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posted by martyb on Wednesday October 04 2017, @06:01AM   Printer-friendly
from the Alphabet-Über-Alles? dept.

A cybersecurity firm hired by Uber found that Anthony Levandowski retained confidential information from Alphabet/Google after leaving the company:

A key document in Alphabet's legal battle against Uber reveals that a former Alphabet executive had a trove of data on Alphabet's self-driving car technology and accessed some of the files after he left the company.

The document outlines operational details of a startup founded by Anthony Levandowski, who was a lead engineer in Alphabet's self-driving car division. Uber commissioned the report in March 2016 specifically to discover if Levandowski had any confidential information from his former employer, Alphabet.

Levandowski's startup, Otto, was soon acquired by Uber, and he was put in charge of its budding self-driving department.

Levandowski and his co-founder Lior Ron had images of Alphabet's self-driving car components on his phone and repeatedly discussed deleting or actually deleted "potentially relevant" files from his personal devices, the report revealed.

It does caution, however, that some of these files may have been deleted in good faith so that neither Ron nor Levandowski retained any confidential information before leaving Alphabet and selling their company to Uber. In the same breath, the report, conducted by cybersecurity firm Stroz Friedberg, also said they were both still deleting files after they became aware they the firm would be looking through their personal devices.

The report does not indicate whether or not Uber used any trade secrets carried over from Google. That could be the key to getting a multi-billion dollar payout.

Stroz Friedberg report.


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @07:03AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @07:03AM (#576940)

    Google should keep track of its own goddamn property. The judge should throw this out of court, stating in summary "If you leave your house unlocked with the door wide open, then you shouldn't be surprised that you get burgled." Then companies like Google would spend their own damn resources securing their own damn property, rather than foisting the cost onto society's legal system.

  • (Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday October 04 2017, @04:15PM (2 children)

    by LoRdTAW (3755) on Wednesday October 04 2017, @04:15PM (#577070) Journal

    So if you accidently left your door unlocked and I robbed your house, you'd be cool with that? Where do you live and what times are you not at home?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @08:51PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @08:51PM (#577174)

      If a Google employee leaves a yellow Google bike unsecured on the sidewalk (but away from Google/Alphabet's locations/properties) in Mountain View, is it OK for me (not a Google employee) to hop on and ride it somewhere?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @09:27PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 04 2017, @09:27PM (#577197)

      That's not at all what OP is saying. How can you not comprehend this fact?