
Uber finds one allegedly stolen Waymo file on an employee’s personal device - folz
https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/05/uber-finds-one-allegedly-stolen-waymo-file-on-an-employees-personal-device/
======
Animats
Judge Alsup:

"If your guy is involved in criminal activity and has to have criminal lawyers
of the caliber of these two gentlemen, who are the best, well, okay they got
the best. But it’s a problem I can’t solve for you. And if you think I’m going
to cut you some slack because you’re looking at—your guy is looking at jail
time, no. They [Waymo] are going to get the benefit of their record. And if
you don’t deny it—if all you do is come in and say, “We looked for the
documents and can’t find them,” then the conclusion is they got a record that
shows Mr. Levandowski took it, and maybe still has it. And he’s—he’s still
working for your company. And maybe that means preliminary injunction time.
Maybe. I don’t know. I’m not there yet. But I’m telling you, you’re looking at
a serious problem."

...

"Well, why did he take [them] then?". "He downloaded 14,000 files, he wiped
clean the computer, and he took [them] with him. That's the record. He’s not
denying it. You're not denying it. No one on your side is denying he has the
14,000 files. Maybe you will. But if it's going to be denied, how can he take
the 5th Amendment? This is an extraordinary case. In 42 years, I've never seen
a record this strong. You are up against it. And you are looking at a
preliminary injunction, even if what you tell me is true."

Uber is having a very bad day when a Federal judge starts talking like that. A
preliminary injunction looks likely. If Uber can't find anything, this goes
against them. Nobody has denied that Levandowski copied the files. Uber paid
$600 million for Otto's technology and people. Even if the files didn't make
it to Uber's computers, Waymo can probably get a preliminary injunction
shutting down much of Uber's self-driving effort. Then Uber gets to argue that
their technology is different from Waymo's. It's going to be hard to argue
independent invention when all the people are from Google's project.

~~~
akiselev
For those who don't recognize the name, this is the same judge that learned
some Java for the Oracle v. Google case (and has an undergrad degree in
mathematics). Every time I read his name I know it's going to be a fun ride
and the lawyers will not be able to get away with anywhere near as much
shenanigans as they usually do. Although his ruling regarding API copyright in
the Google case was overturned, he has a really strong record of making
judgments that stand the test of appeals.

I vote Alsup for Ginsberg's seat.

~~~
faitswulff
His middle name is Haskell :p

\-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Haskell_Alsup](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Haskell_Alsup)

~~~
abhgh
I was about to comment this. You don't mess around with this highly functional
a judge ;-)

~~~
kupiakos
He wanted to bring purity to the US justice system.

~~~
dangoldin
I wish his behavior led to some side effects on the justice system.

~~~
matt4077
The courts are actually pretty first-class. Take a look at the transcript
posted elsewhere in this thread for a reference to the transparency of the
system, and how this judge is defending it. Supreme Court cases also make for
pretty fun reading sometimes, and there's no denying that judges tend to be
extremely smart and conscientious.

~~~
nstj
He's definitely the kind of judge who is able to avoid all kinds of procedural
problems which are typically an issue in this type of justice system.

------
YCode
Offhand, this kind of sounds like a parent asking their teenager to go and
search their own room for drugs.

"Nah, I didn't find anything. I found this plastic bag that looks like it
mighta had something in it, but I'm pretty sure my friend left it here and it
was empty when he brought it."

"Okay son, go search again."

~~~
ekidd
> Offhand, this kind of sounds like a parent asking their teenager to go and
> search their own room for drugs.

I have expressed this attitude to corporate lawyers before, and asked them how
the system deals with bad actors.

Basically, if a judge catches you lying during discovery, they can issue a
default judgement against you and impose very serious additional damages. For
example:

[http://newenglandinhouse.com/2015/06/09/default-judgment-
aff...](http://newenglandinhouse.com/2015/06/09/default-judgment-affirmed-
based-on-discovery-violations/)

Furthermore, the lawyers in question can be disbarred:

[https://apps.americanbar.org/litigation/litigationnews/civil...](https://apps.americanbar.org/litigation/litigationnews/civil_procedure/101515-discovery-
rules-abuse.html)

A sufficiently annoyed judge has a broad range of sanctions available for
punishing people who get caught gaming the system. (Some of these sanctions
may take years to fully play out, though.)

~~~
Hydraulix989
It's pretty hard to catch if your only search interface is through the liar.

~~~
WalterSear
Moreover, I've seen 'mistakes' and intentionally 'last minute' delivery of
documents myself at trials, along with what essentially amounts to blatant
filibustering. It was considered 'part of the game'. No one was punished.

~~~
milesrout
I've seen many cases thrown out of court for this.

~~~
stanleydrew
That's great if you're the defendant...

~~~
milesrout
It's good for everyone that the police can't skirt around the rules of
discovery and present 'last minute evidence' that denies peoples' right to a
free trial, yes.

~~~
caf
The context here is civil cases (I think the GP means "respondent" rather than
"defendant"?)

~~~
benchaney
Respondent is the term for the party advocating against overturning a previous
ruling during an appeal. Defendant is correct in this case because this is not
an appeal.

------
ABCLAW
It is surprising that Google did not push the court to appoint a third party
discovery firm to handle the device imaging process and to provide a report to
the court.

Maybe both parties' intense desire for privacy in this matter has driven
Google to this strategy.

The seeming ludicrousness of the result - Alsup's "go try again, harder this
time" \- is not caused by this case's parties playing badly. It is caused by
poorly defined and understood laws surrounding what constitutes a defensible
search. Data handling in this stage of legal proceedings is imperfect, and can
be manipulated by both parties to drive up the cost of litigation, or to
strategically avoid disclosing the key breadcrumb documentation that would
otherwise have led to the smoking gun(s).

Edit: Please find the court reporter transcript here:
[http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3533784-Waymo-
Uber-3-...](http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3533784-Waymo-
Uber-3-29-17.html#text/p3)

Judge Alsup's comments are fairly aggressive in comparison to most commercial
litigation, but the no-nonsense tone is par for the course.

~~~
wapz
I'm really surprised at how the search is going too (by the article). "Go find
these documents." "Didn't find them." "Okay go again." "Okay." Now if you're
an employee that has any of those documents and you weren't searched the first
time, there's no way you'll be caught with the documents by the time the
second search starts.

~~~
andreareina
My reading is that it's not the results being judged, but the process of the
search. Given the high confidence that seems to be assigned to the claim that
14,000 documents were downloaded, "we asked our employees to give us what they
have, and this is all we got" isn't good enough.

------
matt4077
This judge is mighty impressive, and since it's so much in fashion these days
to be suspicious of institutions, I want to highlight this passage:

THE COURT: If you all keep insisting on redacting so much information, like --
and you're the guilty one on that, Mr. Verhoeven -- then arbitration looks
better and better. Because I'm not going to put up with it. If we're going to
be in a public proceeding, 99 percent of what -- 90 percent, anyway, has got
to be public. [..]

THE COURT: The best thing -- if we were -- one of the factors that you ought
to be considering is maybe you should -- if you want all this stuff to be so
secret, you should be in arbitration. You shouldn't be trying to do this in
court and constantly telling them not to, or you putting in -- the public has
a right to see what we do. [..] And I feel that so strongly. I am not -- the
U.S. District Court is not a wholly owned subsidiary of Quinn Emanuel or
Morrison & Foerster or these two big companies. We belong to the public. And
if this continues, then several things are going to happen. One, we're going
to call a halt to the whole -- we're going to stop everything. And we're going
to have document-by-document hearings in this room,

~~~
life_on_mars
So from what I understand, Google is litigating this in public, but their
lawyers, such as Mr. Verhoeven, are redacting everything on their side they
don't want public. This makes it sound like Google is doing this in public
mainly to hurt Uber as much as possible in the court of public opinion. Am I
wrong in interpreting Google's actions this way?

Sounds like this and many other conflicts Google had with Mr. Lewandowsky over
the years should have been dealt with in arbitration. This just looks like
Google acting out a vendetta against Mr. Lewandowsky. They tolerated his
actions when he worked for them and even after he left to work for himself,
but turned against him once he joined a competitor.

While on paper, it doesn't appear that Mr. Lewandowsky is a saint, Google
doesn't look good here either. Google's behavior here should give any engineer
pause about considering Google as a place to work. California doesn't allow
non-compete agreements, and this looks like Google attempting to achieve the
effects of a non-compete through litigation. "If we can't hire and keep Mr.
Lewandowsky, then we'll make sure our competitors can't either."

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
A vendetta against Mr. Levandowski? Google paid him _$120 million_ , and he
then took that same technology for another multi hundred million dollar payday
from Uber. Mr. Levandowski's avarice is basically something I can't really
comprehend.

------
themgt
'“To the extent Uber tries to excuse its noncompliance on the grounds that Mr.
Levandowski has invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to provide Uber with
documents or assistance, Waymo notes that Mr. Levandowski remains — to this
day — an Uber executive and in charge of its self-driving car program. Uber
has ratified Mr. Levandowski’s behavior and is liable for it,” Waymo attorney
Charles K. Verhoeven wrote in a letter to the court (emphasis his).'

Ouch.

~~~
jerf
No, that's a completely non-substantiative quote from an attorney for one side
that contains the implicit assumption that Uber really does have the documents
and is actively committing crimes in discovery to prevent the discovery from
working. Not only is it not an unbiased source, it's basically a source being
paid to be biased. Which is fine; I am generally down with the philosophy of
adversarial justice. But you shouldn't read much of anything at all into that
quote.

For those of us on the outside, while we are justified in considering that a
possible hypothesis, we are also justified in looking at the facts and
considering that it may indeed be the case that these documents were never
given to Uber. I for one have no trouble believing that the documents were
downloaded by an individual but that they were never given to Uber, as I
rather suspect "keeping more than one really ought from one's previous job but
never raising to the level of actually giving that stuff to one's next
employer" is really quite common.

~~~
CalChris
> No, that's a completely non-substantiative quote from an attorney for one
> side that _contains the implicit assumption that Uber really does have the
> documents_

Implicit assumption? The first paragraph of the TechCrunch article says:

    
    
      Uber admitted today that it had found one of the documents Waymo alleges was stolen by a former employee — who left its self-driving car effort to join Uber’s — on the employee’s personal computer.

~~~
komali2
Until the facts of the case come out, don't fall into the dangerous dark hole
of fully buying into either story.

The other day I booted my old galaxy s3 to put a new ROM on it and turn it
into a dashcam. I found on it that google drive had offline backed-up some
documents from a company I had worked at several years ago, and no longer did.
Should I be sued for trade secret theft?

~~~
vuln
I don't find this to be the same. What you did could be defended easily by
saying it was an accident and you behavior would have been nonmalicious. You
didn't purposely back up some old files, start a new company with the same
exact tech from those said files then sell the new company 2 months later for
a cool 680mill. If you did that then yes your old employ would definitely have
a case against you. If your story is as described they company would lose.

~~~
komali2
All of the first part of the things you said is a part of the accusation.

>Waymo says he took 14,000 documents, while Kshirsagar and Radu Raduta took
only a few. Waymo is now asking for Uber to turn over those stolen documents
as part of the discovery process

My understanding is that part of the case is deciding if it is true that
14,000 documents were taken.

So again, the only known _truth_ is that a single document was found on a
guy's device.

What I am concerned with is that we all fall into the "Uber BAD, Waymo GOOD"
trap simply because Waymo is kicking up a big shitstorm. Let the process of
law happen, let the facts of the case arise, before we pass judgement.

~~~
matt4077
The taking of 14,000 documents is actually assumed to be true currently for
the purposes of this case. That's because Uber is in no position to deny it,
only Lewandowsky could. And he can't deny it, because then he could no longer
invoke his right to remain silent.

Of course, the documentation from Waymo/Google is also pretty strong
apparently. Simply saying "I didn't do that" would be insufficient.

~~~
komali2
> Uber is in no position to deny it, only Lewandowsky could. And he can't deny
> it, because then he could no longer invoke his right to remain silent.

So he should give up his 5th amendment right to fend off an accusation? I
don't think so, that doesn't sound like justice to me.

>documentation from Waymo/Google is also pretty strong apparently.

 _pretty_

 _apparently_

Come on man, you know what angle I'll go for here. Why are you letting that
slip? The documentation aka _evidence_ hasn't been seen yet because this case
hasn't gone to court. _None of the most relevant facts of the case have come
to light_.

I'm happy to hop on the "Uber is evil" train _after_ the case, but it is
painful to watch the normally quite rational people on HN fall for such a
typical fallacy of justice.

~~~
nl
>> Uber is in no position to deny it, only Lewandowsky could. And he can't
deny it, because then he could no longer invoke his right to remain silent.

> So he should give up his 5th amendment right to fend off an accusation? I
> don't think so, that doesn't sound like justice to me.

That's how the 5th amendment works. It gives you the right to avoid self-
incrimination, but if you invoke that right and there is other evidence
against you then you'd better have some other way of refuting that evidence.

~~~
life_on_mars
Has this other evidence even been presented yet?

edit: given that even a simple question was downvoted, I can only conclude
that there are likely a lot of Google employees downvoting anything that
doesn't support Google's side in this dispute.

~~~
matt4077
I downvoted you because–considering your strong opinions–it seems unlikely
that this is a question asked in good faith. And even if, it is answered both
in the article, as well as pretty much implied in the headline.

GOOG-ACCOUNTING-REF:3FX/ASTRO/15/TURFWAR/PROJECTSOROS

------
golfer
Interesting statement here from the judge and Uber's attorney (Gonzalez).
Gonzalez worked for Alsup at some point in their careers.

Judge Alsup: Look. I want you to know I respect both sides here. And everyone
knows I know Mr. González from the days when he was a young associate and I
was a partner, and he was working for me on cases. And he has gone on to be a
much better lawyer than I ever was. But you shouldn't have asked for in camera
on this. This could have all been done in the open. I'm sorry that Mr.
Levandowski has got his -- got himself in a fix. That's what happens, I guess,
when you download 14,000 documents and take them, if he did. But I don't hear
anybody denying that.

[https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3533784/Waymo-
Ube...](https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3533784/Waymo-
Uber-3-29-17.pdf)

------
discodave
I just realized how stark the prisoners dilemma here between Uber and
Levandowski is. Based on what Alsup was saying today that if Uber can't
produce counter-evidence by May 3rd, they are staring down the barrel of a
preliminary injunction, they're damned if they fire him and damned if they
don't.

1\. Levandowski remains at Uber. Keeps asserting his fifth amendment rights,
which means that Uber can't present evidence to thwart Googles theft claims.
Judge files a preliminary injunction, sad trombone, no self-driving cars for
Uber.

2\. Uber fires Levandowski. Now, he has no reason to protect Uber, the
incentives for him are to avoid criminal prosecution. He could even do a deal
with Google or a prosecutor to cooperate in the civil case in exchange for
avoiding criminal prosecution. Uber is then likely to lose the _actual_ case,
sad trombone, no self driving cars for Uber.

As others have pointed out, the stakes for Uber are incredibly high, they
missed the china train and if they can't catch the self-driving-car train,
then their $50+ billion valuation is up in smoke.

Man I wish I could be shorting Uber right now.

------
checkdigit15
"Judge William Alsup, who is presiding over the case, ordered Uber to search
more thoroughly for the documents."

Judge Alsup always winds up with the most interesting cases :-)

~~~
sndean
Ohh, didn't realize this is the same judge who taught himself Java
([https://www.wired.com/2012/05/google-schmidt-page-
damages/](https://www.wired.com/2012/05/google-schmidt-page-damages/))

------
fowlerpower
This story is fascinating for tech people everywhere and we should all pay
attention.

We all have big dreams of starting our own company some day (I know do) and
many of us work for big corporations that would rather we never go anywhere
and work for as little as possible. (admittedly the markets are forcing them
to pay us a lot but they aren't doing it out of good will).

The outcome of this will teach us all very valuable lessons. I can't be the
only one who is a little paranoid that if I start my own shit I'll be sued or
that I may even be sued for some of the side projects I'm working on even
though I've never taken any code or resources from my company.

~~~
throwaway729
_> The outcome of this will teach us all very valuable lessons._

Lesson #1: Don't steal.

 _> I can't be the only one who is a little paranoid that if I start my own
shit I'll be sued or that I may even be sued for some of the side projects I'm
working on even though I've never taken any code or resources from my
company._

Lesson #2: If someone accuses you of theft, _deny it_ instead of pleading the
fifth.

Assuming their accusations aren't truthful, of course.

~~~
dllthomas
Your Lesson #2 is wrong. If someone accuses you of theft _listen to your
lawyer_ , whether you are innocent or guilty.

~~~
throwaway729
And if your lawyer tells you to plead the fifth and clam up, don't be
surprised when your business receives an injunction.

I'm not a lawyer, but Alsup is, and he states as much in an abundantly clear
tongue lashing of Uber's lawyers:

[http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3533784-Waymo-
Uber-3-...](http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3533784-Waymo-
Uber-3-29-17.html#text/p3)

Sorry, but I don't buy it. Of course you should talk to lawyers first, just as
Levandowski did.

But at some point, if you're truly innocent, I'm sure the best lawyers in the
business could find a way for you to say "I'm not guilty" without hurting
yourself.

~~~
dragonwriter
> But at some point, if you're truly innocent, I'm sure the best lawyers in
> the business could find a way for you to say "I'm not guilty" without
> hurting yourself.

In a perfect world, being actually innocent would mean zero risk of conviction
of a crime with a vigorous and dedicated defense, no matter what the
prosecution did.

We don't live in a perfect world, and it is, in fact, quite possible for a
situation to exist where you are actually innocent and on-balance have better
expected results by invoking the Fifth.

Even accepting potential negative consequences that may have outside of the
criminal realm.

~~~
throwaway729
I agree in principle and understand your point.

But I have a hard time imagining a specific scenario where you're accused of
IP theft and a lawyer can't find a way to say "my client is not guilty of IP
theft" without compromising their client.

At the very least, at some point, the client is going to have to enter that
"not guilty" plea.

~~~
dragonwriter
> But I have a hard time imagining a specific scenario where you're accused of
> IP theft and a lawyer can't find a way to say "my client is not guilty of IP
> theft" without compromising their client.

Okay, how about where they actually physically have the documents that are the
subject of the case, cooperating with discovery would reveal them, but they
didn't actually use them in the new job or take them with intent, even though
the other people accused alongside did actually steal smaller numbers of
documents, and use them in the new job without your clients knowledge, so that
your only real hope besides gambling on a jury's inferences of intent is that
a criminal case is never initiated because your clients possession of the
information doesn't come to light.

> At the very least, at some point, the client is going to have to enter that
> "not guilty" plea.

A plea is non-testimonial, does not open up cross examination, and does not
open up threat of perjury. And, no, they don't have to do that if criminal
charges are never filed, which is exactly what you are hoping for if you are
invoking the Fifth in other circumstances because of potential _future_
criminal prosecution.

~~~
throwaway729
My assumption is that intentionally copying IP onto a personal device and
removing that device from the office -- regardless of any actual intent to use
that data -- is still theft. Which would make the former employer's claims
truthful.

It's super unclear to me how you would _accidentally_ retain a copy digital
documents...?

Like I said, it's hard to imagine this scenario actually happening. But for
good measure:

Lesson #3: Leave work at work and startup at home.

~~~
mcbits
I actually did something like this long ago (pre-2000) - emailed a set of
detailed and very confidential sales spreadsheets to my personal email. It
wasn't "theft" (and AFAIK nobody even noticed). It was so I could convert the
spreadsheets to a proper Access database on my own time, since that's not what
I was paid to do but it made my job a lot easier.

I would probably have been in a world of shit if anything came of it, though.

~~~
throwaway729
I've worked for employers who were 100% convinced this is theft, even without
some intent to use that information, and even discussed very similar
hypotehticals in on boarding.

~~~
mcbits
Right, that's why I mentioned how long ago this was because very few employers
were as Orwellian about this stuff as they are today. Calling it theft was
hyperbole then and is hyperbole today.

------
DannyBee
A lot of people seem confused by the idea that a party can request personal
documents someone else has.

Just like in criminal land, civil land has subpoenas. Parties can issue
subpoenas for most things to other parties. In federal court, civil subpoenas
are covered by Federal Rules of Civil Procedure rule 45.

[https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_45](https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_45)

Outside of the exceptions listed, yes, you would be required to produce
information you have.

~~~
kelnos
I think also in this case it's a matter of Uber telling its employees, "hey,
if you have any of this stuff on your personal laptops, you'd better give it
to us" (with the perhaps-implicit "or we might fire you" on the end of it).
Two of the employees are playing ball, but Levandowski has clammed up (and
Uber, to the judge's amusement, is allowing him to do that without
repercussions).

~~~
DannyBee
Uber firing you may not be the worst of it. You can end up in jail for
contempt until you comply: "The rule is also amended to clarify that contempt
sanctions may be applied to a person who disobeys a subpoena-related order, as
well as one who fails entirely to obey a subpoena. In civil litigation, it
would be rare for a court to use contempt sanctions without first ordering
compliance with a subpoena, and the order might not require all the compliance
sought by the subpoena. Often contempt proceedings will be initiated by an
order to show cause, and an order to comply or be held in contempt may modify
the subpoena's command. Disobedience of such an order may be treated as
contempt"

Obviously, can't hold you in contempt (or at least, can't punish you) if you
validly took the 5th, but ...

------
aresant
This resolved to the Judge ordering a deeper search:

"[The Judge] told Uber to search using 15 terms provided by Waymo, first on
the employees’ computers that had already been searched, then on 10 employees’
computers selected by Waymo, and then on all other servers and devices
connected to employees who work on Uber’s LiDAR system."

Seems interesting that there's not a more comprehensive system or way to
search for these since Google is clearly in possession of the specific
documents they claim are stolen.

The way they're continuing the Judge's order to look for "15 terms" almost
makes it seem like the extent of the original search was tied to file name or
document titles or something?

~~~
moftz
They are probably very specific search terms that are repeated in the
documents and might be unique enough to show up in any documents created by
someone plagiarizing the Waymo docs. The fact that 31,000 other documents also
contain these phrases but are "not substantive" makes it seem like the search
terms are somewhat generic but definitely appear in the Waymo docs. Uber might
have ruled out all of those other docs by just looking at the dates the docs
were last modified. If they are older than when Levandowski or any of the
other people previously employed by Waymo joined Uber, then they can probably
be vetted as original IP.

------
woodandsteel
As a former grokoholic, I must say all this heavy-duty legal drama makes me
miss Groklaw and pj.

~~~
HappyTypist
Thanks NSA!

------
dmritard96
Are there any opensource autonomous/driverless car projects with substantial
momentum. This seems like something so foundational to the next 50 to 100
years that it needs to be 'owned' by everyone.

~~~
drawnwren
To be completely honest, it seems like this is going to be so tightly tied to
hardware that it won't matter _that_ much.

------
joshu
I assume "14000 documents" is one repo checkout.

------
woodandsteel
It seems to me that even if Uber proves that Levandowski never downloaded the
files to Otto, much less Uber, they still are in deep trouble unless they can
prove that he never laundered the information in them through his brain to
help Otto or Uber develop their technology.

------
umanwizard
I don't really get how the orders to search for documents on employee-owned
devices are possibly enforceable. What stops employees with incriminating data
from just throwing their devices in a river before they can be searched?

------
dfar1
1 file is too many files.

------
jankassens
How would Uber find files on some employees personal device?

~~~
codazoda
It's a good question, since the article also says that the employee is
refusing to cooperate on 5th amendment grounds (which is likely smart).

~~~
sbov
It's a different employee. The article doesn't mention whether or not
Kshirsagar has invoked the 5th amendment.

------
MegaButts
I get the feeling 2017 is going to be a very entertaining (from a news
perspective) year for tech.

~~~
seangrogg
I've been kicking around the idea of Popcorn as a Service.

~~~
MegaButts
I would like to invest in this idea. Food delivery is hot, and we need to
disrupt the entertainment industry!

~~~
problems
You just write the app that matches popcorn providers with popcorn buyers in
their area and charge a 2x markup - 5x during popcorn surges!

~~~
sophacles
Nah, the real money is being a MaaS provider. (Marketplace as a Service). Why
try to strike gold when you can just get rich selling the gold-rushers some
picks and shovels? It shouldn't be much more than an API and some customizable
matching algorithms (e.g. proximity or pricepoint or keywords and maybe a
scheduler or two).

I'm only half-joking in that I wouldn't be surprised to find out this is a
thing already.

~~~
imh
Nah, too niche. Why try to strike it rich selling picks and shovels to gold-
rushers when you can get richer doing logistics for those pick-and-shovel
merchants? MaaSaaS is where it's at.

------
siliconc0w
It seems like Uber has to prove a negative here - because Google has evidence
Levandowski took the files they need to show they don't have theM? Or that the
files weren't involved in their self driving IP? Not sure how they're supposed
to do that.

~~~
tannhauser23
You come up with a discovery plan that both parties can agree with (or one
that's imposed by the court). You figure out the scope of the search (which
DBs, hard drives, phones, etc.), the search terms to run, etc. You do
depositions of employees to figure out who and where else potentially relevant
documents can be. Obviously you can't prove a negative, but you end up doing
an exhaustive search.

------
woodandsteel
What Google really wants is to prove that Uber is using the technology in the
product it is developing. So the question is how Google will go about trying
to prove that, and what Uber would need to do to prove it is not.

~~~
gtirloni
The case will proceed to expert witnesses in time. The 14,000 documents seem
to be Uber's smallest problem in this case.

~~~
dragonwriter
Yeah, I think it's quite likely that the patent charges, for which _how_
Uber/Otto got to the designs is immaterial (except in terms of enhanced
penalties for willfulness, which Levandowski's knowledge, with or without the
documents, may be enough for), may be the real killer.

------
clubm8
I'm curious how Uber (a private company) got access to someone's personal
laptop. If my employer demanded access to my personal machine I'd tell them to
pound sand.

~~~
Haydos585x2
Someone else in this thread links to sources but it looks like in civil cases
things can be subponead in a similar way to the criminal system.

Edit: Found it,
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14046529](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14046529)

------
jeffdavis
Aren't you supposed to settle criminal cases before civil ones? Is the guy
formally indicted?

If they just did the criminal trial first, he couldn't claim 5th protections,
right?

~~~
rhino369
DOJ doesn't always go after trade secret cases, especially if there is
adequate civil remedies. But even when they do, they often let the civil
plaintiff do the heavy lifting and then come in with a criminal charge using
the information obtained by the plaintiff.

Google probably can't wait until a long criminal trial happens.

Civil discovery is easier than criminal investigations.

------
smallhands
i have a very very bad feeling that one day in a distance future employer will
be demand your sign over anything that come from your head over to them before
they will offer you job.

------
mannykannot
It is like finding one cockroach in the kitchen.

------
caroherm
What is the background story for this article?

~~~
nyolfen
[https://danielcompton.net/2017/03/14/uber-
bombshell](https://danielcompton.net/2017/03/14/uber-bombshell)

------
dumbasswebsite
How is Uber inspecting employees' personal devices?

------
maverick_iceman
The whole court transcript is well worth a read. Fortunately, no legalese.

------
visarga
> highly functional a judge

Best joke I read today.

~~~
nstj
Downvotes? Looks like there's some kind of scheme against this thread.

~~~
some1else
I think the logic used to go "Don't comment if you don't have anything to add
to the discussion". So people downvote comments that should have just been
upvotes in the first place.

------
alacombe
and the file was... stdio.h. Damn !

------
dsschnau
Uber is basically pleading the fifth. Hahahahaha

------
08-15
Why did Waymo sue Uber? They should have sued Levandowski---he copied (no, he
didn't steal!) the files in question, after all.

~~~
woodandsteel
They are suing Uber because they claim it is using the technology in their
product. Since Uber bought Levandowski's company, it is morally equivalent to
Uber having hired Levandowsky to spy on Google.

