

Uber Tries to Remotely Encrypt Corporate Data During Government Raid [ENGLISH] - nstoddar

Uber Engineers in San Francisco would have tried to remotely encrypt the data in the Uber Canada computers during the search conducted by Revenu Québec in Montreal last week.<p>This is what is alleged by Revenu Québec in the information that was filed before Judge Jean-Pierre Braun last week, and that La Presse has obtained. Uber sought to challenge this statement before the judge, but has not had the opportunity, we learn in the injunction Uber also presented in court last week.<p>Search for Uber Canada offices<p>On May 14, fifteen Revenu Québec investigators conducted searches of computer data to administrative offices Uber Canada Notre Dame. Investigators are looking for evidence to demonstrate qu&#x27;Uber Canada is violating the tax law by not collecting GST and QST on behalf of its drivers to UberX.<p>Around 10:40, one of the investigators found that &quot;mobile devices such as laptops, smart phones and tablets have been restarted remotely&quot; during the seizure. Another investigator, who performed a second term in another office, found exactly the same phenomenon, also at 10:40. &quot;IT systems were handled remotely, we performed an IT asset takeover by putting off considering the urgency and high risk remote data change,&quot; reads the information presented to Judge Jean-Pierre Braun.<p>Also according to the denunciation, the CEO of Uber Montreal, Jean-Nicolas Guillemette said later at one of the investigators &quot;that he discussed with the engineers Technology Uber San Francisco and that they had encrypted the Remote data &quot;.<p>source:http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.lapresse.ca&#x2F;actualites&#x2F;justice-et-affaires-criminelles&#x2F;actualites-judiciaires&#x2F;201505&#x2F;26&#x2F;01-4872822-saisie-chez-uber-des-donnees-auraient-ete-modifiees-a-distance.php
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greenyoda
See also the discussion of the original French version:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9615498](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9615498)

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zorpner
It was pretty inventive to use English-language as a reason to kill the post
(it's not actually part of the guidelines, of course, it's just that almost no
non-English posts get upvoted to the front page).

Clearly, it would have been straightforward to replace the link with an
automated translation and allow the discussion to continue.

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perfTerm
The thing is automatated translations are often awful to read. Hackernews is
probably better off waiting for a native speaker to write up something about
it because the article will maintain the interest of greater numbers of people

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vonnik
Thanks for the great translation. One clarification for readers: The tense in
the first sentence of the translation is a modal "would have", which is used
to indicate indirect quotes in French. What it really means is that Uber
engineers _did_ try to remotely encrypt data, Revenu Quebec says.

Penultimate paragraph: "Another investigator, carrying out A RAID in another
office..." "Un second mandat" hear means carrying out a second set of orders.

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late2part
If indeed Uber personnel actively encrypted their data after it was seized,
this brings up an interesting question!

If your property is stolen and taken without your permission, and you can
control it - why aren't you entitled to destroy it?

I suppose it depends on the legality and force of the order to seize; but if
it did not include an order to the owner, I posit they were within their
natural rights to delete their data.

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spacehome
The really clever way to encrypt your drives is to make the passphrase for the
drive decrypt a very small (512-bit) header that contains the decryption key
for the rest of the drive. Then wiping the drive consists of just erasing
those critical bits quickly.

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contingencies
Except that erasure on modern drives rarely actually erases things...

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cnvogel
Hence it is advisable to store the encryption key somewhere where erasure was
properly accounted for during design, e.G. a TPM (trusted platform module).

