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These stories just keep pumping out - "Uber uses internal tool X for nefarious purpose Y". I genuinely curious if the same sort of inquisition were focused on

These stories just keep pumping out - "Uber uses internal tool X for nefarious purpose Y". I genuinely curious if the same sort of inquisition were focused on a different company, would we see similar stories? How much of this is cultural, and how much of it is a result of being examined microscopically by passionate investigators? Or is Uber really just that bad?

dmlittle 9y ago
I'd imagine a company as big as Uber would have some sort of protection against employee's accessing customer data as well as auditing data access logs. I don't think it's an inquisition per se, but rather people are tired of saying "oh well... they're a startup I can let it slide this one time"
- _Codemonkeyism 9y ago
  Often this only comes after IPO e.g. with SOX/... compliance.
  - yeukhon 9y ago
    SOX compliance is unfortunately bureaucratic in the sense as long as you can prove control is in place no one cares if you can read customer's data. A business owner can approve thr request in some ticketing system (change ticket) then the auditor would be okay because it is not the auditor's interest to judge whether some business decision is good or bad. You can keep your private keys in a Git repo encrypted as long as you can prove control and audit logs are available because the underlying security is not an audit concern. Another example is as long as you keep data and logs for seven years, auditors would be okay; they don't care if you are keeping a yearly archive for seven rars, monthly backup for seven years, you pick. Data and security governance is often a miss item.
    - _Codemonkeyism 9y ago
      Yes.
- Ductapemaster 9y ago
  I'm with you there - this seems like a large oversight that should have been prevented. My original comment was more referring to all the bad press in general. I just wonder how many sketchy things modern tech companies get away with that are only discovered when the watchful eyes take notice.
  - dmlittle 9y ago
    You'd be surprised. I remember talking to a co-founder of a secure, encrypted chat startup that was getting acquired by bigger startup. Their response when I asked about their encryption was that they use HTTPS instead of HTTP...
beedogs 9y ago
I think they're really just that bad.
yeukhon 9y ago
This is normal. Jouranlists dig deep into the trouble culture of Uber because the finding can sell and generally very interesting to research on. This has happened to every company with bad press.
- memmcgee 9y ago
  Not really... Google and Apple have had bad press in the past but they've never had wide spread employee sexual harassment.
  - yeukhon 9y ago
    You mistaken what I said. A company with bad press will get more attention from jouranlists trying to uncover more bad press.
hackuser 9y ago
What do you think? To just ask the questions is a way to muddle the issue; perhaps offer your opinion and something to support it. I've seen the same types of questions posted multiple times regarding Uber. Uber the victim, picked on; everybody does these things. I even saw someone say that the long list of executives that left Uber was normal. It's a cynical, and false, view of humanity and the business community.
- Ductapemaster 9y ago
  I was asking questions because I am not well informed on the history of this sort of thing, and considering this is a forum of people who work at tech companies, I felt that some may be able to lend some insight. I personally have worked at one hardware company that was extremely ethical, and none of this would fly at any point. Now I work in a very regulated business making medical devices. I'm just trying to expand my perspective past where it is. That said, this all seems very bad to me and reflects poorly on a company that has grown by consistently breaking rules.
mercer 9y ago
> How much of this is cultural, and how much of it is a result of being examined microscopically by passionate investigators? Or is Uber really just that bad? How does the first question affect the second? Assuming the stories are true, Uber really is just that bad. Whether other companies are too shouldn't be relevant in this context, or at least it shouldn't affect how bad all this is.
- nothrabannosir 9y ago
  It does affect the number of stories coming out. If all companies are the same, why is it Uber constantly in the news? That was his question.
  - jsmthrowaway 9y ago
    Motivated sources motivate other sources. You're seeing discontent among Uber employees play out as a line of newly-minted, motivated primary sources. This is why a news cycle can, on occasion, feel like the Eye of Sauron: it's not that people are suddenly paying attention, it's the constant reminder to indecisive sources that they can now air their grievances and find traction on them with that attention. Attention is exponential and each negative story sharpens it more than the last, compounding as the cycle deepens. Journalists are acutely aware of this phenomenon. Just one particularly controversial story can pull dozens more out of the woodwork as sources say hey, you think that's bad, I've got something to talk about too. One runs a story that's a little bit wrong or controversial, and a bunch of sources will materialize out of the blue to correct, or add to, the record. Often, they remain sources once they realize it's child's play to get away with it and that sourcing can serve their ends, too. The original CIR reporting here is mostly based on Spangenberg's October deposition, but they talked to five people to report on it. Five. That's really hard to pull off even for a well-connected reporter. Rough times for Uber if the bad news is flowing this freely, and I don't think we are done with this cycle by a long shot. Kalanick's exes are talking, for Christ's sake: if there's a Richter scale for news cycles, former lovers sourcing to help shit on your company is about a 9. That's a bad sign and a boatload of chum in the water. There will be followups on this stuff until Christmas. Mark my words. As a counterexample, Theranos was a surprisingly tight ship once that WSJ missile landed; I expected far more of the same momentum you're now seeing with Uber once their cycle got going, and there was a little but not nearly as much. Smart money would be that Theranos takes better care of its people than Uber. Source behavior during negative PR cycles is a good signal on this, and why it's important to pay attention to care and feeding of people who have damaging things to say.
ckastner 9y ago
> How much of this is cultural, and how much of it is a result of being examined microscopically by passionate investigators? An argument could be made that cultural is at least a significant factor. Take Susan J. Fowler's allegations, for example: if true (and I have no reason to believe they aren't), how many HR departments do you know that would not only tolerate but even assist in covering up repeated sexual harassment by an employee, with documented evidence no less?
doktrin 9y ago
> is Uber really just that bad? Sounds like it is. Uber's not exactly the first tech company to be in the spotlight, and yet they seem to be a uniquely anarchic organization. For instance, Google's been in this kind of hot water before - namely regarding the stored wifi traffic captured by street view vehicles. That said, what Uber's accused of here is an even more massive breach of public trust IMO.
- MichaelGG 9y ago
  Someone at Google forgetting to set snaplen on tcpdump is hardly nefarious.
  - ce4 9y ago
    Forgotten or otherwise, it was neglect of privacy and against the law in some (all?) countries.
  - angry-hacker 9y ago
    Google has built the best spy machine of all times, something even the worst dictatorial regimes couldn't dream of. KGB would be jealous. And you can't opt out of the system even if you don't use them, it's like cancer. Uber was digging its own grave before and now with the help of liberal journalists who got angry because of the Trumps fiasco they multiply the process. I didn't have anything good to say about uber before, and I don't support their practices of breaking the laws, but clearly it's a witchunt against the company and CEO.
  - dboreham 9y ago
    That wasn't what happened though.
  - doktrin 9y ago
    I may well be basing my opinion on outdated information, but I was referring to stuff like this : "A Federal Communications Commission document disclosed Saturday showed for the first time that the software in Google’s Street View mapping cars was “intended” to collect Wi-Fi payload data, and that engineers had even transferred the data to an Oregon Storage facility. Google tried to keep that and other damning aspects of the Street View debacle from public review, the FCC said" [1] [1] https://www.wired.com/2012/05/google-wifi-fcc-investigation/ https://www.wired.com/2012/05/google-wifi-fcc-investigation/
mtgx 9y ago
You could probably make the same argument for Trump. I would say it's mostly as bad as they portray it - in both cases.
mmjaa 9y ago
This is an important story because, in spite of the fact that our techno-industry has been at this for a long time now (decades), we still get companies that think its okay to violate fundamental human rights in the pursuit of profit - and that is why this story is so relevant to the HN crowd. It doesn't matter that Uber did this. Microsoft, Sun, and countless other companies have gotten into trouble for this sort of behaviour in the past. This story is not about Uber. This story is about how poorly the tech industry regards the legislative machinery that gives us all the right to have free access to computers, to do what we like with them, without restriction - and the liabilities of that freedom, when played in a market full of unscrupulous individuals with far, far too much power.
- Applejinx 9y ago
  There are quite a lot of people who will tell you there is no such thing as rights. There's only power. This is not a new idea: it's always been around (think 'Magna Carta' and who knows how many times, back infinitely into the past). The idea that there is no rights, only power, is as true as we agree it to be. And that's why this debate is still ongoing. In times where it's a very live and relevant debate, power is ascendant and making the argument that rights are old hat. If it wasn't much of a debate because it was self-evident that there are no rights, we'd be in one of those Dark Ages periods of stultification, waiting for civilization to start up again. If it wasn't much of a debate because there is no power… actually, I'm not sure that's ever happened or ever will happen. It'd be an interesting thought experiment, to ask what that would even look like. Presumably that's a picture of bureacracy, but weaponized, meaning the power is on the law-makers and those who bend their ears. As expected, that's the first thing claimed by power, whether it makes sense or not. To power, any bureacracy or law is always weaponized and illegitimate.
  - mmjaa 9y ago
    "Rights" are just 'powers' granted to individuals by the groups they compose for the purpose.
    - wavefunction 9y ago
andybg 9y ago
Uber is a once in a lifetime multi-billion dollar company. It's not interesting if it makes even more money (or IPOs or whatnot); it's interesting if it fails. Also - the press goes through cycles of building things up and then finds way to tear it down. Pumping the view counts along the way.
- Applejinx 9y ago
  Remember this 'tearing down' also counts as virtue signaling from Hell. It will make even more money if it is documented as a psychotic corporate shark on crack obliterating everything in or near its path. That's virtuous behavior to the stock market and the distinction is important. Money can get Uber out of some or perhaps all of these problems. To the stock market, getting the single evilest company in the world into a position of absolute monopoly where they're above all laws and can do anything they want, is a good thing, if you are an investor in that company. It is always and only about the bottom line. We assume this has to be within a context of law (if not morality, then at least law) but it's self-evidently not true and the valuation shows it. If investors thought law mattered, Uber would not be valued what it is.
TeMPOraL 9y ago
Is Uber really just that bad? I'd say it is. We've been seeing such stories regularly for many years now. Many of them have been discussed here on HN too. They all paint the same picture current stories do - that Uber operates in total disregard for the rule of law and human dignity. As for why so many articles just now? My guess is that Susan Fowler's story crossed the outrage threshold in general public, and now news platforms are simply milking the cash cow.
rl3 9y ago
>These stories just keep pumping out - "Uber uses internal tool X for nefarious purpose Y". Travis Kalanick for CIA director. He just needs a place where his Machiavellian side can roam free, and private industry isn't it.
- wavefunction 9y ago
  How about under-secretary of his local home-owner's association, instead? Some place out of the way where his ability to affect the rest of us in society is instead limited.
  - rl3 9y ago
    That HOAA would soon have a secret black budget, used to fund various programs which automatically identify individuals with hedges not trimmed to association standards.
matt4077 9y ago
No, other companies (of that size) are nothing like that. Yes, similar things obviously happen at other companies. The difference is that for Uber, it appears as if breaking laws and/or ethical norms was the intended modus operandi. Contrary to popular opinion, companies can behave ethically, sometimes above and beyond what is required by law. I'd say the reasons are, in descending order of importance: - Companies are people, who have a strong sense of right and wrong, and are usually quite eager to stay on the right side of the line dividing the two. - "Company culture" which, just like a society's culture, actually sets the standards for what individuals consider right and wrong. This is what apparently broke down at Uber, because it's established quite early in an organisation's life. (I like to think that you can still see Steve Wozniak's playfulness in Apple's culture today, and that he may have stunted the worst of his co-founder's instincts from taking Apple down a similar path). - Evolution: It's impossible for any company of significant size to keep secrets. If Google, Apple etc. were doing stuff like this on the same scale, they would no longer exist. - The law, which is the codification of whatever society came up as in terms of morality - "Corporate Governance", which is the codification of the symbiosis of law and company culture, plus mechanisms to enforce it. But even if every company were as bad, I'd have to cite my Grandfather: "When did we start comparing ourselves to others?". Uber was up to a lot of stuff that shouldn't happen, and it shouldn't be excused. If you're asked to participate in such things, don't. If you fear you could be asked, or if you believe your company is forced to behave this way b/c competitors do, lobby for mechanisms to prevent it. Laws/Regulations/Industry guidelines on ethics fundamentally benefit everyone, because they prevent a Prisoner Dilemma's race to the bottom.

dmlittle 9y ago

I'd imagine a company as big as Uber would have some sort of protection against employee's accessing customer data as well as auditing data access logs. I don't think it's an inquisition per se, but rather people are tired of saying "oh well... they're a startup I can let it slide this one time"

_Codemonkeyism 9y ago
Often this only comes after IPO e.g. with SOX/... compliance.
- yeukhon 9y ago
  SOX compliance is unfortunately bureaucratic in the sense as long as you can prove control is in place no one cares if you can read customer's data. A business owner can approve thr request in some ticketing system (change ticket) then the auditor would be okay because it is not the auditor's interest to judge whether some business decision is good or bad. You can keep your private keys in a Git repo encrypted as long as you can prove control and audit logs are available because the underlying security is not an audit concern. Another example is as long as you keep data and logs for seven years, auditors would be okay; they don't care if you are keeping a yearly archive for seven rars, monthly backup for seven years, you pick. Data and security governance is often a miss item.
  - _Codemonkeyism 9y ago
    Yes.
Ductapemaster 9y ago
I'm with you there - this seems like a large oversight that should have been prevented. My original comment was more referring to all the bad press in general. I just wonder how many sketchy things modern tech companies get away with that are only discovered when the watchful eyes take notice.
- dmlittle 9y ago
  You'd be surprised. I remember talking to a co-founder of a secure, encrypted chat startup that was getting acquired by bigger startup. Their response when I asked about their encryption was that they use HTTPS instead of HTTP...

beedogs 9y ago

I think they're really just that bad.

yeukhon 9y ago

This is normal. Jouranlists dig deep into the trouble culture of Uber because the finding can sell and generally very interesting to research on. This has happened to every company with bad press.

memmcgee 9y ago
Not really... Google and Apple have had bad press in the past but they've never had wide spread employee sexual harassment.
- yeukhon 9y ago
  You mistaken what I said. A company with bad press will get more attention from jouranlists trying to uncover more bad press.

hackuser 9y ago

What do you think? To just ask the questions is a way to muddle the issue; perhaps offer your opinion and something to support it. I've seen the same types of questions posted multiple times regarding Uber. Uber the victim, picked on; everybody does these things. I even saw someone say that the long list of executives that left Uber was normal. It's a cynical, and false, view of humanity and the business community.

Ductapemaster 9y ago
I was asking questions because I am not well informed on the history of this sort of thing, and considering this is a forum of people who work at tech companies, I felt that some may be able to lend some insight. I personally have worked at one hardware company that was extremely ethical, and none of this would fly at any point. Now I work in a very regulated business making medical devices. I'm just trying to expand my perspective past where it is. That said, this all seems very bad to me and reflects poorly on a company that has grown by consistently breaking rules.

mercer 9y ago

> How much of this is cultural, and how much of it is a result of being examined microscopically by passionate investigators? Or is Uber really just that bad? How does the first question affect the second? Assuming the stories are true, Uber really is just that bad. Whether other companies are too shouldn't be relevant in this context, or at least it shouldn't affect how bad all this is.

nothrabannosir 9y ago
It does affect the number of stories coming out. If all companies are the same, why is it Uber constantly in the news? That was his question.
- jsmthrowaway 9y ago
  Motivated sources motivate other sources. You're seeing discontent among Uber employees play out as a line of newly-minted, motivated primary sources. This is why a news cycle can, on occasion, feel like the Eye of Sauron: it's not that people are suddenly paying attention, it's the constant reminder to indecisive sources that they can now air their grievances and find traction on them with that attention. Attention is exponential and each negative story sharpens it more than the last, compounding as the cycle deepens. Journalists are acutely aware of this phenomenon. Just one particularly controversial story can pull dozens more out of the woodwork as sources say hey, you think that's bad, I've got something to talk about too. One runs a story that's a little bit wrong or controversial, and a bunch of sources will materialize out of the blue to correct, or add to, the record. Often, they remain sources once they realize it's child's play to get away with it and that sourcing can serve their ends, too. The original CIR reporting here is mostly based on Spangenberg's October deposition, but they talked to five people to report on it. Five. That's really hard to pull off even for a well-connected reporter. Rough times for Uber if the bad news is flowing this freely, and I don't think we are done with this cycle by a long shot. Kalanick's exes are talking, for Christ's sake: if there's a Richter scale for news cycles, former lovers sourcing to help shit on your company is about a 9. That's a bad sign and a boatload of chum in the water. There will be followups on this stuff until Christmas. Mark my words. As a counterexample, Theranos was a surprisingly tight ship once that WSJ missile landed; I expected far more of the same momentum you're now seeing with Uber once their cycle got going, and there was a little but not nearly as much. Smart money would be that Theranos takes better care of its people than Uber. Source behavior during negative PR cycles is a good signal on this, and why it's important to pay attention to care and feeding of people who have damaging things to say.

ckastner 9y ago

> How much of this is cultural, and how much of it is a result of being examined microscopically by passionate investigators? An argument could be made that cultural is at least a significant factor. Take Susan J. Fowler's allegations, for example: if true (and I have no reason to believe they aren't), how many HR departments do you know that would not only tolerate but even assist in covering up repeated sexual harassment by an employee, with documented evidence no less?

doktrin 9y ago

> is Uber really just that bad? Sounds like it is. Uber's not exactly the first tech company to be in the spotlight, and yet they seem to be a uniquely anarchic organization. For instance, Google's been in this kind of hot water before - namely regarding the stored wifi traffic captured by street view vehicles. That said, what Uber's accused of here is an even more massive breach of public trust IMO.

MichaelGG 9y ago
Someone at Google forgetting to set snaplen on tcpdump is hardly nefarious.
- ce4 9y ago
  Forgotten or otherwise, it was neglect of privacy and against the law in some (all?) countries.
- angry-hacker 9y ago
  Google has built the best spy machine of all times, something even the worst dictatorial regimes couldn't dream of. KGB would be jealous. And you can't opt out of the system even if you don't use them, it's like cancer. Uber was digging its own grave before and now with the help of liberal journalists who got angry because of the Trumps fiasco they multiply the process. I didn't have anything good to say about uber before, and I don't support their practices of breaking the laws, but clearly it's a witchunt against the company and CEO.
- dboreham 9y ago
  That wasn't what happened though.
- doktrin 9y ago
  I may well be basing my opinion on outdated information, but I was referring to stuff like this : "A Federal Communications Commission document disclosed Saturday showed for the first time that the software in Google’s Street View mapping cars was “intended” to collect Wi-Fi payload data, and that engineers had even transferred the data to an Oregon Storage facility. Google tried to keep that and other damning aspects of the Street View debacle from public review, the FCC said" [1] [1] https://www.wired.com/2012/05/google-wifi-fcc-investigation/ https://www.wired.com/2012/05/google-wifi-fcc-investigation/

mtgx 9y ago

You could probably make the same argument for Trump. I would say it's mostly as bad as they portray it - in both cases.

mmjaa 9y ago

This is an important story because, in spite of the fact that our techno-industry has been at this for a long time now (decades), we still get companies that think its okay to violate fundamental human rights in the pursuit of profit - and that is why this story is so relevant to the HN crowd. It doesn't matter that Uber did this. Microsoft, Sun, and countless other companies have gotten into trouble for this sort of behaviour in the past. This story is not about Uber. This story is about how poorly the tech industry regards the legislative machinery that gives us all the right to have free access to computers, to do what we like with them, without restriction - and the liabilities of that freedom, when played in a market full of unscrupulous individuals with far, far too much power.

Applejinx 9y ago
There are quite a lot of people who will tell you there is no such thing as rights. There's only power. This is not a new idea: it's always been around (think 'Magna Carta' and who knows how many times, back infinitely into the past). The idea that there is no rights, only power, is as true as we agree it to be. And that's why this debate is still ongoing. In times where it's a very live and relevant debate, power is ascendant and making the argument that rights are old hat. If it wasn't much of a debate because it was self-evident that there are no rights, we'd be in one of those Dark Ages periods of stultification, waiting for civilization to start up again. If it wasn't much of a debate because there is no power… actually, I'm not sure that's ever happened or ever will happen. It'd be an interesting thought experiment, to ask what that would even look like. Presumably that's a picture of bureacracy, but weaponized, meaning the power is on the law-makers and those who bend their ears. As expected, that's the first thing claimed by power, whether it makes sense or not. To power, any bureacracy or law is always weaponized and illegitimate.
- mmjaa 9y ago
  "Rights" are just 'powers' granted to individuals by the groups they compose for the purpose.
  - wavefunction 9y ago

andybg 9y ago

Uber is a once in a lifetime multi-billion dollar company. It's not interesting if it makes even more money (or IPOs or whatnot); it's interesting if it fails. Also - the press goes through cycles of building things up and then finds way to tear it down. Pumping the view counts along the way.

Applejinx 9y ago
Remember this 'tearing down' also counts as virtue signaling from Hell. It will make even more money if it is documented as a psychotic corporate shark on crack obliterating everything in or near its path. That's virtuous behavior to the stock market and the distinction is important. Money can get Uber out of some or perhaps all of these problems. To the stock market, getting the single evilest company in the world into a position of absolute monopoly where they're above all laws and can do anything they want, is a good thing, if you are an investor in that company. It is always and only about the bottom line. We assume this has to be within a context of law (if not morality, then at least law) but it's self-evidently not true and the valuation shows it. If investors thought law mattered, Uber would not be valued what it is.

TeMPOraL 9y ago

Is Uber really just that bad? I'd say it is. We've been seeing such stories regularly for many years now. Many of them have been discussed here on HN too. They all paint the same picture current stories do - that Uber operates in total disregard for the rule of law and human dignity. As for why so many articles just now? My guess is that Susan Fowler's story crossed the outrage threshold in general public, and now news platforms are simply milking the cash cow.

rl3 9y ago

>These stories just keep pumping out - "Uber uses internal tool X for nefarious purpose Y". Travis Kalanick for CIA director. He just needs a place where his Machiavellian side can roam free, and private industry isn't it.

wavefunction 9y ago
How about under-secretary of his local home-owner's association, instead? Some place out of the way where his ability to affect the rest of us in society is instead limited.
- rl3 9y ago
  That HOAA would soon have a secret black budget, used to fund various programs which automatically identify individuals with hedges not trimmed to association standards.

matt4077 9y ago

No, other companies (of that size) are nothing like that. Yes, similar things obviously happen at other companies. The difference is that for Uber, it appears as if breaking laws and/or ethical norms was the intended modus operandi. Contrary to popular opinion, companies can behave ethically, sometimes above and beyond what is required by law. I'd say the reasons are, in descending order of importance: - Companies are people, who have a strong sense of right and wrong, and are usually quite eager to stay on the right side of the line dividing the two. - "Company culture" which, just like a society's culture, actually sets the standards for what individuals consider right and wrong. This is what apparently broke down at Uber, because it's established quite early in an organisation's life. (I like to think that you can still see Steve Wozniak's playfulness in Apple's culture today, and that he may have stunted the worst of his co-founder's instincts from taking Apple down a similar path). - Evolution: It's impossible for any company of significant size to keep secrets. If Google, Apple etc. were doing stuff like this on the same scale, they would no longer exist. - The law, which is the codification of whatever society came up as in terms of morality - "Corporate Governance", which is the codification of the symbiosis of law and company culture, plus mechanisms to enforce it. But even if every company were as bad, I'd have to cite my Grandfather: "When did we start comparing ourselves to others?". Uber was up to a lot of stuff that shouldn't happen, and it shouldn't be excused. If you're asked to participate in such things, don't. If you fear you could be asked, or if you believe your company is forced to behave this way b/c competitors do, lobby for mechanisms to prevent it. Laws/Regulations/Industry guidelines on ethics fundamentally benefit everyone, because they prevent a Prisoner Dilemma's race to the bottom.