> Most people would've gotten their personal-ish data off a corporate laptop with a usb key/harddrive which they probably wouldn't have triggered any alarms.

Most top banks use Citrix technology (or similar virtual desktops) to stream workstations for employees accessing both locally and remotely, so the only way you can get data out is by using your phone to take photos.

The Flash Boys presentation is not accurate: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9047068. (Though I don't think you should be sent to prison for a crime like that.)

Banks and similar financial companies are extremely paranoid about data security. Working at one all USB drives were mounter read only unless they were specifically provided by the company and encrypted using provided software. Anywhere you could upload files was blocked as well.

Companies that care about data security typically disable write access on USB ports.

What's to stop someone from sending sensitive data as an attachment via email using an encrypted email service? I don't think a proxy can detect much besides data size correct? I suppose a virtual desktop could log which files are uploaded.

I thought waymo's lidar sensors were much, much cheaper than other sensors: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/01/googles-waymo-invests-i...

We're talking about reducing a ~$25000 part to ~$2500.

Levandowski allegedly downloaded 14,000 files. The lidar circuit designs, while arguably trivial, are what Waymo can prove have been appropriated.

I imagine there are more software people capable of programming their way through the problem than electrical engineers that can work their way through it.

An electrical engineer is also going to see the Uber name and expect Valley idiocy, while being a being a secondary concern for not being softwary enough.

...and then after that, do also read Flash Boys: Not So Fast by Peter Kovac. Not necessarily for Aleynikov's case in particular, but because it's healthy to see both sides of the greater narrative that Lewis unfolds.