Uber, like many companies that operate internationally, uses software to remotely disable its employees' laptops and smartphones.
As Uber has expanded -- opening offices in 78 countries worldwide -- sometimes local authorities have raided its offices. Police have wanted emails, documents and information on drivers and employees. It's happened in Paris, Hong Kong, Montreal and other countries.
In order to address these types of situations, the ride-hailing company uses software to protect its data, which is commonplace among companies that operate internationally. One type of software the company devised and reportedly used from Spring 2015 to late 2016 was called Ripley, according to a report by Bloomberg.
Ripley -- which was said to be named after Sigourney Weaver's character in the 1979 sci-fi movie "Alien" -- could remotely disable, lock or change the password on employees' computers and smartphones.
The idea was for Uber's team at its San Francisco headquarters to be able to shut down a device if necessary. The company used it at least two dozen times in situations with authorities in foreign countries, according to Bloomberg.
Uber said it no longer uses Ripley because it wasn't effective. It now uses an off-the-shelf software called Prey and another type of software it built called uLocker. Uber said this software is necessary to protect company data, along with the privacy of passengers, drivers and Uber employees.
[...] As for software like Ripley, Prey or uLocker, Uber said there's nothing secretive about it. It's basically the same software someone would use if they lost their smartphone.
"For instance, if an employee loses their laptop, we have the ability to remotely log them out of Uber's systems to prevent someone else from accessing private user data through that laptop," the Uber spokeswoman said.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 13 2018, @09:39AM
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(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday January 13 2018, @11:23AM
once obstruction of justice happens ONCE (it happened according to TFS), the mere presence of this malware is proof of obstruction of justice. Well done Uber, as usual.
But alas, I am talking about justice, I dunno about law.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 13 2018, @02:48PM (1 child)
What company doesn't have this ability, on *their* equipment? THEY would be the 'news flash'...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 13 2018, @04:33PM
You may have missed the point, which is not that they have this software, but that they're allegedly using the capabilities afforded to them by these software packages to actively 'pervert the course of justice' by wiping evidence remotely from a.n.other.location when the authorities try to collect it in the course of 'busting' them at a.different.location.. talk about the law of unintended consequences in action.
Sneaky? yes, greasy? yes, and yet somehow I ended up grudgingly admiring their chutzpah after reading about this.
Time to get some more popcorn in, I can see this being fun.
(Score: 1) by corey on Saturday January 13 2018, @09:22PM (2 children)
I never seem to read any good news about this dodgy company.
I guess this is to mitigate risk of authorities finding they are operating as a transport company, underpaying people and tracking users when they're not using the service.
Oh, and I don't buy the argument that a lot of other companies use this sort of tech.
Gimme a taxi any day. Urgh.
(Score: 2) by aliks on Saturday January 13 2018, @11:02PM (1 child)
You think ordinary taxi drivers are honest????
There may be a few honest ones, but I always seem to meet the ripoff artists , or the drivers who take every opportunity to boost the fare.
Gimme Lyft any day.
To err is human, to comment divine
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 14 2018, @12:19AM
Can you use Lyft anonymously and without any proprietary software? I just checked, and it does not seem so. So there are no users of Lyft, only suckers who allow themselves to be used.
(Score: 2) by pendorbound on Tuesday January 16 2018, @04:22PM
I love a good "Uber's evil!!1!" story as much as the next nerd, but this seems like due diligence. You have portable devices with corporate proprietary data or PII on them (or remote access to same), you have a remote kill switch for them. Is the next news article going to dump on them for using Find My Phone, Exchange, or whatever to remote wipe a lost smart phone?
If someone calls tech and says, "The Feds are here, wipe it!" that's obstruction. If there's a standing order for, "Push this button if people who don't work for us are trying to get to the computers," and that button locks the shop up tight, I don't see a problem with that. If a bank employee heard shouting out front and slammed the safe door shut, that's fine. I don't expect the employee to stick his head out and see if the people doing the shouting have a warrant first before attempting to secure corporate assets.
From what I'm reading, it's not even that they're wiping data on the machines. Sounds like all the data is stored at Uber corporate, and everything's remote access. "The Button" logs everyone out & probably locks the accounts. Law enforcement searching the remote location has a warrant for data stored in that location. They don't have the right to access data remotely over the corporate network. If they want that data, they need to serve process in the jurisdiction the data is stored. Anything else is the same as the "You must honor a US warrant in every country in the world" BS that Google & Microsoft are litigating against right now.