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Disclaimer: I work for Uber. However, my opinions are mine. I am also not defending nor attacking in any way Uber gathering location data. With that out of the

Disclaimer: I work for Uber. However, my opinions are mine. I am also not defending nor attacking in any way Uber gathering location data. With that out of the way - you know your cell phone carrier already has this data right? They have way better data than Uber ever will about all your habits, including establishing relationships based on who you call, which sites you visit, who you are signed up on a plan with, etc etc. A much more weakly guarded pot of gold, I would say.

reacharavindh 10y ago
So, it's okay to get customer's location data 24/7 because someone else does it is your best argument and reasoning?
Justin_K 10y ago
You're missing the point
brianshaler 10y ago
The key difference is the telephony company needs to know who I want to talk to so they can connect me, which web sites I want to load so they can retrieve the data from the server, and where I am so phone calls and data are routed through a nearby tower. People aren't going to be as upset about a company having data that is necessary for their core service to be provided. Does Uber need to know where I sleep in order to catch a ride from my office to a bar for happy hour?
lowglow 10y ago
Wow. I can't believe an Uber employee would come out and make this argument. It feels like the kool-aid is spilling over.
- Khaine 10y ago
  It feels more like someone with their head up their arse
detaro 10y ago
> A much more weakly guarded pot of gold, I would say. Citation needed. I have no reason to believe Uber is better at protecting customer data than my phone provider. The latter likely feels a lot more bound by local laws than a US cooperation nearly priding itself in not adhering to them.
onion2k 10y ago
I'll agree with your point as soon as Uber signs up to the same level of regulatory restrictions as every phone carrier enjoys. The fact is that there are laws that strictly prohibit my phone carrier doing certain things with data about my usage. Case in point, the stalking that the article mentions - I don't think employees of my phone carrier can do the same thing. Technically they could because they have the necessary data, but they don't because regulations have been put in place to stop them. Uber has demonstrated that they can't be trusted with personal data, so I'm quite sure the government will be considering implementing some regulation in their industry too. That's a shame really, because I'm sure most of us would prefer companies weren't restricted by regulation and were just sensible and ethical by default, so laws weren't necessary.
- paublyrne 10y ago
  That's a shame really, because I'm sure most of us would prefer companies weren't restricted by regulation and were just sensible and ethical by default, so laws weren't necessary. Interesting. I prefer regulation by default to be honest. Possibly shows my biases from growing up and living in Europe. I see regulation as something you should start with not something you should end up having to do. Just like I prefer civil laws to be in place by default rather than leaving it to people to be good to each other. Maybe I'm in the minority here.
  - toyg 10y ago
    > I see regulation as something you should start with not something you should end up having to do. That's the Platonic/Napoleonic mindset right there :) It's one of the Great Philosophical Questions - do we build society from first principles, or do we just react to what people do as they get together? The latter is the current fashion, at least in theory - in practice, the former keeps coming up over and over, because lawmaking is fundamentally a prescriptive action that instinctively moves from first principles (and it's the only way that lawmakers can forever justify their role: if we ever figured out a society working so well that no reaction or correction is necessary, what would lawmakers do? Write law covering behaviour in places where humans could only potentially exist, i.e. prescribe from first principles). TBH I rarely ever thought about this sort of thing until I moved to the UK, where the average mindset is deeply anti-Napoleonic/anti-Roman.
benevol 10y ago
> you know your cell phone carrier already has this data right? "But we already do A, so why shouldn't we do B?" "But we already do B, so why shouldn't we do C?" "But we already do C, so why shouldn't we do D?" ... "But we already do Y, so why shouldn't we do Z?" This is generally how things slowly but surely go down the toilet. From climate change to mass surveillance to fascism, etc.
- tripzilch 10y ago
  No no no don't worry, see? It doesn't have to quit at Z. That's just a convention from using letters of the alphabet. "But we can already has Z, so why shouldn't we do AA?" "But we already make with the AA going, so why you no AB?" ... Is no problem we just continue continuing on, standing on the shoulders of somebody else's problems, until the problem becomes the soil and a beautiful flower grows. Is future!
codedokode 10y ago
The cellphone carrier (outside US and its allies) will not give data to NSA. In some countries it might even not know the name of a customer.
NietTim 10y ago
I have a legally binding contract with my phone carrier, which is located in my country of residence. The US can do whatever the fuck they want with the data you collect and it's not theirs to have.
jhayward 10y ago
Cell tower location is far less precise than the location returned by IOS location services. They can't tell that I stopped in the coffee shop then went to the bank next door.
EasyTiger_ 10y ago
"Your cell provider has that data, why can't we have it too?" Oh dear
Nursie 10y ago
You're the same guy who claimed a week or so back that "Uber is an ethical company", right? --edit-- never mind, that turned out to be a different uber employee that posts here.
Fnoord 10y ago
> With that out of the way - you know your cell phone carrier already has this data right? Its close to fascism when the argument becomes that the government (ie. NSA) already has this data. > including establishing relationships based on who you call, which sites you visit, who you are signed up on a plan with, etc etc. Not if you use Signal and Tor. Also, the phone company supposedly doesn't abuse that data (they certainly don't have my permission for that); Uber supposedly doesn't either, but it is proven time and time again that it is being abused. Just like the NSA watched people on watchlists watching porn. For evil software practices like the ones from your employer we need two things: 1) FLOSS applications, and legislation against these practices. (Ironically, your employer is already breaking the law in many jurisdictions as we speak.) 2) If that fails, and for the time being we can still work around it by uninstalling your application. We can also still work around it using magic like LD_PRELOAD faking the geolocation. There already exists libfaketime, not sure about geolocation. Its also already possible to fake this in the browser: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/disable-fake-location-firefox-internet-explorer-chrome/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/disable-fake-location-firefox-i...
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
rbcgerard 10y ago
Ahh, my phone company knows, so why not let everybody know!
halomru 10y ago
>you know your cell phone carrier already has this data right? No, they don't. My carrier has coarse location data because they know which cell tower served me. Uber has much more precise GPS data. That's the difference between knowing that I'm in the same building as Edward Snowden and knowing that I'm in the same neighborhood.
tripzilch 10y ago
> A much more weakly guarded pot of gold, I would say. Bigger pot, way more strongly guarded. Much more frightening is that literally all (4 or 5 I've seen by now) HN accounts that identified as Uber developers tried to ascertain "no it's fine and also I trust Uber" did so by while revealing they either 1. have no idea about Uber's exact privacy and security procedures (you don't need to put all the cards on the table if it's sensitive--though it shouldn't be--but you should be aware of the procedures and be able to ascertain they are in fact in place and implemented) 2. or, like the above poster, have very strange ideas about what constitutes their responsibility of protecting the privacy of their users. Hint: it's NOT "be slightly less bad at it than the next guy" (even though in above example that's arguably not even the case). This may be enough semi-security for your personal WordPress-blog, be slightly harder to hack than most people and if you're not a target, you're probably fine, probably. Except of course, Uber is a target. And yes, if I were a bad actor and I wanted data like that, of course I'd try Uber first instead of the (way better protected) cell phone carriers. Especially now that I've seen all these Uber developers publicly flaunt their ignorance on the subject.

reacharavindh 10y ago

So, it's okay to get customer's location data 24/7 because someone else does it is your best argument and reasoning?

Justin_K 10y ago

You're missing the point

brianshaler 10y ago

The key difference is the telephony company needs to know who I want to talk to so they can connect me, which web sites I want to load so they can retrieve the data from the server, and where I am so phone calls and data are routed through a nearby tower. People aren't going to be as upset about a company having data that is necessary for their core service to be provided. Does Uber need to know where I sleep in order to catch a ride from my office to a bar for happy hour?

lowglow 10y ago

Wow. I can't believe an Uber employee would come out and make this argument. It feels like the kool-aid is spilling over.

Khaine 10y ago
It feels more like someone with their head up their arse

detaro 10y ago

> A much more weakly guarded pot of gold, I would say. Citation needed. I have no reason to believe Uber is better at protecting customer data than my phone provider. The latter likely feels a lot more bound by local laws than a US cooperation nearly priding itself in not adhering to them.

onion2k 10y ago

I'll agree with your point as soon as Uber signs up to the same level of regulatory restrictions as every phone carrier enjoys. The fact is that there are laws that strictly prohibit my phone carrier doing certain things with data about my usage. Case in point, the stalking that the article mentions - I don't think employees of my phone carrier can do the same thing. Technically they could because they have the necessary data, but they don't because regulations have been put in place to stop them. Uber has demonstrated that they can't be trusted with personal data, so I'm quite sure the government will be considering implementing some regulation in their industry too. That's a shame really, because I'm sure most of us would prefer companies weren't restricted by regulation and were just sensible and ethical by default, so laws weren't necessary.

paublyrne 10y ago
That's a shame really, because I'm sure most of us would prefer companies weren't restricted by regulation and were just sensible and ethical by default, so laws weren't necessary. Interesting. I prefer regulation by default to be honest. Possibly shows my biases from growing up and living in Europe. I see regulation as something you should start with not something you should end up having to do. Just like I prefer civil laws to be in place by default rather than leaving it to people to be good to each other. Maybe I'm in the minority here.
- toyg 10y ago
  > I see regulation as something you should start with not something you should end up having to do. That's the Platonic/Napoleonic mindset right there :) It's one of the Great Philosophical Questions - do we build society from first principles, or do we just react to what people do as they get together? The latter is the current fashion, at least in theory - in practice, the former keeps coming up over and over, because lawmaking is fundamentally a prescriptive action that instinctively moves from first principles (and it's the only way that lawmakers can forever justify their role: if we ever figured out a society working so well that no reaction or correction is necessary, what would lawmakers do? Write law covering behaviour in places where humans could only potentially exist, i.e. prescribe from first principles). TBH I rarely ever thought about this sort of thing until I moved to the UK, where the average mindset is deeply anti-Napoleonic/anti-Roman.

benevol 10y ago

> you know your cell phone carrier already has this data right? "But we already do A, so why shouldn't we do B?" "But we already do B, so why shouldn't we do C?" "But we already do C, so why shouldn't we do D?" ... "But we already do Y, so why shouldn't we do Z?" This is generally how things slowly but surely go down the toilet. From climate change to mass surveillance to fascism, etc.

tripzilch 10y ago
No no no don't worry, see? It doesn't have to quit at Z. That's just a convention from using letters of the alphabet. "But we can already has Z, so why shouldn't we do AA?" "But we already make with the AA going, so why you no AB?" ... Is no problem we just continue continuing on, standing on the shoulders of somebody else's problems, until the problem becomes the soil and a beautiful flower grows. Is future!

codedokode 10y ago

The cellphone carrier (outside US and its allies) will not give data to NSA. In some countries it might even not know the name of a customer.

NietTim 10y ago

I have a legally binding contract with my phone carrier, which is located in my country of residence. The US can do whatever the fuck they want with the data you collect and it's not theirs to have.

jhayward 10y ago

Cell tower location is far less precise than the location returned by IOS location services. They can't tell that I stopped in the coffee shop then went to the bank next door.

EasyTiger_ 10y ago

"Your cell provider has that data, why can't we have it too?" Oh dear

Nursie 10y ago

You're the same guy who claimed a week or so back that "Uber is an ethical company", right? --edit-- never mind, that turned out to be a different uber employee that posts here.

Fnoord 10y ago

> With that out of the way - you know your cell phone carrier already has this data right? Its close to fascism when the argument becomes that the government (ie. NSA) already has this data. > including establishing relationships based on who you call, which sites you visit, who you are signed up on a plan with, etc etc. Not if you use Signal and Tor. Also, the phone company supposedly doesn't abuse that data (they certainly don't have my permission for that); Uber supposedly doesn't either, but it is proven time and time again that it is being abused. Just like the NSA watched people on watchlists watching porn. For evil software practices like the ones from your employer we need two things: 1) FLOSS applications, and legislation against these practices. (Ironically, your employer is already breaking the law in many jurisdictions as we speak.) 2) If that fails, and for the time being we can still work around it by uninstalling your application. We can also still work around it using magic like LD_PRELOAD faking the geolocation. There already exists libfaketime, not sure about geolocation. Its also already possible to fake this in the browser: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/disable-fake-location-firefox-internet-explorer-chrome/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/disable-fake-location-firefox-i...

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

rbcgerard 10y ago

Ahh, my phone company knows, so why not let everybody know!

halomru 10y ago

>you know your cell phone carrier already has this data right? No, they don't. My carrier has coarse location data because they know which cell tower served me. Uber has much more precise GPS data. That's the difference between knowing that I'm in the same building as Edward Snowden and knowing that I'm in the same neighborhood.

tripzilch 10y ago

> A much more weakly guarded pot of gold, I would say. Bigger pot, way more strongly guarded. Much more frightening is that literally all (4 or 5 I've seen by now) HN accounts that identified as Uber developers tried to ascertain "no it's fine and also I trust Uber" did so by while revealing they either 1. have no idea about Uber's exact privacy and security procedures (you don't need to put all the cards on the table if it's sensitive--though it shouldn't be--but you should be aware of the procedures and be able to ascertain they are in fact in place and implemented) 2. or, like the above poster, have very strange ideas about what constitutes their responsibility of protecting the privacy of their users. Hint: it's NOT "be slightly less bad at it than the next guy" (even though in above example that's arguably not even the case). This may be enough semi-security for your personal WordPress-blog, be slightly harder to hack than most people and if you're not a target, you're probably fine, probably. Except of course, Uber is a target. And yes, if I were a bad actor and I wanted data like that, of course I'd try Uber first instead of the (way better protected) cell phone carriers. Especially now that I've seen all these Uber developers publicly flaunt their ignorance on the subject.