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Uber blocks employees at work from chatting on Blind App

businessinsider.com

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Re: Uber blocks employees at work from chatting on Blind App

#71

Post by mavelikara »

logicallee wrote: post #30

>Many do on an anonymous chat app called Blind. ... >And over 2,000 Uber employees in total use Blind, says Blind's head of operations Alex Shin. Jebediah O. Springfield! As the "head of operations" at an "anonymous chat app" you have ONE JOB, Alex Shin! And you just blew it. (To be explicit, I am saying Alex is way out of line for disclosing this information. An anonymous app should not have such information reveale…

What if Alex was bluffing? An average Uber employee reading this would think that some massive congregation of his/her peers is happening on Blind and would rush to install it.

Re: Uber blocks employees at work from chatting on Blind App

#72

Post by beaconstudios »

mcguire wrote: post #61
beaconstudios wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the point of a meritocracy is to produce the best possible work and reward good performance, not to right real or perceived injustices. Statistically speaking, if the majority of developers are male then a majority of high-performing developers will also be male. Hiring lower-performing females to attempt to achieve balance does not fix the original issue, and it serves to harm the hiring company by choosing people b…

Are you aware of Ms Fowler's allegations? https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-on... Nothing to do (directly) with underrepresentation or "hiring lower-performing females".

I'm not suggesting it is. This discussion has kind of branched out from the issues Ms Fowler faced into a general one around diversity.

Re: Uber blocks employees at work from chatting on Blind App

#73

Post by slig »

foepys wrote: post #25
Symbiote wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An employee's personal phone wouldn't accept the certificate if HTTPS was MITMed.

You don't really have to MITM, you could just check the logs of the DNS server that the network DHCPs to the WiFi clients for queries to Blind's IP addresses. This doesn't tell you the content but if an employee uses the app. Make of this what you want but given Uber's previous actions I don't think they would just ignore this.

> This doesn't tell you the content but if an employee uses the app

It appears that one has to register using a corporate email address, so it's trivial to figure out which employees are using this service.

Re: Uber blocks employees at work from chatting on Blind App

#75

Post by beaconstudios »

Nitramp wrote: post #60
beaconstudios wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't suggesting you were saying "let's hire idiots just because they're women", I was pointing out a hypothetical scenario in which meritocracy plays second fiddle. There's no need to get defensive. I agree with your suggestion that encouraging women and minorities to apply, and ensuring that one's company culture is inclusive, is a good start. However, this doesn't really help with the core issue, which is that…

> I wasn't suggesting you were saying "let's hire idiots just because they're women", I was pointing out a hypothetical scenario in which meritocracy plays second fiddle. You suggested "if the majority of developers are mal, then a majority of high-performing developers will also be male". So far so good. Then you made the non sequitur jump to "Hiring lower-performing females to attempt to achieve balance does not fi…

> That's a straw man, nobody suggests that.

Not directly, but one of the main attempts to address a lack of diversity in tech seems to be diversity quotas, or companies actively looking to hire more women or POC. Diversity quotas directly cause the exact issue I quoted, where the ratios of allowed hires by social group does not match the ratio of applicants. Statistically speaking, that's equivalent to agreeing to hire less-qualified individuals. Attempts to specifically hire more women or POC through outreach might help an individual company, but it's a zero-sum game of multiple companies competing for the existing small pool of candidates.

> I think this is a recurring problem with these kinds of discussions, people tend to put forward very extreme views of reality where what'd be useful is to seek the middle ground, understand the problem, and then nudge a bit in the right direction.

I think part of the issue is that you immediately devolved into hyperbole about hiring "idiots". Hiring slightly-less-than-the-top-candidate developers is in no way comparable to hiring "idiots" and your suggestion that it is is only muddying the topic further.

> Additionally, even the basic premise that we currently hire for merit is questionable. Of course everyone tries to hover the best and brightest, but it's easy to see see how a very homogeneous group like SV software devs might mistake group conformity for competence.

Of course suggesting that hires are always for merit is questionable - it's more of an ideal to aim for than an actually achievable goal.

Re: Uber blocks employees at work from chatting on Blind App

#76

Post by dllthomas »

alphonsegaston wrote: post #70
dllthomas wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, in this case I think it's quite unlikely, specifically, that Uber is looking for information with an intent to discredit, disparage, or defame Susan Fowler. > They previously (and probably illegally) hired a private intelligence firm to dig up dirt on their opponents in a court battle What was done there seems obviously inappropriate. It's unclear to what degree the intent was (I certainly understand wan…

Why is it unlikely, given that they've done this exact thing in the past? You're entitled to think whatever you want, but you can't in good faith argue that this isn't their pattern of behavior. You're right that the circumstances are different, but the only constant is Uber underhandedly going after anyone who criticizes them. And an editorial in HuffPo from someone who pals around with the person engaging in the ab…

> Why is it unlikely, given that they've done this exact thing in the past?

They've dug up dirt on ex employees making public accusations like this? I haven't seen any claims to that effect. As I said, I think it's unlikely because I don't think the people involved are that evil, and I am confident that they are not that stupid. If I'm proven wrong, I'll be loud about it and I'll be working some place else.

> And an editorial in HuffPo from someone who pals around with the person engaging in the abusive behaviour is a pretty weak defense.

It's not decisive. I didn't present it as such. It's still the case that even the original source describes someone in a role that doesn't deal with the press ranting about how Uber could do something. Even if we take it on face value that's a far cry from establishing that they did it, as was your assertion.

> Especially since they did a similar thing before:

This is the first I've heard of that event. Obviously, that's an inappropriate use of PII, at least. It's entirely unclear from the article whether the list "sent to make a point" was meant as a threat of disclosure or to point at some specific discrepancy between the data and the reporting. The former would be similar. The latter, a different issue.

Re: Uber blocks employees at work from chatting on Blind App

#78

Post by alphonsegaston »

dllthomas wrote: post #76
alphonsegaston wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it unlikely, given that they've done this exact thing in the past? You're entitled to think whatever you want, but you can't in good faith argue that this isn't their pattern of behavior. You're right that the circumstances are different, but the only constant is Uber underhandedly going after anyone who criticizes them. And an editorial in HuffPo from someone who pals around with the person engaging in the ab…

> Why is it unlikely, given that they've done this exact thing in the past? They've dug up dirt on ex employees making public accusations like this ? I haven't seen any claims to that effect. As I said, I think it's unlikely because I don't think the people involved are that evil, and I am confident that they are not that stupid. If I'm proven wrong, I'll be loud about it and I'll be working some place else. > And an…

So despite having spied on anyone who caught their fancy in the past-

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/13/uber-empl...

-your bar for skepticism/reproach is only cleared with proof that they've done the exact same thing before, telegraphing their intentions along the way?

Ok.

Re: Uber blocks employees at work from chatting on Blind App

#79

Post by dllthomas »

alphonsegaston wrote: post #78
dllthomas wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is it unlikely, given that they've done this exact thing in the past? They've dug up dirt on ex employees making public accusations like this ? I haven't seen any claims to that effect. As I said, I think it's unlikely because I don't think the people involved are that evil, and I am confident that they are not that stupid. If I'm proven wrong, I'll be loud about it and I'll be working some place else. > And an…

So despite having spied on anyone who caught their fancy in the past- https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/13/uber-empl... -your bar for skepticism/reproach is only cleared with proof that they've done the exact same thing before, telegraphing their intentions along the way? Ok.

That article alleges poor controls around customer data, not coordinated action. It seems unrelated to what we were discussing, which was likelihood of Uber to - reusing my earlier phrasing - try to discredit, disparage, or defame Susan Fowler.

Re: Uber blocks employees at work from chatting on Blind App

#80

Post by rabbidruster »

mooted1 wrote: post #65

I work at Uber. I was on the wifi yesterday. I was successfully using blind. If business insider would like video evidence, I'm happy to work with their reporters 1:1. There's a lot of problems at the company and it's been a difficult week for many of us here. Not having access to blind is not one of them.

Hmm I downloaded it just to try yesterday and I was not able to access it from uGuest. Not sure if it's Uber or blind blocking it though.
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