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Uber Admits Its Ghost Driver 'Greyball' Tool Was Used To Thwart Regulators, Vows To Stop (usatoday.com)
Uber has admitted it used a tool to thwart city regulators, and announced a review of its controversial Greyball technology. From a report on USA Today: Greyballing, a play on blackballing, was a way for Uber officials to remotely provide ghost driver information to a targeted individual. A March 3 report on the program in The New York Times cited a 2014 example where a regulator in Portland, Ore., a city in which Uber was operating without approval at the time, was unable to hail a car because of his Greyball-powered app. "We have started a review of the different ways this technology has been used to date," Joe Sullivan, Uber's chief security officer, wrote in a blog post. "In addition, we are expressly prohibiting its use to target action by local regulators going forward."
Ahh yes, the classic "We promise to stop if you promise not to double-check".
Who here will bet that the regulators won't get caught in some other filter instead, perhaps one sending a "certified" car for the pickup?
They know *precisely* how it has been being used. This company just continues to define unethical and creepy in the 21st century (no mean feat, when they are competing with the likes of Facebook and Google for that disctinction). Enough, already. Somebody, please, regulate the living **** out of them.
My apology to both of you. USA Today now changes the link of the article and the body of the article as you scroll down, or hit arrow keys. I accidentally linked to a different story. Have fixed it. Thanks for pointing it out, both of you.
"expressly prohibiting its use to target action by local regulators going forward"
But they're not going forward now are they? That's exactly what the app prevents them from doing. /sarcasm
Regardless, the statement is overly specific and pretty much meaningless as a result.
Why not just state you won't be operating without a license any more?
They effectively promised to continue operating without a license but use different tools to obstruct regulators with local responsibilities.
The focus shouldn't be on this tool, it's that they were knowingly and willfully breaking the law.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
I went to the fine article and I still can't tell what is being argued over. What's a ghost driver? What does Greyball do, exactly and how does it thwart oversight? None of that is clear anywhere! I'm used to figuring things out given context but the context is so dense or missing I can't tell what is going on or why.
BTW: The second link is not germane to the conversation. It's bringing up the CIA leak from earlier this week, not the Uber article.
It sounds like Uber has drivers in locations where it is against the law to do so. In order to "hide" them from regulators (turn them into ghost drivers), it looks like they created a list of regulators and government employees that was then used in the app to filter out who could get ride sharing service. For example, if John worked for the transport department he wouldn't be able to hail an Uber through the app. However, if Mary was a regular person standing next to John, her ride hail would go through.
At least that's my understanding...
Driver in a cab company is an employee of a public business. Public businesses do NOT have unlimited right of association - and are required to serve all members of hte public the same. It's called the Civil Rights Act.
Companies are not people and do not have, nor should they have, the same freedoms as individuals.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Now, how they knew when a sting was happening...
A simple check box when hailing a ride: "Are you a cop? If you are you have to tell me."
...or when an assault was being planned...
Another simple check box: "Are you planning to discuss politics?"
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Could it be that the population in general are simply whores with no more morals, just as long as the price is right ?
There was a doubt?
My case-study is Walmart. Back in the nineties they had made a concerted effort to push American Made, they were advertising how they supported local jobs and local industry and were trying to buy as much locally-produced merchandise as possible. As a consequence they were a third-rate retailer struggling behind all of the major anchors at the malls, behind K-Mart, and behind Target.
At some point Walmart decided to abandon this approach and focus solely on price. And it worked. They went from being just another minor player to being the largest retail corporation in the world in a matter of a decade by pandering to the lowest common denominator, even when they decontented their products, borderline-bankrupted their suppliers through strong-arm tactics, and forced their employees to essentially rely on government assistance in order to support themselves. And they're more popular than ever.
So yes, the population in-general are simply whores with no morals as long as the price is right.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
You're ignoring the middle-ground, which includes those in cities that lack a medallion system, where there can be as many cabs as the market will bear. In these environments, taxi regulation is reactionary to bad things that have happened in the past, like sexual assault, robbery, severe injury in traffic collisions, and a lack of insurance to fully cover injuries sustained by passengers.
Taxi and sedan companies have laws that regulate them because of incidents that happened in the past. Following those regulations costs money. If a company ignores those regulations then they can charge less, but that means that the conditions now exist that may let those previous kinds of incidents return. That's where I have a problem with Uber and its ilk, they're a taxi or sedan service attempting to masquerade as an until-now unclassified "ride sharing" entity so they can violate the laws governing passenger safety.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Never have your city/state staff meet in any government building.
Be aware of your staff been followed digitally and in person near government buildings.
Set up any groups of staff away from government buildings, parts of the city with other government workers using a front company near lots of other private sector workers.
Ensure no contact between staff and other government workers. Undercover gov staff sitting down with their gov colleagues over lunch can be mapped out digitally.
Run your staff like an Embassy in a nation that has a lot of digital systems and workers for counter surveillance.
Ensure gov staff stay off all social media. If they have past social media with a photo that lists any gov work, don't use them for such tasks.
Facial recognition will detect any and all gov workers accounts.
Never talk of ongoing government work on any digital network or with other government workers.
Do not request any support or provide any ongoing comment on any city, state, federal or private digital network, phone or random government worker.
No gossip, no support calls, no funding, no meetings, no updates, no emails, no calls into a government building from any type of phone.
Use private cars. Do not drive around government buildings with the same cars.
Use paper, a filing cabinet until the gov work is done.
When meeting workers who are undercover, don't have a phone with you and beware that private detectives been used to track senior gov staff.
Sitting next to any other person with a phone will get them added to a tracking database.
Use trendy phones and call in pattern that match normal private sector hours. If most people work 9 to 5, call as a normal person would be expected to.
Never over use a phone too many times or call at strange hours using different staff with the same cheap phone.
Pattern matching will show all errors made when using phones. Be a normal user, using a trendy phone in expected hours a few times a week, blend in with all the other users.
Some basic ideas would have prevented all this. Any police force in the world could have offered such simple tips to gov staff.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"