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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

#701

Post by problems »

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…

> I like to think i'd decline to work on that

Does it say something bad about me that I'd be the one jumping up and down to work on this?

It seems really interesting from an analytical perspective and the malicious side of it would leave me very satisfied if it worked. Morality be damned it'd be satisfying.

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

#702

Post by camus2 »

danielweber wrote: post #423
accountface wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're trying to become too big to fail, but aren't quite there yet. Essentially they're undercutting all competitors by artificially keeping fares very low and subsidizing drivers. Subsidies were the primary source of their enormous financial losses in 2016. Once the competition is completely gone (local cabs, and Lyft in some areas), then they can stop subsidizing themselves and basically hold a monopoly. It's the…

I simply don't see how Uber can be a monopoly. You need a critical mass of drivers, but nothing stops drivers from being on multiple networks. This isn't Microsoft doing per-CPU licensing.

> I simply don't see how Uber can be a monopoly. You need a critical mass of drivers, but nothing stops drivers from being on multiple networks. This isn't Microsoft doing per-CPU licensing.

They could force drivers to only work for Uber. "If you go to the competition, you can't work for us", they could try to lobby so that other networks can't legally operate, just like Taxi companies did... They just want to replace Taxi companies, that's why people who think they are the "hero of the libertarians" are misguided.

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

#703

Post by k-mcgrady »

kristofferR wrote: post #201
mikeash wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That struck me too. A normal company might do this, but they'd at least pretend it was meant to deter criminals or catch abusers or whatever. Instead their statement says: "This program denies ride requests to users who are violating our terms of service — whether that’s people aiming to physically harm drivers, competitors looking to disrupt our operations, or opponents who collude with officials on secret ‘stings’…

Both things can be correct if you believe the law in question is bad. The Jefferson quote comes to mind: "If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so."

>> law in question is bad

>> If a law is unjust

To me those seem like very different things. I'd bet Jefferson was talking about laws that severely impact people's lives (slavery, torture, things we would consider human rights breaches) and not pretty innocuous things like taxi regulations.

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

#704

Post by mirimir »

problems wrote: post #701
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…

> I like to think i'd decline to work on that Does it say something bad about me that I'd be the one jumping up and down to work on this? It seems really interesting from an analytical perspective and the malicious side of it would leave me very satisfied if it worked. Morality be damned it'd be satisfying.

Well, it is deviously clever.

But using it at scale with drivers and investors at risk? That's crazy.

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

#705

Post by pjc50 »

pyrale wrote: post #685
odbol wrote: post #639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laws take years, even decades to change. We'd never have any progress if every technological advancement had to wait for the law to catch up and regulate it.

We do have quite a lot of advancement which comes without violating the law. Also breaking the social canvas to correct something you feel is unfairly repressed/enforced is not something to do lightly. Let me give you an example here. I think Uber is a bad thing, but there's nothing I can do to oppose them, legally, that is. Should I carry out my own justice, illegally ? You can see that this pattern of thought quick…

It sounds like this happened in some places - uber cars getting vandalized in France, for example.

Once you say "we're not going to follow the law", do you have the moral right to demand it be enforced on other people?

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

#706

Post by rmc »

SilasX wrote: post #212
chris_wot wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to see them subpoenaed to explain what they were doing. They were deliberately violating the law, and trying to avoid detection just makes things much, much worse. This has got to be illegal.

The article says Uber's legal team approved it: >At least 50 to 60 people inside Uber knew about Greyball, and some had qualms about whether it was ethical or legal. Greyball was approved by Uber’s legal team, headed by Salle Yoo, the general counsel. I (though not a lawyer) assume their reasoning was: "It's legal to use public sources to identify possible law enforcement agents, it's legal to deny services to them.…

Just because the legal team approved it doesn't mean it is legal. Legal teams make mistakes all the time

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

#707

Post by Applejinx »

camus2 wrote: post #702
danielweber wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I simply don't see how Uber can be a monopoly. You need a critical mass of drivers, but nothing stops drivers from being on multiple networks. This isn't Microsoft doing per-CPU licensing.

> I simply don't see how Uber can be a monopoly. You need a critical mass of drivers, but nothing stops drivers from being on multiple networks. This isn't Microsoft doing per-CPU licensing. They could force drivers to only work for Uber. "If you go to the competition, you can't work for us", they could try to lobby so that other networks can't legally operate, just like Taxi companies did... They just want to replac…

They could keep track of people as best they can, and shadowban them from all transportation using Greyball so the people couldn't function in society. It'd be kind of like getting blackballed for life from credit card issuers. Effective to the extent they can make a monopoly, probably more effective when it's a shadowban rather than explicit rules stating the person is barred from using the service forever.

It would be rather profitable to be able to hold the world hostage, single out whoever you want and make them hoof it. Particularly if they'd got used to using Uber to get to work or something. Long game would be making private vehicle ownership illegal, but that's very long term indeed. I'm just saying, you can keep going and every step of the way is increasingly profitable. Wall Street would love it.

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

#708

Post by pweissbrod »

SilasX wrote: post #111

It took me about 8 paragraphs in to figure out what Greyball is, so to save you the time: Uber used various data sources to identify which people are likely government officials who are trying to collect incriminating data on them, and then blocks them from the service so they can't be caught in sting operations. But there's a lot in the article that doesn't make sense: >Other techniques included looking at the user’…

Drivers can and should prefer passengers with a higher probability of being "good" customers.

Greyball seems to be a clever tool which attempts to predict the good-ness of potential passengers.

The unethical piece comes in to play with the heuristics injected in to greyball. (kinda makes you wonder if "grey" moniker refers to the ambiguity which comes with the territory of rating people)

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

#709

Post by Applejinx »

bsder wrote: post #536

Magically your Uber cars never arrive and the system LIES to you about it. At the very least shouldn't this qualify as false advertising? How does this not disturb people here greatly? Are you really so sure that you will never magically be in a group that is considered "undesirable"? If you want to defend Uber on the axis that they are a "proper" taxi replacement who is "just" sweeping away old, stupid regulations,…

You might want to be careful. If Uber employees can associate your identity with the fact you say things like 'the Uber system lies to you', they already have a shadowban system set up and might be motivated to punish you for your cruel, meanie opinions. Perhaps never being able to get transportation would be a suitable punishment. Who are you going to complain to, the cops? They aren't running the system ;)

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

#710

Post by vinceguidry »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #472
hype7 wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 are all better off because uber willfully disregarded these laws and regulations. The thing is, we're not. What we've got is a cab company that can offer better and cheaper service than everyone else because it's breaking the law, and it's good at throwing VC money at lawyers to avoid the consequences. What we've got is further damage to the respect for the rule of law and thus to the fabric of civilization, as…

Really though we are. Even if Uber goes out of business, taxi companies are going to get wise that customers want the Uber experience and all of a sudden they'll all have to get apps to compete.

Uber broke a status quo in the state of the transportation industry and we should all be grateful for that. They also became a champion for a certain type of activism that I think a lot of us would like to see more of.

Think carefully before you deny Uber the activist label. Using ethically shady methods to push through social agendas is precisely what activism is. Not everyone falls on the same side of the line, but you can't not call it activism. Labor strikes were considered extremely problematic to many.

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