Uber developed secret system to lock down staff computers in a police raid | Hacker News Reader

Uber developed secret system to lock down staff computers in a police raid

amp.theguardian.com

41 pointsghosh10 comments

I can't even fault Uber for doing this.

Governments are not friendly.

They have seized billion dollar factories for their own use.

I only imagine a trivial tax problem would give a corrupt government the opportunity to seize assets.

How can you not fault Uber for this? There is a rule of law in this country that has to be observed. Furthermore, it clearly shows intent to cover up illegal activities.

Uber doesn't only operate in that country. When you operate at the scale and international scope that uber does, economic warfare, espionage, and corrupt governments are a real thing.

I hate Uber but I don't think this is something to really fault them on.

Which country is 'this' country? Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium, France or Hong Kong.. or did you not read the article?

If it were any company other than Uber, you would not even have heard about it. Think what one will about Uber (and my thoughts are admittedly not positive), it's not like the gummint has a stellar track record on raiding only guilty parties. IOW, I find this no more unusual than, say, keeping your servers patched.

Maybe Uber's hiding stuff? Yeah, maybe they are. But when the government comes in and grabs all your shit, they get the upper hand while it's all sorted out. Violated the 4th Amendment? Yeah, that's too bad, we're really sorry about that, we promise to unsift what we've already sifted through. It's easier if the stuff is just locked down to begin with, then after the raid we can make sure our warrants are in order, you actually have the right company, and you're just generally allowed to do this, then we can unlock the machines with smiles on our faces.

> we promise to unsift what we've already sifted through.

The government is not Uber's competition, and actually has interest in them existing as they can collect taxes from them. It's not appropriate to view it through an "adversarial" lens.

Not all government officials and police officers are the same. Have you heard of Magnitskiy scandal in Russia? TL/DR: police had given the materials taken during the police raids to organized criminals, who used them to fraudulently reclaim $230m of the taxes previously paid by the company.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Magnitsky#Exposing_the_...

> Governments are not friendly.

Neither are corporations. Uber is not your friend.

It's common for Corporations operating across borders to have such systems in place. When countries disagree, they often take it out on companies domiciled in the perceived offending territory.

Also discussed here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16124165

Reply on news.ycombinator.com