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No, I'm not naive, and I, proudly, stand behind everything I wrote. The person in the article was terminated before I joined, so I don't know what the systems

No, I'm not naive, and I, proudly, stand behind everything I wrote. The person in the article was terminated before I joined, so I don't know what the systems were like back then, but every time I access production systems, I have a ton of messages telling me that our access is being completely tracked and we are prohibited from doing anything that was mentioned in the article. I haven't actually tested to see what I can get away with because I'm not in the habit of risking my job and career over curiosities.

droopyEyelids 10y ago
I don't know if you're being serious or you're trying to damn them with faint praise by mentioning they changed their MOTD as a 'security measure' If you want to defend uber, it's pretty easy, just say there you know people that work on the team that audits the logs of employee access to personal data every quarter, and if those logs aren't justified by a ticket people get fired.
- employee8000 10y ago
  I have no idea what you're talking about, I'm just telling the truth. I don't access customer information, and I don't know anyone who audits the logs so I can't comment on those. I also don't know what other processes are in place, I'm sure there are others, but I've just never had to deal with it so I don't know. But I trust that Uber takes the security of their customers information very very seriously. The image of Uber being a brogrammers haven just isn't true anymore. There are thousands of engineers working that care very much about the company and our customers, including drivers and riders.
  - refulgentis 10y ago
    6 of your former security officers say this isn't true, and that the company ignored warnings about the information being available. It's hard to come up with a way to rationalize the above comment, when the comment is in the discussion of an article showing you're, at best, naïve.
  - kelnos 10y ago
    The truth, at least the part of it that you can see for yourself. You freely admit that you don't know if there even are actually audit logs, or if the measures in place are simply big warnings (that have no teeth behind them). Even if there are audit logs, they're useless if there's no system in place that flags suspicious use for a human to check up on... or lacking that, someone whose job it is to regularly read through the audit logs and verify that each access of personal info is legit. You seem like an ethical person, so you're unlikely to find out if there are consequences to looking at customer data without good reason, so you don't know what -- if anything -- is triggered if you click on something sensitive. I know you want to believe that what you're saying is true, but it sounds like you have no hard evidence to back that up to yourself, let alone evidence you can present to someone outside such as the HN readers reading this thread. You may trust that Uber takes the security of customer info seriously, but from the outside we have no frame of reference, except for reports of past wrong-doing. A statement to the effect of "it was bad in the past but it's better now" unfortunately isn't all that reassuring, and I hope you can see it from our side of the fence and understand why.
    - res0nat0r 10y ago
      > You may trust that Uber takes the security of customer info seriously, but from the outside we have no frame of reference, except for reports of past wrong-doing. A statement to the effect of "it was bad in the past but it's better now" unfortunately isn't all that reassuring, and I hope you can see it from our side of the fence and understand why. You are calling the OP out for not having hard evidence, yet you are happily accepting the words of other folks in news reports as being true. You can't really have it both ways...you're just picking the side you want to believe is true...
      - yazaddaruvala 10y ago
        When, from either side, zero evidence is provided: The burden of evidence falls to the side which can cause the most potential damage to you/society, such that it can be mitigated/fixed. In this case believing a news article over Uber is in our best interest. As a result your the parent poster is justified in requesting Uber for evidence.
  - username223 10y ago
    > The image of Uber being a brogrammers haven just isn't true anymore. Maybe -- I don't work there or know anyone who does. But you have to admit that a company that would even think of creating something like "God Mode," then actually do so, then show it off, is seriously twisted and out of touch. AFAIK most of the higher-ups who were around then are still there now. You shouldn't be surprised if "I swear I've changed, baby" is met with a bit of skepticism.
  - funnyfacts365 10y ago
    So, do tell, how many of your fellow programmers do you know worked on building that employee tracking/logging system?
  - CaptainZapp 10y ago
    But I trust that Uber takes the security of their customers information very very seriously. Looking at Uber history and a number of major gaffes that came to light i call bullshit. Trust is something that needs to be earned. I can't speak for others but I don't trust Uber at all.
geofft 10y ago
... It's very easy to add those messages and not actually track people. Not even on purpose, necessarily; just set up monitoring and then get distracted by more important things because your employees are good people and checking logs is likely a waste of time. That judgment is probably even correct until you happen to hire a bad person one day.
gnu8 10y ago
For what purposes are you allowed or prohibited to access user location data? Which external firm is auditing the access to user location data? Where are the public reports of these audits?
michaelvoz 10y ago
Uber employee here too. Would never ever check any data of anyone not related to debugging crashes, race conditions, unexpected app behavior etc etc, its just not worth losing my job. Despite the bad press it is actually a pretty freaking great place to work. Also wanna +1 the warnings about data access and only looking at PII for legitimate purposes are all over the place.
- username223 10y ago
  > Despite the bad press it is actually a pretty freaking great place to work. So, how many hours a week do you drive? Oh, I'm sorry... those aren't "workers" -- they're just being nice and sharing their cars in their free time.
  - michaelvoz 10y ago
    Actually I do drive. I drive so I can sympathize with the partners I am serving and better server them by making the product the rely on to make money better, and more reliable.
    - coldtea 10y ago
      So, you occasionally drive Uber as an experiment/hobby, not as a job, which is not the same experience as relying on it for your next meal.
      - aianus 10y ago
        Relying on Uber for your livelihood is really dumb. It's a part-time hobby job. (I drive for Uber part-time).
        coldtea 10y ago
        If you can't get other work where you are, it's an option.
        madgar 10y ago
EugeneOZ 10y ago
You are not the only one. There will be always somebody who is not so honest. Otherwise world would not have thieves and swindlers :)
ksherlock 10y ago
Do Uber employees use that to stalk other Uber employees?
madgar 10y ago
> every time I access production systems, I have a ton of messages telling me that our access is being completely tracked and we are prohibited from doing anything that was mentioned in the article. I haven't actually tested to see what I can get away with because I'm not in the habit of risking my job and career over curiosities. You do know that this is literally the bare minimum level of user protection that you can legally get away with... right? That this isn't actually reassuring to anyone who has seen user data with any amount of protection? If you're satisfied with this level of protection, I assume you're satisfied with it at the NSA/GHCQ. As someone who works at an actual tech company, I can tell you without looking them up at least three layers that actually deny me access to user data. I know the team that actually audits any accesses made by those who can break glass, and I know who does the firing when the rules are broken. And the products I work on aren't even regulated like those involved in finance/health/safety/etc.
- sandGorgon 10y ago
  actually could you talk about how to build these layers? im very keen to learn what the best practices are. is this built into the application.. at the ssh layer?
eli_gottlieb 10y ago
>every time I access production systems, I have a ton of messages telling me that our access is being completely tracked and we are prohibited from doing anything that was mentioned in the article. That's nice, but it shouldn't be forbidden to violate users' privacy, it should be impossible.
- aetherson 10y ago
  I mean... it should be, but every business I've ever worked at has had difficulty cleaving between "the kind of access that developers need in order to do their jobs" and "the kind of access that would be abusable." It's legitimately difficult to do, and there's no way to make your system proof against insider abuse without serious trade-offs. The purported "God-mode" that Uber had years ago, and showed off at parties, was a real problem with their culture. The ability of devs to get read access to some production data is much less of a huge deal.
  - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
    > It's legitimately difficult to do, and there's no way to make your system proof against insider abuse without serious trade-offs. I know homomorphic encryption is very new, but deploying it for privacy applications like these is a Good Idea.
    - aetherson 10y ago
      While I admit that I have literally zero experience with homomorphic encryption, I suspect that even after whatever deployment costs there would be, the burden on your ability to do things like investigate bugs, much less repair data if needed, would be non-trivial.
- rudolf0 10y ago
  >That's nice, but it shouldn't be forbidden to violate users' privacy, it should be impossible. Work for just about any company, tech or otherwise, in a sysadmin role. There is always going to be some way for a smart, malicious admin to get into things. Snowden is maybe the best example. If an organization with an insider threat risk profile as high as the NSA's can't get it right, then you can be pretty certain almost no one else is either.

droopyEyelids 10y ago

I don't know if you're being serious or you're trying to damn them with faint praise by mentioning they changed their MOTD as a 'security measure' If you want to defend uber, it's pretty easy, just say there you know people that work on the team that audits the logs of employee access to personal data every quarter, and if those logs aren't justified by a ticket people get fired.

employee8000 10y ago
I have no idea what you're talking about, I'm just telling the truth. I don't access customer information, and I don't know anyone who audits the logs so I can't comment on those. I also don't know what other processes are in place, I'm sure there are others, but I've just never had to deal with it so I don't know. But I trust that Uber takes the security of their customers information very very seriously. The image of Uber being a brogrammers haven just isn't true anymore. There are thousands of engineers working that care very much about the company and our customers, including drivers and riders.
- refulgentis 10y ago
  6 of your former security officers say this isn't true, and that the company ignored warnings about the information being available. It's hard to come up with a way to rationalize the above comment, when the comment is in the discussion of an article showing you're, at best, naïve.
- kelnos 10y ago
  The truth, at least the part of it that you can see for yourself. You freely admit that you don't know if there even are actually audit logs, or if the measures in place are simply big warnings (that have no teeth behind them). Even if there are audit logs, they're useless if there's no system in place that flags suspicious use for a human to check up on... or lacking that, someone whose job it is to regularly read through the audit logs and verify that each access of personal info is legit. You seem like an ethical person, so you're unlikely to find out if there are consequences to looking at customer data without good reason, so you don't know what -- if anything -- is triggered if you click on something sensitive. I know you want to believe that what you're saying is true, but it sounds like you have no hard evidence to back that up to yourself, let alone evidence you can present to someone outside such as the HN readers reading this thread. You may trust that Uber takes the security of customer info seriously, but from the outside we have no frame of reference, except for reports of past wrong-doing. A statement to the effect of "it was bad in the past but it's better now" unfortunately isn't all that reassuring, and I hope you can see it from our side of the fence and understand why.
  - res0nat0r 10y ago
    > You may trust that Uber takes the security of customer info seriously, but from the outside we have no frame of reference, except for reports of past wrong-doing. A statement to the effect of "it was bad in the past but it's better now" unfortunately isn't all that reassuring, and I hope you can see it from our side of the fence and understand why. You are calling the OP out for not having hard evidence, yet you are happily accepting the words of other folks in news reports as being true. You can't really have it both ways...you're just picking the side you want to believe is true...
    - yazaddaruvala 10y ago
      When, from either side, zero evidence is provided: The burden of evidence falls to the side which can cause the most potential damage to you/society, such that it can be mitigated/fixed. In this case believing a news article over Uber is in our best interest. As a result your the parent poster is justified in requesting Uber for evidence.
- username223 10y ago
  > The image of Uber being a brogrammers haven just isn't true anymore. Maybe -- I don't work there or know anyone who does. But you have to admit that a company that would even think of creating something like "God Mode," then actually do so, then show it off, is seriously twisted and out of touch. AFAIK most of the higher-ups who were around then are still there now. You shouldn't be surprised if "I swear I've changed, baby" is met with a bit of skepticism.
- funnyfacts365 10y ago
  So, do tell, how many of your fellow programmers do you know worked on building that employee tracking/logging system?
- CaptainZapp 10y ago
  But I trust that Uber takes the security of their customers information very very seriously. Looking at Uber history and a number of major gaffes that came to light i call bullshit. Trust is something that needs to be earned. I can't speak for others but I don't trust Uber at all.

geofft 10y ago

... It's very easy to add those messages and not actually track people. Not even on purpose, necessarily; just set up monitoring and then get distracted by more important things because your employees are good people and checking logs is likely a waste of time. That judgment is probably even correct until you happen to hire a bad person one day.

gnu8 10y ago

For what purposes are you allowed or prohibited to access user location data? Which external firm is auditing the access to user location data? Where are the public reports of these audits?

michaelvoz 10y ago

Uber employee here too. Would never ever check any data of anyone not related to debugging crashes, race conditions, unexpected app behavior etc etc, its just not worth losing my job. Despite the bad press it is actually a pretty freaking great place to work. Also wanna +1 the warnings about data access and only looking at PII for legitimate purposes are all over the place.

username223 10y ago
> Despite the bad press it is actually a pretty freaking great place to work. So, how many hours a week do you drive? Oh, I'm sorry... those aren't "workers" -- they're just being nice and sharing their cars in their free time.
- michaelvoz 10y ago
  Actually I do drive. I drive so I can sympathize with the partners I am serving and better server them by making the product the rely on to make money better, and more reliable.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    So, you occasionally drive Uber as an experiment/hobby, not as a job, which is not the same experience as relying on it for your next meal.
    - aianus 10y ago
      Relying on Uber for your livelihood is really dumb. It's a part-time hobby job. (I drive for Uber part-time).
      - coldtea 10y ago
        If you can't get other work where you are, it's an option.
      - madgar 10y ago

EugeneOZ 10y ago

You are not the only one. There will be always somebody who is not so honest. Otherwise world would not have thieves and swindlers :)

ksherlock 10y ago

Do Uber employees use that to stalk other Uber employees?

madgar 10y ago

> every time I access production systems, I have a ton of messages telling me that our access is being completely tracked and we are prohibited from doing anything that was mentioned in the article. I haven't actually tested to see what I can get away with because I'm not in the habit of risking my job and career over curiosities. You do know that this is literally the bare minimum level of user protection that you can legally get away with... right? That this isn't actually reassuring to anyone who has seen user data with any amount of protection? If you're satisfied with this level of protection, I assume you're satisfied with it at the NSA/GHCQ. As someone who works at an actual tech company, I can tell you without looking them up at least three layers that actually deny me access to user data. I know the team that actually audits any accesses made by those who can break glass, and I know who does the firing when the rules are broken. And the products I work on aren't even regulated like those involved in finance/health/safety/etc.

sandGorgon 10y ago
actually could you talk about how to build these layers? im very keen to learn what the best practices are. is this built into the application.. at the ssh layer?

eli_gottlieb 10y ago

aetherson 10y ago
I mean... it should be, but every business I've ever worked at has had difficulty cleaving between "the kind of access that developers need in order to do their jobs" and "the kind of access that would be abusable." It's legitimately difficult to do, and there's no way to make your system proof against insider abuse without serious trade-offs. The purported "God-mode" that Uber had years ago, and showed off at parties, was a real problem with their culture. The ability of devs to get read access to some production data is much less of a huge deal.
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  > It's legitimately difficult to do, and there's no way to make your system proof against insider abuse without serious trade-offs. I know homomorphic encryption is very new, but deploying it for privacy applications like these is a Good Idea.
  - aetherson 10y ago
    While I admit that I have literally zero experience with homomorphic encryption, I suspect that even after whatever deployment costs there would be, the burden on your ability to do things like investigate bugs, much less repair data if needed, would be non-trivial.
rudolf0 10y ago
>That's nice, but it shouldn't be forbidden to violate users' privacy, it should be impossible. Work for just about any company, tech or otherwise, in a sysadmin role. There is always going to be some way for a smart, malicious admin to get into things. Snowden is maybe the best example. If an organization with an insider threat risk profile as high as the NSA's can't get it right, then you can be pretty certain almost no one else is either.