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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

#41

Post by sophacles »

problems wrote: post #37
MegaButts wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Nah, the real money is being a MaaS provider. (Marketplace as a Service). Why try to strike gold when you can just get rich selling the gold-rushers some picks and shovels? It shouldn't be much more than an API and some customizable matching algorithms (e.g. proximity or pricepoint or keywords and maybe a scheduler or two).

I'm only half-joking in that I wouldn't be surprised to find out this is a thing already.

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

#42

Post by kmonsen »

ergothus wrote: post #35
oh_sigh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think you should change stupid with careless, or calculated risk or something like that.

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

#43

Post by moftz »

aresant wrote: post #33

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…

They are probably very specific search terms that are repeated in the documents and might be unique enough to show up in any documents created by someone plagiarizing the Waymo docs. The fact that 31,000 other documents also contain these phrases but are "not substantive" makes it seem like the search terms are somewhat generic but definitely appear in the Waymo docs. Uber might have ruled out all of those other docs by just looking at the dates the docs were last modified. If they are older than when Levandowski or any of the other people previously employed by Waymo joined Uber, then they can probably be vetted as original IP.

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

#46

Post by sbov »

codazoda wrote: post #30
jankassens wrote: post #10

How would Uber find files on some employees personal device?

It's a good question, since the article also says that the employee is refusing to cooperate on 5th amendment grounds (which is likely smart).

It's a different employee. The article doesn't mention whether or not Kshirsagar has invoked the 5th amendment.

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

#47

Post by kmonsen »

Natsu wrote: post #31
bradleyjg wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

Also, if you already have virtually unlimited money loosing the job doesn't seem so bad.

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

#48

Post by IshKebab »

ergothus wrote: post #35
oh_sigh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This isn't about criminals exactly. It's about an engineer thinking "My future job is going to be a huge pain without access to the shared drive that has all our notes and matlab scripts and research papers. Maybe I'll just make a copy and keep it for occasional reference in case I need to look something up.".

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

#49

Post by oh_sigh »

ergothus wrote: post #35
oh_sigh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't disagree, but my point is this: Finding these files on Uber servers certainly is, if not proof of guilt, at least very damning. However, lack of files on Uber servers isn't proof of innocence.

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

#50

Post by gameshot911 »

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?

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.
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