capacity at Uber that these files pertain.

I've got to assume that not helping your employer's defense in a case like this has got to be a fire-able offense. Then at least Uber could sue him too in order to claim some degree of innocence. (Not that it would necessarily work - I doubt it would, but it's got to be a better strategy than this one).

IANAL. However, some thoughts for your consideration: California is an at-will state and this doesn't matter. Walking into your employer's office is a fireable offence in California.

So yes, he can be fired for this. What that would achieve, other than looking like an admission of guilt (ironically this may guarantee his continued employment at Uber unless they are prepared to give up their self-driving car department entirely to this case. He may be very sure about his position until this case - and all the appeals that follow are entirely done. After that, yeah he'll be fired. That's a decade from now).

Frankly I do believe that the odds are good that Mr. Levandowski has in fact hired a lawyer, and has decided that the would rather use the protections the criminal justice system offers him personally rather than risking $600 million (or more) and jail time.

The problem is that anything used in a court case becomes part of the public record and can be used in other court cases, including the separate criminal case against Mr. Levandowski.

So may I ask, if your lawyer told you that. You own, let's say $700 million. You could either maximally defend your employer, and through that risk 85%-90% of your net worth and jail time, or you could maximally defend yourself and create as high a burden as possible for Google/Waymo to achieve anything against you personally.

If his contract either with Uber or Google conflicts with this, I believe (without research) that it does not matter : a contract does not have the necessary weight to override constitutional amendments unless explicitly permitted in the relevant amendment. Google has filed a police complaint, thereby offering this option to Mr. Levandowski, and there's no backing out now.

I believe any good lawyer would tell Mr. Levandowski to do this. For very, very good reasons.