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Judge's Order Bars Uber Engineer From LiDAR Work, Demands Returns of Stolen Files (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A U.S. federal judge has ordered Uber to bar its top self-driving car engineer from any work on LiDAR, and return stolen files to Google's self-driving car unit Waymo. Today's order by U.S. District Judge William Alsup demands Uber do "whatever it can to ensure that its employees return 14,000-plus pilfered files to their rightful owner." The files must be returned by May 31. The order was granted last week, but just made public in an unsealed document this morning. U.S. District Judge William Alsup found that Uber "likely knew or at least should have known" that the man it hired as its top self-driving car engineer, Anthony Levandowski, took and kept more than 14,000 Waymo files. Those files "likely contain at least some trade secrets," making some "provisional relief" for Waymo appropriate. Levandowski has previously asserted his Fifth Amendment rights with respect to his possession of the files. "If Uber were to threaten Levandowski with termination for noncompliance, that threat would be backed up by only Uber's power as a private employer, and Levandowski would remain free to forfeit his private employment to preserve his Fifth Amendment privilege," Alsup wrote. Several factors limit the amount of relief Waymo might receive. First of all, in the judge's view, not all of the 121 elements that Waymo defines as "trade secrets" are really trade secrets. Additionally, the judge has slapped aside Waymo's patent infringement accusations as "meritless."
I guess they should amend it:
Current: "No tipping of drivers"
New: "No tipping of drivers nor of the company by newly hired executives"
I feel no sympathy for that company.
NT
It was around the time I had turned 13, I had my first experience with an
older guy. It was at scout camp and was with the guy that was taking the
place of our regular leader for the 2 week camping session. I didn't have a
tent partner since my best friend who was going to be with me, could not go
on the trip. I spent the first 3 nights in a tent alone, but then Lance,
the substitute leader, suggested I bunk in with him. I think he was about
27 years old. He had a very fit, jock bod with curly blond hair and a
killer smile. I was always tall for my age then about 5'8", still mostly
smooth bod, but my junk had grown and I had sprouted a wispy ring of
pubes. I thought Lance was a wicked hot looking guy and I know I had a
boy-crush/hero worship going for him, so I was happy to share a tent with
him. After a few days with him, I would take every chance I got to watch
him change his clothing, strip for a swim or a shower and I think he soon
got the idea I was checking him out. He got very casual about how often I
saw him in his boxers and if he changed out of them he would seem stay
naked a little longer than he needed to when changing into swim
trunks. Maybe he was happy to give me bit of a show. I decided to do the
same and probably found a few too many reasons to change into or out of my
swim trunks or whatever I was wearing in front of him.
One day when we were swimming, he suggested a swim across the lake. We
swam away from all the rest of the guys in the troop, to the opposite side
of the lake and climbed out onto some boulders that were along the
shore. There was a path that lead up the side of the mountain and up to
some rock ledges the overlooked the lake. We could see back to the swimming
area on the other side but when we stretched out to enjoy the sun we could
not be seen from the other side of the lake. We talked a long time and he
told me he liked spending time with me even though I was "just a kid..." I
laughed with him about saying that. We were both on our backs and didn't
talk for a long while and from the sound of his breathing I thought that he
fell asleep. I slowly leaned up over him and looked his body. Thinking
about it now, I know I wondered should I kiss him?
I don't know how long I was looking at him, but I admired his tight pecs
with just a little ring of hair around his nips and then a hot looking
brown/blond treasure trail leading down into his shorts. I very carefully
reached over and touched the top of that line of hair. I was fascinated
since I was still pretty much hairless. His skin was warm to my touch, I
ran my fingertips up and down this hair line to the top of his shorts. I
let my hand rest on his stomach, feeling it rise and fall with his
breathing. I pushed the tips of my fingers to the waist band of his shorts
but was too scared to do more. I really wanted to feel him up more,
especially when it looked like his junk got a little stiff from my touch. I
slid my hand up his chest again, then thought maybe I was doing too much so
looked at him, his face, his lips, wanting to kiss him but too timid to try
that. So I kissed the tips of my fingers and very lightly touched them to
his lips. I was very nervous about what I had done, so I laid back down
next to Lance and closed my eyes, smiling at the fact I got the chance to
touch him.
I rested there for a while then I sensed Lance moving and he was sitting
up leaning over me. Then I heard him whisper my name, when I didn't answer,
I guessed he thought I was sleeping. After a few moments I felt a very
light touch of his fingers glide down my chest to my navel. It was all I
could do not to scream out, I think I did gasp a little but still pretended
to be sleeping. He said my name again but I remained silent. He was slowly
gliding his fingers over my chest, nips, stomach, and abs AND then along
the top band of my sw
Why don't these companies just work together for the good of humanity? Make Earth great again!
Return the files?
Did the judge really think this guy walked out pushing a trolley loaded with boxes of paperwork?
Or that he copied all 14,000 to an external HDD, then deleted all the originals and the backups, including all the off-site tapes?
Or is he so disconnected from contemporary reality that he doesn't know that what constitutes a "file" nowadays is not necessarily the same as when he studied law all those years ago?
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Once the cat is out of the bag, they can't really have assurance that the files will be "returned" and copies not kept.
I see this all the time, and it's fucking stupid, and it's driving me nuts.
Any files the engineer may have do not need to be "returned" because that implies Waymo no longer has those files. The implication is the engineer took the files, as if they were some paper files in a file drawer somewhere, leaving Waymo without the files. This is 2017. The files were COPIED and don't need to be "returned to their rightful owner." The owner most likely has them. The MOST the judge should do is tell the engineer/Uber to provide the files so Waymo can just verify they have them and they weren't deleted from Waymo's servers. What am I missing here?
The judge should order Uber to turn all of its LiDAR files (current and future) over to Waymo.
Certainly would make the next company think twice about hiring someone for access to stolen files...
and I still notice BeauHD has a job. I'll check back in another year and see if /dot has come of their senses.
"...would remain free to forfeit his private employment to preserve his Fifth Amendment privilege,"
Is a privilege the same thing as a right in the US?
The question Uber should be asking itself right now is, what will Levandowski be taking from them when he leaves...
Google watches absolutely everything its employees do on their work laptops:
"On December 14, he attached a "portable data transfer device" to his work laptop for about eight hours."
everything else in the list could be figured out through server side logs except for how long the portable hard drive was connected. although 8 hours is a bit excessive for 10 GB. I wonder what hardware he was running
I'm keeping their digital copies everywhere, including MEGA, cha cha chaaaa!