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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

#451

Post by Qworg »

hype7 wrote: post #404
ForHackernews wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see how any entity (including Uber) has an obligation to make it easy for the law to ticket them. Corporate citizens have an obligation to obey the laws of the jurisdictions in which they operate. If they find the laws unacceptable, they should lobby to have them changed.

Herein lies the source of the disagreement. We are all better off because uber willfully disregarded these laws and regulations. These laws once had a good reason, but are now still on the books only because incumbents have regulators in their pockets. As for lobbying to have the laws changed, if you expect startups to be able to lobby in every jurisdiction to get the law changed against incumbents when the regulator…

We're all better off? That's an incredibly broad statement.

The laws on the books still exist for a good reason. Even if you feel that Uber is somehow exempt/makes good choices with the people it chooses to employ via the platform, does that apply to any other "uber-esque" groups with more lax enforcement?

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

#452

Post by sah2ed »

neom wrote: post #22

The company I work for builds software platforms for cities, tldr: we have a pretty basic sub/pub idea for city data, and give them a little abstraction tool that allows folks who work in cities but don't know what an API is a way to create and publish one so they can then hold the vendor to account (From IoT to the Ubers and Lyfts of the world) - I spent a lot of time in cities talking to them and the way uber has l…

Uber recently released a tool on urban mobility [0] so how does this relate to your work?

[0] https://movement.uber.com/cities

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

#453

Post by Gibbon1 »

spitfire wrote: post #107

Lets not forget that YC has endorsed Uber multiple times in public statements. When YC says "be naughty" this is what they mean. They'll try to distance themselves from this now, but their statements were "be naughty" while holding up AirBnB and Uber as examples to be proud of. Take what you will from that.

Problem with 'being naughty' is there is constant pressure to 'be a little more naughty than before'. Rinse lather repeat till the grand jury issues a criminal indictment.

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

#454

Post by clusmore »

jfoutz wrote: post #263
us0r wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe not a popular opinion but I find this entire thing pure genius. >I couldn't find a good source, but it doesn't seem like that's something a CC merchant would have access to. Do they really get to see that? The first 6 digits of a credit card can identify the issuing bank (BIN number - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_card_number ). If you ask your merchant they can readily provide you and up to date list.…

I agree. It's genius in a Lex Luthor kind of way. If I understood the full scope of the application, I like to think i'd decline to work on that. It's easy to imagine engineers working on small parts of the system, and never really connecting the dots that the whole point is to evade law enforcement. There's a big difference between keeping secrets for market advantage and to evade the law. In the first case, I want…

>It's easy to imagine engineers working on small parts of the system, and never really connecting the dots that the whole point is to evade law enforcement.

Actually I find this harder to believe than the engineers knowing full well what the system does and doing it anyway. Personally I would never want to work on a system without knowing the value it provides and how it fits into the larger picture.

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

#455

Post by ad_hominem »

wjnc wrote: post #21

You've got to admit Uber has brought the BigCorp stereotype of the 80s to life. I am amazed at the (US?)-culture that makes people enact so poisonous policies. In my corporation, literally the first line of our risk appetite says that we uphold the law and common norms and morality. Seems trivial, but still gives guidance to everyday actions. Could you explain it to your mom? Whole layers of management and lawyers fl…

> we uphold the law and common norms and morality

Well then I guess if your government lawfully asked you for a list of all your Muslim/Jewish/etc. customers or employees you would comply?

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

#456

Post by matt4077 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #399
pokemon-trainer wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are in Libertarian La-La Land to call what Uber did "treating users differently based on its interests and its interpretation of the law". As Volkswagen discovered, in the United States this is called "criminal conspiracy" and "obstruction of justice."

> As Volkswagen discovered Night and day. Volkswagen was falsifying data provided to the government at an identified testing facility. Uber is fuzzing data and refusing to provide services to certain customers who have not identified themselves as police, though may be*. A city official cannot demand entry to private property without a warrant. Furthermore, one can eject someone from your place of business--again, pr…

You're confusing the crime with the cover-up. Nobody knows what Uber was trying to hide. The point was simply that such attempts to hide corporate wrongdoing are aggravating factors or can even have legal consequences on their own.

They also presumably did this not just in the US. Other countries have different interpretations of the extend of sovereignty over property, and maybe if an Uber is considered "private". I know, for example, that the police in Germany can demand entry to night clubs during public events without cause or warrant.

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

#457

Post by yestoallthat »

DaUR wrote: post #417
prewett wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you also going to take the same generous view towards people evading State regulations and laws that you don't like? Because if you are only okay with people evading laws that you don't like, but they should obey the ones you do like, then you are setting yourself above the law. That way lies authoritarianism.

Not sure how civil disobedience leads to authoritarianism rather than the opposite. Also, by your reasoning, civil disobedience is never justified. And does Trump being President change your reasoning at all?

Disobedience would be refusing to take part in such scummy schemes, and making a huge stink over it.

> Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal to obey certain laws

PROFESSED. To twist that on this on its head, and use another sociopath to excuse it is hilarious. But since you ask: no, that's even MORE reason to not accept this bullshit.

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

#458

Post by danielweber »

dragonwriter wrote: post #438
danielweber wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber isn't a monopoly. For all the scummy things that Uber has done, they have avoided the most scummy thing they could do to become a monopoly: driver lock-in, making their drivers commit to only drive for them and not for Lyft. Susan Fowler's post has me pretty fed up with Uber, but for some reason greyballing doesn't bother me at all.

> Uber isn't a monopoly. Like every startup (and most companies), it aims to be; a moat is pricing power is an absence of substitute is monopoly.

Sure, they want to be a monopoly. But they're not.

Seriously, how do they get lock-in of riders or drivers? Installing a second app is a really really low bar. You can't do predatory pricing forever.

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

#459

Post by Spooky23 »

mindcrime wrote: post #311
jfoutz wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. It's genius in a Lex Luthor kind of way. If I understood the full scope of the application, I like to think i'd decline to work on that. It's easy to imagine engineers working on small parts of the system, and never really connecting the dots that the whole point is to evade law enforcement. There's a big difference between keeping secrets for market advantage and to evade the law. In the first case, I want…

It's easy to imagine engineers working on small parts of the system, and never really connecting the dots that the whole point is to evade law enforcement. I would volunteer to work on that project because its whole point is to evade law enforcement. A lot of us (hackers/technologists) take a pretty dim view of arbitrary State regulations and "laws" and are quite happy to work to evade them. Most people who fit the t…

The problem is once your professional ethics makes this ok, you start to slip further into the rabbit hole.

That's how it becomes OK for a company to facilitate engineering managers to exert pressure where women either agree to have sex with them or suffer career consequences, using corporate institutions to do so.

Hopefully most people around you don't feel that way -- your immaturity will ultimate catch up to you.

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

#460

Post by a3n »

ycmbntrthrwaway wrote: post #419
ubernostrum wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course not. If we got rid of all these laws the corporations would simply enforce terms of service on us, containing whatever they want. And then would argue that we freely entered into those terms of our own free will by being born where we were and when we were!

> And then would argue that we freely entered into those terms of our own free will by being born where we were and when we were! You just described what the government does.

Except the government's "TOS" are constrained by the Constitution. No such constraint on corporate TOS, particularly in the thought experiment where all laws are gone.
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