Ex-Uber Employee Admits Uber was Stealing Competitors Secrets

DooKey

DooKey

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Richard Jacobs, a former manager at Uber, admitted to prosecutors about a secret messaging system that was used to destroy potentially sensitive information as soon as it was read. Additionally, he stated that Uber had a special unit that was involved in the business of stealing trade secrets from competitors, but he wasn't aware of any secrets being stolen. As a result of these bombshells yesterday in court, the Waymo/Uber trial has been delayed. The judge himself said he can't trust the words of lawyers for Uber in this case. Poor Uber, not only are they losing billions of dollars, but they might be on the losing end of this lawsuit from Waymo.

Jacobs testified that some Uber employees, including those working in its autonomous driving project, were instructed to use ephemeral self-deleting messaging on Wickr networks. The surveillance team used “anonymous servers” separate from the “main part of Uber” and "non-attributable devices" purchased for the company by outside vendors, he said.
 
Corporate espionage. This is not exactly a new thing, or only pertains to Uber. If you've ever worked for any large company, they've probably done similar tactics.
 
Montu said:
Richard Jacobs, a former manager at Uber, admitted to prosecutors about a secret messaging system that was used to destroy potentially sensitive information as soon as it was read. Additionally, he stated that Uber had a special unit that was involved in the business of stealing trade secrets from competitors, but he wasn't aware of any secrets being stolen. As a result of these bombshells yesterday in court, the Waymo/Uber trial has been delayed. The judge himself said he can't trust the words of lawyers for Uber in this case. Poor Uber, not only are they losing billions of dollars, but they might be on the losing end of this lawsuit from Waymo.

Jacobs testified that some Uber employees, including those working in its autonomous driving project, were instructed to use ephemeral self-deleting messaging on Wickr networks. The surveillance team used “anonymous servers” separate from the “main part of Uber” and "non-attributable devices" purchased for the company by outside vendors, he said.
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Self-deleting what you learned doesn't seem all too useful. More likely this is a Pre-Reverse Engineering operation. Reverse Engineering can be legal but usually by the time you decide you want to reverse engineer it, you've tripped over one of the legalities that prevent you from doing it legally. Like one of the people involved downloaded the competitor's app and agreed to the EULA. By deleting what this department has, you can claim that the reverse engineers weren't part of the compromising activity.
 
Nytegard said:
Corporate espionage. This is not exactly a new thing, or only pertains to Uber. If you've ever worked for any large company, they've probably done similar tactics.
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lol, you make this sound like an excuse. So, just ask them for a fine and move on then? Seems to be business as usual.
 
Nytegard said:
Corporate espionage. This is not exactly a new thing, or only pertains to Uber. If you've ever worked for any large company, they've probably done similar tactics.
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1) no one ever claimed that Uber pioneered corporate espionage or is unique in anyway here
2) stealing is still against the law
3) destroying evidence or conspiring to do so is against the law and usually comes with heavy penalties even if you're found not guilty
4) if every other corp or business is stealing then that doesn't make it right either

jpm100 said:
Reverse Engineering can be legal but usually by the time you decide you want to reverse engineer it, you've tripped over one of the legalities that prevent you from doing it legally.
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This is false. You just don't have your employees try to reverse engineer it or figure out how it works before you try to start legal proceedings to begin reverse engineering it.

You can claim anything of course but that doesn't mean it'll pass legal muster. Especially if there is evidence to the contrary of your claims. Evidence will usually take precedence and then you can be penalized or viewed as dishonest by the court if there is too much distance between what you're claiming and what the evidence is.

Note how the Judge is saying he can't trust Uber or their lawyers in the case now. That is really really bad. You might actually see some people get disbarred at this point which is the "nuclear option" in the legal system against lawyers who are corrupt or grossly incompetent.

Deleting evidence or logs doesn't get rid of the people who were a part of your company or any back ups they might've made for instance either BTW.
 
M76 said:
That makes zero sense.
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If you quote his sentence in context instead of just editing the part that doesn't make sense to you.

He means they could be found not guilty of stealing secrets, but could be penalized for destroying evidence.
 
RayderR6 said:
If you quote his sentence in context instead of just editing the part that doesn't make sense to you.

He means they could be found not guilty of stealing secrets, but could be penalized for destroying evidence.
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It didn't make sense in context either. Now I understand that he meant "found not guilty on another charge"
 
M76 said:
That makes zero sense.
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Destroying evidence is always wrong in court so even if you're found not guilty of the crime in question you still get the book thrown at you for trying to destroy evidence.

Often times the punishment for destroying evidence is worse than the punishment would've been if you'd been found guilty of the charge in question originally. Its a huge deal and the courts will absolutely try and lock you up for as long as they possibly can most times with little chance of success on appeals. Never ever mess with evidence.

M76 said:
It didn't make sense in context either.
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And yet he understood me perfectly. There was nothing odd with my phrasing or typing at all.
 
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