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Uber Has Been Using a Secretive Program To Identify Enforcement Officers And Prevent Them From Hailing Cars (nytimes.com)
Uber has been using a secretive program to evade authorities for years, particularly at times when city regulators were trying to block the ride-hailing service, according to a new report by the New York Times. From the report: Uber is using a tool called "Greyball" to work identify requests made by certain users and deny them service, according to the report. The application, later renamed the "violation of terms of service" or VTOS program, is said to employ data analysis on info collected by the Uber app to identify individuals violating Uber's terms of service, and blocks riders from being able to hail rides who fall into that category -- including, according to the report, members of code enforcement authorities or city officials who are attempting to gather data about Uber offering service where it's currently prohibited. The report claims that that Uber's "violation of terms of service" or VTOS program, briefly known as Greyball, began around 2014, and has sign-off from Uber's legal team.In a statement, Uber said, "This program denies ride requests to users who are violating our terms of service -- whether that's people aiming to physically harm drivers, competitors looking to disrupt our operations, or opponents who collude with officials on secret 'stings' meant to entrap drivers."
Journalists, putting things in context. Russell Brandom, a reporter at The Verge said, This is the kind of thing a DA would put in front of a judge if they wanted to subpoena Uber's business records for an entire city. Matt Rosoff, editorial director at CNBC Digital added, I've been a tech journalist on and off for 21 years and I can't remember any company having a worse month news cycle-wise than Uber is now.
Journalists, putting things in context. Russell Brandom, a reporter at The Verge said, This is the kind of thing a DA would put in front of a judge if they wanted to subpoena Uber's business records for an entire city. Matt Rosoff, editorial director at CNBC Digital added, I've been a tech journalist on and off for 21 years and I can't remember any company having a worse month news cycle-wise than Uber is now.
I'm open to the idea that Uber is an evil company, but what's with all the Uber news lately? We've had story after story this week. It isn't normal, even for a company as bad as Oracle, to have news story after news story released like this. The whole thing looks like someone is leaking to the press at an opportune time, which raises the question,
cui bono? I don't know the answer to that, but it must be somebody.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I am an Uber driver in the San Francisco bay area.
And I can't speak for other cities, but Uber is so cheap and ubiquitous in my area, Uber is cheaper than public transportation in many cases, it works even during rush hour when most people can't get a taxi, plus it works when Bart is shut down after midnight, that I am quite certain that we're keeping tens of thousands of drunk drivers from driving on the roads each year.
That will not continue. They are attempting monopoly. When they achieve it they will exploit it.
For me being in a taxi means that if there is an accident I am covered every way from Sunday. Regardless of who is at fault, regardless of medical insurance status, irregardless I will be covered and compensated for losses. If I travel in a Uber car, a paying fare, I am not covered at all, not even by the local mandatory third party insurance. A potential disaster.
Calling and using a cab provides limited information to the cab company. Using Uber reports my location (and god knows what else) to Uber 24/7 and I am even paying for the electricity and hardware to do it. While the cops may get such records form the phone company, Uber just demanding, taking them is an insult. Why would anyone sane accept those terms of service?
The intent of Uber is a world wide (or as wide as they can get) monopoly. Its business model is a losing proposition at its current pricing rates. When other alternatives (some better, some worse) have been wiped out it will exploit that monopoly and not only price wise. It will have the capacity to make areas popular or unpopular and all the influence that comes with that.
They are not even subtle about it. You know what "uber" means don't you? Google übermensch and uber alles.
Understand how all your best local and state workers are been discovered and tracked digitally.
Walking into and staying in a gov building kind of shows that on average a person might work for a gov but its not 9 to 5 but way more than a normal private sector person needing something from their gov as a one time visit.
People who report back to a gov building for a few hours per week might be undercover. That sorts most of the private sector visits and normal gov workers.
Some low tech ways to counter such easy tracking.
Hire new staff and ensure they never enter a city, state gov building. A private sector front company to work from.
Use a trendy phone and app like as average person would. The brand of device matches the average call rate and cost of the service.
Using a service at 10am or 2pm more than average from a very cheap phone is not normal in a nation of workers at work.
South African law enforcement faced such issues in the 1990's. Its older generation of expert undercover officers faced public comment.
Its new officers lacked decades of undercover skills. So teams got created that never went near any gov/police buildings. Skill sets got protected, teams trained and tracking such people who never showed any connection to law enforcement was difficult.
The way the CIA gets its staff into the US state department and ready for missions under US diplomatic cover in Russia.
Russia is able to look back over the entire public and private digital life of all US embassy staff using US public and very expensive private sector methods.
How does the CIA get its best into Russia? The CIA creates the perfect US government worker that finds an embassy job. Their past does not link back to some fancy US college, mil or in any way with anything that could be CIA. Such generational CIA teams can then move around Russia with Russia thinking they might really just be normal embassy staff. Just a normal worker walking around Russia. No CIA skill sets on show.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"