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Destroy Evidence is strong phrasing. The evidence still exists, its just no longer within the scope of the police warrants. My interpretation of the article is

by 013a 9y ago

Destroy Evidence is strong phrasing. The evidence still exists, its just no longer within the scope of the police warrants. My interpretation of the article is that the information is all stored on Uber's US-based servers and the tool remotely revokes the satellite offices' connection to the servers, probably also shutting down the machines so nothing is left recoverable in memory. In weaker, but likely relatively accurate words: They're logging all of their remote users out of Google Drive so the authorities can't access the spreadsheets there. In essence. That's what I'm reading. Point being, Uber could still be compelled to present the evidence in court, and Uber may comply with that compulsion. Does a Canadian warrant give the Canadian government the right to access information stored on a server in the United States? The answer to that is an emphatic No. Does it give them the right to possess an API key which would allow them to access information stored on a server in the United States? Does this change if it could be reasonably expected that the information was, at some point, in the ephemeral memory, not even a hard disk as far as we know, of a computer on Canadian soil? I really don't know. We all knew the global power of the internet would begin to raise questions like this, and our legal framework simply hasn't dealt with them yet.

jackvalentine 9y ago
> probably also shutting down the machines so nothing is left recoverable in memory. That seems like it would fit the definition of “destroy” to me.
slivym 9y ago
Well firstly, no cloud storage system works with 0 locally cached data. What Uber are essentially doing is deleting evidence covered by the warrant by deleting the local copies. The evidence may exist elsewhere, but that doesn't mean that deleting the evidence covered by the warrant is any less illegal. Once the warrant is served, anything done to delete anything off that computer is obstruction of justice, it doesn't matter what the mechanism of storage is- whether it's RAM, Hard Disk or floppy disk. Secondly, the warrant is what compels uber to give access to the evidence, there's no 'We don't feel like it right now, go to the courts to try something else'. The ability of the authorities to gain evidence through other legal avenues provides literally no defence for uber in failing to comply with a warrant.

by 013a 9y ago

jackvalentine 9y ago

> probably also shutting down the machines so nothing is left recoverable in memory. That seems like it would fit the definition of “destroy” to me.

slivym 9y ago

Well firstly, no cloud storage system works with 0 locally cached data. What Uber are essentially doing is deleting evidence covered by the warrant by deleting the local copies. The evidence may exist elsewhere, but that doesn't mean that deleting the evidence covered by the warrant is any less illegal. Once the warrant is served, anything done to delete anything off that computer is obstruction of justice, it doesn't matter what the mechanism of storage is- whether it's RAM, Hard Disk or floppy disk. Secondly, the warrant is what compels uber to give access to the evidence, there's no 'We don't feel like it right now, go to the courts to try something else'. The ability of the authorities to gain evidence through other legal avenues provides literally no defence for uber in failing to comply with a warrant.