florean

Why would you think this stuff wasn't in writing? Do you think the investigation OAI did into the board's actions was just relayed orally?[1] That the board's discussions where all done in conference calls and not in e-mail? Do you think that this documentation gets routinely released to the public or even employees? Before you throw around accusations of incompetence, you should probably have some shred of evidence. This is the type of stuff that is typically considered extremely confidential and even now they say they are unable to reveal details. Why do you think that is? What is preventing them from doing something they apparently want to? Legal agreements such as NDAs, the same ones that would have prevented them from going public with details last years.

The board's mistake was not figuring out a way to go public with their case against Sam when or before they fired him. They obviously misjudged how he would respond. But even there we don't know the full context and constraints they were under. Hopefully, one of them will answer that question of why they didn't at some point, but until we know more, we would be wise to reserve judgement.

[1] https://archive.is/wbwC2

Yes, it really went that deep. But only if you pinky swore to only use that data to improve your app and then delete it! Facebook changed their API in 2014 and removed that ability, allowing companies to only see the profiles of friends that already had the same app (which the developer already had access to anyway). They claimed it was for user privacy, but really they realized they were giving away the crown jewels and allowing other companies to recreate large swaths of their social graph.

Not really. The EPA has done this for decades, specifically for Superfund sites. When you can, it's more efficient to have bad actors pay for their bad acts rather than burdening an industry as a whole.

I was joking about Alsup allowing Uber's pretrial malfeasance to be disclosed to the jury. But the quotes in this Ars Technica article[0] make me wonder. "My normal inclination is, let’s decide the case on the merits but I’ve never seen a case where there are so many bad things like Uber has done." "It looks like you covered [the Jacobs letter] up, refused to turn it over to the lawyers that were most involved in the case, [and] to me, for reasons that are inexplicable." It sounds like Alsup is split on the Jacobs letter because he might be a "disgruntled employee who sees the handwriting on the wall". And he really wanted to know why Jacobs' lawyer got $3m for writing a letter. Alsup knows something doesn't smell right about the Jacobs settlement. If it is allowed...

[0]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/waymo-asks-ubers...

Only in @kateconger's replies[0], but it appears Alsup is still deciding whether he'll allow the Jacobs letter to be admitted as evidence for the jury. Excluding a letter alleging Uber stole Waymo trade secrets would be a big blow to Waymo. Especially one that Uber paid $7.5m to suppress. There isn't going to be a smoking gun, so Waymo has to make the case that Uber probably stole Waymo trade secrets because they've acted like they probably did.

[0]: https://twitter.com/kateconger/status/935971693192818688

Oh, now we know how the USA got it: https://twitter.com/kateconger/status/935912822478794752. Uber "voluntarily disclosed the Jacobs letter" because Jacobs threatened to involuntarily disclose it. However, Uber tried to hide it in this case (despite it/Jacobs mentioning Waymo); the USA gave it to Judge Alsup because he had initially recommended the case for criminal investigation and they thought he might find it relevant in his trial. At this point, Uber has lied so consistently it seems like they should forfeit their opportunity to offer testimony. I wonder if the judge will allow any of this to be brought up with the jury.

I didn't say the tweet I referenced was one she was mistaken about. I said it had an interesting tidbit that I had not otherwise seen reported. For ones she got wrong, see https://twitter.com/CSaid/status/935599952515837952 and https://twitter.com/CSaid/status/935541698284863488. The judge was clearly upset at Uber's lawyers, not those of Waymo. Mistakes happen, but it made her stream more confusing than it should have been, because you had to think harder about each reference to either company. @KateConger's stream was much clearer, but she didn't mention the performance review testimony.

Unfortunately, @CSaid mistakenly used Waymo instead of Uber in a few places, but she did have an interesting tidbit I haven't seen in any of the subsequent articles[0]: the former employee of Uber claimed that he was reprimanded in a performance review and then demoted for "not protecting more info from discovery." How is that not a huge deal?

[0]: https://twitter.com/CSaid/status/935573560461967360

Judge Alsup got the letter because the US Attorney's office passed it along to him. I haven't seen anything about how the US Attorney obtained it, but presumably criminal prosecution and subpoenas provide a greater disincentive to lying than civil suits. Also, there were two parties who would have had this letter: Uber and the lawyer(s) who wrote the letter on behalf of the former Uber employee. Unlike Uber, those attorneys would have little incentive to be anything but transparent.

Uber supporters often seem to think that the only alternative to an easy to use ride hailing app is driving drunk and killing someone. It would take some careful research to correlate Uber rides to drunk driving deaths and I have yet to see someone attempt it.

Even worse: he interrupted her talking about research results and started with "Actually, what it shows..."

You are shielding The Intercept from criticism. The Intercept has not countered the DOJ testimony or any of the other reporting on this. The FBI has sworn that these things happened. So let us think through the counterfactual that you're proposing: The Intercept didn't burn their source and the FBI lied to a federal judge on a warrant application. In that reality, the Intercept would immediately publish a story about how the FBI lies to federal judges. Not only would it be a huge blockbuster, but that search warrant would be fucked and the search (during which she confessed) would be inadmissible. Not only do they have a huge story, they got their source off!

Instead, they released this chickenshit statement that tries to cast doubt on the testimony without actually disputing any of it: https://theintercept.com/2017/06/06/statement-on-justice-dep... So, it looks like we live in the reality where the FBI didn't lie on a warrant application and The Intercept burned a source.

She didn't communicate with any reporters over Gmail. She e-mailed The Intercept asking for a podcast transcript months ago and again to confirm her account. In fact, she had no electronic correspondence of any kind regarding the leaks (that we know of).

I recommend reading the search warrant application, paragraphs 12-19. It's the second document in this BuzzFeed story: https://www.buzzfeed.com/stevenperlberg/a-federal-government...

Why do they need parallel construction when The Intercept narrowed it to a single person (printed and lives in Augusta, GA)? I'm going to restrict my conversation on this topic to the reporting and sworn testimony.

How does the FBI know it was printed? Because the Intercept told them. It could have been screenshots from a phone. It could have been downloaded from some hack. The number of people that viewed a document is going to be a superset of the number of people that viewed and printed a document. And if they're worried someone could access the report outside of their controls, then the set gets even larger. The Intercept only needed to disclose some content and the intelligence report number to get confirmation. Instead, they gave away how they got the report (printed), narrowing it to a set of six, and then they gave away the postmark, narrowing to a set of one. The Intercept burned their source.

They did not. They told a government contractor that the document had been printed and mailed from Augusta, GA, who then reported it to the government. That's what got her, microdots or not.

You can read the search warrant at https://www.buzzfeed.com/stevenperlberg/a-federal-government..., which is more complete than the arrest warrant. Just read paragraphs 12-19, which cover the relevant probable cause. If the FBI don't know how it leaked (printed) and from where (Winner's home town), the case becomes extremely difficult. Instead, they had so much that she just confessed when they showed up.

> There's no evidence that it was The Intercept's actions that caused her to be found.

There's plenty of evidence The Intercept's actions caused her to be found. It's documented in the FBI's affidavits for arrest and search warrants. https://www.buzzfeed.com/stevenperlberg/a-federal-government...

To wit: 'The Reporter told the Contractor that the Reporter had received the documents through the mail, and they were postmarked "Augusta, Georgia."'

So the FBI looked up who printed the document and of those six, who lived in Augusta, GA. Open and shut. Thanks, The Intercept!

We're talking about the FBI, not the NSA, and court documents.

> Meanwhile the alleged leaker allegedly used her work computer to contact The Intercept.

This really should be ignored. The FBI included it as probable cause for their search and arrest warrants, but she had e-mailed them asking for a podcast transcript months earlier. As far as leaking, she mailed the document to them and had no electronic communication at all. The Intercept blabbed that it was postmarked Augusta, GA and was printed, which is what gave her away. They screwed up and if they want anyone to feel safe leaking to them again, they need to own up to it and describe how they are going to fix their procedures to protect their sources in the future.

> the NSA simply looked up everyone who had accessed the document and inspected their workstations for clues.

The FBI doesn't mention the watermark in their affidavits, but they do mention that The Intercept gave away that the document had been printed and mailed from Augusta, GA. That allowed them to quickly zero in on Winner. The only "clue" on her workstation was that she had e-mailed The Intercept asking for a podcast transcript months before. In other words, she knew The Intercept existed. The Intercept burned her.

Important businesses are the ones that need restrictions the most. "Too big to fail" doesn't work, for society or consumers.

Because it violated their agreement with Apple and accessed private APIs, infringed on user privacy, and they geofenced the behavior to try to sneak it past app review. It's another example of Uber knowingly being evil.

> I'd be surprised if an insurance company would determine fault without a police report.

You haven't had to deal with an insurance company. I've dealt with at least five claims personally. None had a police report. A couple were well over 2k. It would be very easy for a company with Uber's resources to avoid an official report outside a regulatory requirement. If they paid whatever it cost for any driverless accident that didn't involve an injury, there would be no insurance claims, let alone police reports.

You usually don't have to report accidents. See my comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13241292

> You're technically required to report accidents to the police when they happen, are you not?

No, you are not. Unless there is an injury or death, you just exchange information and pay the other party or let insurance figure it out. "You must call the police or the CHP if the accident caused a death or injury." http://www.calbar.ca.gov/Public/Pamphlets/AutoAccident.aspx#... In WA, you also have to report if there was over $1k in damage. But it is obviously easy to estimate it is under that while at the scene of the accident. http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=46.52.030 Most states are the same. If there wasn't an injury and it isn't impeding traffic, the police don't care.