Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

Uber Letter Alleges Surveillance on Politicians and Competitors

posted by martyb on Sunday December 17 2017, @01:43PM   Printer-friendly
from the gonna-need-more-popcorn dept.

takyon writes:

A redacted copy of the letter that caused the Waymo v. Uber trial to be delayed (again) has been released:

At first glance, the Jacobs letter [is] an incredibly detailed accounting of multiple unlawful actions by the ride-hail company. He alleges that Uber's secretive Strategic Services Group (SSG) "frequently engaged in fraud and theft, and employed third-party vendors to obtain unauthorized data or information." He also accuses Uber security officers of "hacking" and "destruction of evidence related to eavesdropping against opposition groups." And he says Uber's ex-CEO Travis Kalanick knew about a lot of it.

Another Uber employee, Nicholas Gicinto, along with SSG, conducted "virtual operations impersonating protesters, Uber partner-drivers, and taxi operators." These Uber security employees went to great lengths to hide their surveillance activities from the authorities, Jacobs says. They used computers not purchased by Uber that ran on Mi-Fi devices, so the traffic wouldn't appear on Uber's network. They also used virtual public networks and "non-attributable architecture of contracted Amazon Web Services" to further conceal their efforts, Jacobs alleges. Who were they surveilling? Jacobs says SSG's targets included "politicians, regulators, law enforcement, taxi organizations, and labor unions in, at a minimum, the US."

And then there was Uber's innocuously named Marketplace Analytics team. Jacobs says this group was responsible for "acquiring trade secrets, codebase, and competitive intelligence... from major ridesharing competitors globally." According to Jacobs, Marketplace Analytics impersonated riders and drivers on competitor platforms, hacked into competitor networks, and conducted unlawful wiretapping.

In one of the weirder sections, Jacobs alleges that Uber's surveillance team infiltrated a private event space at a hotel and spied on the executives of a rival company so they could observe, in real time, their reactions to the news that Uber had received a massive $3.5 billion investment from Saudi Arabia. That eavesdropping was directed by ex-Uber security chief Joe Sullivan at the behest of Kalanick, Jacobs says.

Uber calls Richard "Ric" Jacobs "an extortionist", but the judge in the case disagrees.

Also at NYT and Recode.

Previously: Uber Evaded Law Enforcement With "Greyball"
Real-Life Example of Uber's Regulator-Evading Software
A Spectator Who Threw A Wrench In The Waymo/Uber Lawsuit

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Uber Letter Alleges Surveillance on Politicians and Competitors | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 3 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 17 2017, @09:01PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 17 2017, @09:01PM (#611086)

    permissions requested by the Uber app on Android [ycombinator.com] (as of 3 years ago):

    - Accounts log (Email)

    - App Activity (Name, PackageName, Process Number of activity, Processed id)

    - App Data Usage (Cache size, code size, data size, name, package name)

    - App Install (installed at, name, package name, unknown sources enabled, version code, version name)

    - Battery (health, level, plugged, present, scale, status, technology, temperature, voltage)

    - Device Info (board, brand, build version, cell number, device, device type, display, fingerprint, ip, mac address, manufacturer, model, os platform, product, sdk code, total disk space, unknown sources enabled)

    - GPS (accuracy, altitude, latitude, longitude, provider, speed)

    - MMS (from number, mms at, mmss type, service number, to number)

    - NetData (bytes received, bytes sent, connection type, interface type)

    - PhoneCall (call duration, called at, from number, phone call type, to number)

    - SMS (from number, service number, sms at, sms type, to number)

    - TelephonyInfo (cell tower id, cell tower latitude, cell tower longitude, imei, iso country code, local area code, meid, mobile country code, mobile network code, network name, network type, phone type, sim serial number, sim state, subscriber id)

    - WifiConnection (bssid, ip, linkspeed, macaddr, networkid, rssi, ssid)

    - WifiNeighbors (bssid, capabilities, frequency, level, ssid)

    - Root Check (root staus code, root status reason code, root version, sig file version)

    - Malware Info (algorithm confidence, app list, found malware, malware sdk version, package list, reason code, service list, sigfile version)

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   +3  
       Interesting=3, Total=3
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Total Score:   3