
How Uber Used Secret “Greyball” Tool to Deceive Authorities Worldwide - coloneltcb
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/03/technology/uber-greyball-program-evade-authorities.html?_r=0
======
SilasX
It took me about 8 paragraphs in to figure out what Greyball is, so to save
you the time: Uber used various data sources to identify which people are
likely government officials who are trying to collect incriminating data on
them, and then blocks them from the service so they can't be caught in sting
operations.

But there's a lot in the article that doesn't make sense:

>Other techniques included looking at the user’s credit card information and
whether that card was tied directly to an institution like a police credit
union.

I couldn't find a good source, but it doesn't seem like that's something a CC
merchant would have access to. Do they really get to see that?[2]

Also, how were they able to do it so accurately _without_ disrupting their
service? Most city employees and police aren't going to be involved in sting
operations against car services, so their customer support will have to deal
with a _torrent_ of very confused government employees [1] who keep getting
mysterious rejections when they try to use they app, and which support can't
give a truthful answer on.

Plus, this seemed to require _significant_ on-the-ground intel and human
intervention:

>If those clues were not enough to confirm a user’s identity, Uber employees
would search social media profiles and other available information online.
Once a user was identified as law enforcement, Uber Greyballed him or her,
tagging the user with a small piece of code that read Greyball followed by a
string of numbers.

So, I'm surprised it worked at all.

[1] identified by the fact of that person having more-than-usual activity
inside something recognized as a government building

[2] EDIT: Okay, I get it -- you can look up banks from the CC number. Can we
not have further comments just to point this out?

~~~
us0r
Maybe not a popular opinion but I find this entire thing pure genius.

>I couldn't find a good source, but it doesn't seem like that's something a CC
merchant would have access to. Do they really get to see that?

The first 6 digits of a credit card can identify the issuing bank (BIN number
-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_card_number](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_card_number)).
If you ask your merchant they can readily provide you and up to date list.

This plus public payroll records (such as
[http://transparentcalifornia.com/](http://transparentcalifornia.com/))
probably took them quite far.

~~~
jfoutz
I agree. It's genius in a Lex Luthor kind of way. If I understood the full
scope of the application, I like to think i'd decline to work on that. It's
easy to imagine engineers working on small parts of the system, and never
really connecting the dots that the whole point is to evade law enforcement.

There's a big difference between keeping secrets for market advantage and to
evade the law. In the first case, I want to tell people because i'm building
cool stuff, but i can't, at least not until the product is ready. In the
latter case, i'd be at least embarrassed, if not ashamed of the tools.

But I agree, it's slick. It's easy to be an armchair quarterback when it's not
my career at stake. With millions or billions of dollars on the line, my
ethics might erode much faster than i want to admit. In that case, I'd hope
evil jfoutz (or ethically devoid jfoutz) would build such a sophisticated
tool.

~~~
mindcrime
_It 's easy to imagine engineers working on small parts of the system, and
never really connecting the dots that the whole point is to evade law
enforcement._

I would volunteer to work on that project _because_ its whole point is to
evade law enforcement. A lot of us (hackers/technologists) take a pretty dim
view of arbitrary State regulations and "laws" and are quite happy to work to
evade them. Most people who fit the techno-libertarian or cypherpunk mentality
would probably feel the same way.

~~~
blackguardx
How far does your scofflaw streak go? Is this different from adding law
enforcement blocking controls to any illegal tech product? Should everyone get
to decide what laws to follow?

I think you are describing anarcho-capitalism, not libertarianism.

~~~
hype7
Yes, everyone should decide what laws to follow. Ask rosa parks or any poor
soul unfortunate enough to be a citizen of nazi Germany.

~~~
pharrington
The civil rights movement was in no way about the abolition of the rule of
law. Hitler's promise of greatness actually did seduce a ton of the
economically and socially devastated German population. Hitler was a known
outlaw. Even if you can't yet think your premise through to the end, _at
least_ consider the consistency and truth of your own words.

------
HorizonXP
How diabolical!

In a world where privacy has been traded away for convenience, it's poetic
justice where a startup uses data mining techniques to subvert the government.
This is the same government that would have no issues to use the same
techniques to spy on its own people for its own motives.

I'm neither on Uber nor the government's side in this case, just simply making
an observation. The lack of data privacy seems to be a double-edged sword for
users and government/law enforcement alike.

~~~
maldusiecle
My perspective is the opposite. In a world where large multinationals have the
power to evade the law in a deliberate and systematic way like this, it's easy
for governments to claim they need the same kind of power. Things like this
are exactly what bureaucrats point to when they make their arguments for a
surveillance state.

I don't like the US government much, but I like it a lot better than the
average multinational. When it comes down to it, we don't have more than our
choice of devils.

~~~
lacampbell
_I don 't like the US government much, but I like it a lot better than the
average multinational. When it comes down to it, we don't have more than our
choice of devils._

If I don't like Uber, I can... stop using Uber. What can I do if I don't like
the service a state provides - can I opt out and stop paying? No, my only
option is to flee - which the state will often try and prevent you doing
anyway.

The state is a huge corporation, that will use force to change you for its
services, whether they are good or not, or whether you use them or not. Your
only option to avoid this involuntary charge s to flee - and the state
reserves the right to employ violence to stop you doing even that.

It seems pretty clear to me which is more immoral.

~~~
nemacol
You can vote, run for office, petition, volunteer, protest,etc to the local,
state, and federal government to have policies that reflect your values. The
only thing you can do with Uber is use it or not. Maybe you could write Uber a
letter.

You have a say in government - that is its stated goal and purpose. Of the
people for the people.

~~~
darawk
The 'say' you have in government is much smaller than the 'say' you have in
using Uber. I can choose not to use Uber any time I please. I can not choose
not to be pulled over for speeding, or opt out of murder laws temporarily.

The fact that you don't have a say in Uber's corporate decisions is
irrelevant, because you can simply stop using it. You don't need a say. The
fact that you can't opt out of government is why you're given a say, and what
makes it infinitely more dangerous.

~~~
mavrc
> The 'say' you have in government is much smaller than the 'say' you have in
> using Uber. I can choose not to use Uber any time I please.

True.

I have effectively no choice in ISP, and no choice in power company. At what
point do I get to vote on seats on my ISP's board, or my power company's?

~~~
modeless
Guess why you have no choice in ISP or power company? Because the _government_
deliberately regulates those markets to reduce competition, often to the
monopoly level. But they don't give you any compensation for that, such as a
say in how the companies are run.

This is the root cause of many problems in other markets too. High
pharmaceutical prices? The government granted monopolies (patents) to those
companies. Forced to use Windows? Microsoft has a government-granted monopoly
(copyright) on Windows. Strange that limiting or revoking these state-granted
monopoly rights is never considered as an option for remedying these problems.

More relevant to this article, the government has historically put drastic
limits on the number of taxis that can operate in a city, to the point where
the permits required to operate one were once worth over a million dollars
apiece. The need to disrupt that system is why Uber developed a culture of
law-breaking to begin with.

------
Fede_V
This is incredibly awful, but not particularly surprising.

One of Paul Graham's most read essays is about the qualities that YC looks for
in founders
([http://paulgraham.com/founders.html](http://paulgraham.com/founders.html)).
In that essay, he specifically discusses 'Naughtiness' as a positive quality,
and how it's one of the most important features of potential founders.

The problem is that being clever and hacking around a system for curiosity is
governed by a very different set of incentives than being clever and hacking
for profit. Feynmann's safecracking at Los Alomos was done to complain about
an absurd system and to play pranks on his colleagues, not to enrich himself.

Being willing to break dumb rules to show how pointless they are is an
excellent public service. Breaking rules that stand in the way of your profit
is completely different, and it's important to call it out.

~~~
JoshTriplett
> Being willing to break dumb rules to show how pointless they are is an
> excellent public service. Breaking rules that stand in the way of your
> profit is completely different, and it's important to call it out.

Depends on whether you view this particular detail as part of providing a
service people want (and thus want to pay for), or whether you view it as
exclusively in the service of profit (whether it benefits people or not).
Ignoring regulations so you can make money by hurting people would be evil.
Ignoring regulations so you can help people by providing a service they want
(whether you make money doing so or not) is entirely different, and far more
reasonable. (It's still a dangerous road to go down, but not universally
wrong.)

I've seen what the attempts at "local", "authorized" alternatives look like;
they're almost all terrible, and even the ones that work half as well as Lyft
or Uber suffer from being non-universal (you need a different service for each
location). Look at the various places actually fixing their broken taxi
regulations; would they have even considered doing so if the far better
alternatives had asked nicely _before_ developing a huge base of interested
customers who see how much better the alternative works?

As you said, "break dumb rules to show how pointless they are" can serve as
the first step in fixing them.

(For the sake of clarity: Uber has done some truly and unambiguously awful
things. This _particular_ story just doesn't seem like one of them.)

~~~
matt4077
There's a system set up to determine what rules are necessary, and some VC-
funded bro isn't in a position to second-guess them (beyond his power at the
polling booth).

Your standard seems to be that a service should be legal if two or more people
agree on a contract("providing a service people want and thus want to pay
for").

But by that standard, there isn't a single regulation that is necessary. Sell
a car without seatbelts? Sure – all fine if you can find people to buy it.
Migraine treatment with low-dose cyanide? Some people will try it.

Regulations are attempts to (a) protect third parties from externalities or
(b) to allow people to survive without doing an incredible amount of research
into everything they consume. It's easy to dismiss them because we have no
idea of all the things that aren't happening. But the fact that your money has
been safe at banks for the last 70 years, or that deaths from fire, food-born
illness or traffic accidents has been reduced dramatically – all that traces
back primarily to government regulation.

~~~
JoshTriplett
> There's a system set up to determine what rules are necessary

See "regulatory capture", and all the other ways that system can be broken or
exploited. Also see the long history of how regulations written for
yesterday's technologies work badly on today's and completely prevent
tomorrow's from being created.

I'm extremely skeptical that this particular issue could have been effectively
fixed another way, because I've seen what the proposed "solutions" looked like
that "played by the rules".

> Your standard seems to be that a service should be legal if two or more
> people agree on a contract("providing a service people want and thus want to
> pay for").

No, that's not the completely general standard I'd advocate, though that would
still come a lot closer to reasonable. A general standard would also
internalize any externalities (and any parties affected by them) before
evaluating that metric. (Though keep in mind that "reduces the demand for a
competing service" is _not_ an externality.) Overall, though, a world in which
individual consent always wins would be better.

(We'd be better off still with a world where one of the providers of those
services wasn't also, unrelatedly, engaged in various unethical behaviors such
as discrimination.)

In any case, I'm not interested in turning this into a general evaluation of
structures and approaches to regulation and government, not least of which
because that would retread well-trodden conversational territory with little
new to cover.

I think it's worth focusing on the _specific_ case of "is the world better or
worse off" here, and then asking how, if you see the specific path taken as a
problem, the same goal could have been achieved in another way.

> to allow people to survive without doing an incredible amount of research
> into everything they consume

You shouldn't have to do 100% of the research yourself, but I think you should
have a choice of who you delegate that responsibility and trust to.

~~~
matt4077
From what I've read, it appears that Uber operates largely within a zero-sum
space. I. e. they're not build around some innovative technology that improves
everyone's life, but have simply ignored a few rules, allowing them to reward
one class of people with $1 for every $1 they take from another class of
people.

The statistic that's going around is that they're subsidising each trip at a
rate of 50% – i. e. taking from the VC investor and giving it to the customer.
At the same time, they're undercutting the income and benefits currently
enjoyed by taxi drivers. The net effect is both the lower and upper class
paying to the mostly middle-class customers. The contribution from investors
isn't going to continue forever, so lets assume they somehow find the
economies of scale, or market power to raise prices, to break even –although
I'm somewhat sceptical because I don't know how a trip in LA gets cheaper if
there are also drivers in Barcelona.

So now the customers get rides that are cheaper by anywhere from 50% to 0%,
the latter if Uber manages to establish some sort of market dominance. And
taxi drivers earning $40,000 are replaced by Uber drivers earning $30,000 and
having no health insurance.

Is that worth it? That probably depends on your politics. There's the economic
fundamentalist perspective that markets are always fair and if that means you
have to work in a coal mine where the air smells funny and by the way Johnny
didn't make it out today, then you should have better paid attention in
school.

Personally, I think more equitable societies are more fun to life in, and
kicking possibly hundreds of thousands of people a step down the economic
ladder will, in the long term, hurt almost everyone – the trickle-up effect
seems to have much more empirical support than the opposite

~~~
JoshTriplett
Regarding the actual service provided: it's a better service in a way that has
nothing to do with cost, and it would remain a better service even at a higher
cost than a taxi. (And due to efficiency improvements, it could also
theoretically provide better rates than a taxi while paying drivers the same,
or pay better while charging riders the same.) The entire experience of
requesting a ride and getting one represents a massive improvement over taxis.

I don't know anyone who uses such services because they _cost less_ , rather
than because they _work better_.

------
zymhan
Uber's disregard for local laws and regulations is well known, so I find it
hard to be shocked by this.

But the chutzpah to implement something so blatantly designed to aide in
breaking the law is still surprising. It reminds me of Zenefits in a way.

It also seems similar to VW's Diesel engine "Defeat Device". The future of
technology will probably include ever more shady uses of programming to
mislead regulators and the like.

~~~
mikeash
That struck me too. A normal company might do this, but they'd at least
pretend it was meant to deter criminals or catch abusers or whatever. Instead
their statement says:

"This program denies ride requests to users who are violating our terms of
service — whether that’s people aiming to physically harm drivers, competitors
looking to disrupt our operations, or opponents who collude with officials on
secret ‘stings’ meant to entrap drivers."

It's rather blatant. I assume they think that last part makes them look good
and "officials" look bad, but to me it just says "we built this to avoid
getting caught breaking the law."

~~~
kristofferR
Both things can be correct if you believe the law in question is bad. The
Jefferson quote comes to mind:

"If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to
do so."

~~~
mikeash
You'd think they would mention that the law was bad if that was their
justification here.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Maybe not. That might tie their hands in court. It might leave "have the court
declare the law invalid" as their _only_ way to win. Limiting your options
that way tends to be bad legal strategy (whether or not it would be the moral
high ground).

Disclaimer: IANAL.

~~~
mikeash
It seems to me that saying "we did this so we can violate the law without
getting caught" is already an extremely bad legal strategy. If their statement
was aimed at limiting their legal exposure it wouldn't have included that part
at all. If it was aimed at showing that they're morally in the right, they
would have said that the laws were bad. I can't see anything that justifies
what they said, aside from thinking everyone sees the law the same way they do
so it goes without saying.

------
striglia
So I ask this mostly out of horrified curiosity -- is there any negative press
or revelation that could actually sink Uber at this point? What would it take
for the company to fail?

We've seen:

* Systematic flouting of laws in public

* Even further hidden avoiding of laws

* Sexism complaints across the board

* What appears to be a pervasive toxic culture, inspired (if not explicitly encouraged) straight from the CEO's behavior

Are they actually too big to fail?

~~~
accountface
They're trying to become too big to fail, but aren't quite there yet.

Essentially they're undercutting all competitors by artificially keeping fares
_very_ low and subsidizing drivers. Subsidies were the primary source of their
enormous financial losses in 2016.

Once the competition is completely gone (local cabs, and Lyft in some areas),
then they can stop subsidizing themselves and basically hold a monopoly. It's
their entire strategy.

~~~
danielweber
I simply don't see how Uber can be a monopoly. You need a critical mass of
drivers, but nothing stops drivers from being on multiple networks. This isn't
Microsoft doing per-CPU licensing.

~~~
camus2
> I simply don't see how Uber can be a monopoly. You need a critical mass of
> drivers, but nothing stops drivers from being on multiple networks. This
> isn't Microsoft doing per-CPU licensing.

They could force drivers to only work for Uber. "If you go to the competition,
you can't work for us", they could try to lobby so that other networks can't
legally operate, just like Taxi companies did... They just want to replace
Taxi companies, that's why people who think they are the "hero of the
libertarians" are misguided.

~~~
Applejinx
They could keep track of people as best they can, and shadowban them from all
transportation using Greyball so the people couldn't function in society. It'd
be kind of like getting blackballed for life from credit card issuers.
Effective to the extent they can make a monopoly, probably more effective when
it's a shadowban rather than explicit rules stating the person is barred from
using the service forever.

It would be rather profitable to be able to hold the world hostage, single out
whoever you want and make them hoof it. Particularly if they'd got used to
using Uber to get to work or something. Long game would be making private
vehicle ownership illegal, but that's very long term indeed. I'm just saying,
you can keep going and every step of the way is increasingly profitable. Wall
Street would love it.

------
oculusthrift
I'm not excusing Uber at all because what they've done is extremely bad in
multiple cases but find it strange all these hit pieces are coming out of the
wood works. There is a large section of society that hates Uber and will
spring at any chance to bring it down. Which is partially what I think
happened with the whole #boycottUber thing and the new video of kalanick
yelling at the driver.

However, the sexism and dysfunction in the company is extremely disturbing. It
almost starts to undermine the case against them when there are all these hit
jobs coming out and it starts to seem that the media is biased or relishing
their fall.

~~~
garrettr_
I think it's a mistake to interpret the wave of stories about Uber's
misbehavior as indicative of a "hit job" or "media bias" against Uber. Courage
is contagious, and as people have started to speak out publicly against Uber's
abuses, it appears current and former employees are becoming emboldened to
share their experiences as well. I hope that this wave of public backlash will
demonstrate to Uber, and the tech industry as a whole, that the market is not
blind to unethical behavior, and cutthroat competition at the expense of your
employees and the law is not necessarily a winning strategy.

~~~
azernik
There's a similar phenomenon with sexual assault allegations - often they
cluster in time, because a single accuser is more likely to be taken seriously
when there are others making similar accusations.

This is, BTW, the motivation behind an app I've heard of where you can file a
sealed sexual assault report against someone, with verified date of filing, to
be unsealed only if some number of people make an accusation against the same
person.

------
greghendershott
Not only am I done with Uber, I'm starting to wonder about associates and
partners (investors, advisors, marketing partners, etc.)

If you're still doing business with Uber in 2017, it's because you don't want
to know or you don't care who you're dealing with. Neither reflects well on
you. It tells me you have your own very low bar -- your own version of "well
we're not as awful as taxis _shrug_ " \-- above which anything goes ethically
and professionally.

Which is your choice. It is also my choice to be concerned about doing
business with you and steer clear.

~~~
CaptSpify
EDIT: After re-reading your statement, it doesn't appear you meant customers.
Leaving my statement below anyway.

> If you're still doing business with Uber in 2017, it's because you don't
> want to know or you don't care who you're dealing with.

Or because I don't really have an option. Cabs are still terrible and require
me to carry cash which I don't, and lyft doesn't work on my phone.

~~~
rrdharan
Curious, what phone are you using where Uber works and Lyft doesn't?

I actually agree with the OPs statement as it applies to customers (at least
when there's a reasonable alternative). I live in NYC so it was pretty easy
for me - I deleted the app and switched to using Lyft.

~~~
CaptSpify
Well, that's complicated but...

I currently use android, and lyft won't work without permanent access to my
location and contacts, which I consider unacceptable. I'm supposed to get the
ubuntu phone in about a week, and afaik, there's no lyft client for that.
There is an uber webpage, m.uber.com or something that should work with it
though.

This is all untested on my new phone, so I may be incorrect.

~~~
warcher
hahaha

Man, I knew there were gonna be some libertarians on this thread.

~~~
CaptSpify
FWIW, I would strongly not consider myself libertarian |;)

------
songzme
This reminded me of a quote by Snowden, "Right and wrong has a very different
standard from what is legal and illegal.... Every act of progression in
nation's history has involved tensions with law..."

I'm glad Uber did the things they did to circumvent the law. There are
countless number of times where my friends and I had the option to 'uber' to a
party or bar instead of driving ourselves. Ive met many Uber drivers who loves
the opportunity to work and provide a valuable service.

Despite the many flaws, Uber was able to bring social value and it has
improved the quality of my life significantly. Had I waited for the law to 'do
things properly'... I can't even imagine.

This is one of the things Uber did right and it made me realize the efforts
Uber went through to provide me a viable alternative to public transportation
and gave me the freedom to travel around the city reliably 24 hours a day. I'm
now reinstalling Uber.

~~~
seppin
> I'm now reinstalling Uber.

Most people admit the service is needed, and well executed. But the company is
shit. So use lyft

------
wjnc
You've got to admit Uber has brought the BigCorp stereotype of the 80s to
life. I am amazed at the (US?)-culture that makes people enact so poisonous
policies. In my corporation, literally the first line of our risk appetite
says that we uphold the law and common norms and morality. Seems trivial, but
still gives guidance to everyday actions. Could you explain it to your mom?
Whole layers of management and lawyers flaunting common norms... I couldn't
work there. How's VC-ing this different from bankrolling Al Capone?

~~~
ad_hominem
> _we uphold the law and common norms and morality_

Well then I guess if your government lawfully asked you for a list of all your
Muslim/Jewish/etc. customers or employees you would comply?

~~~
azernik
Hence "common norms and morality".

~~~
ad_hominem
A: "I need a ride"

B: "I will give you a ride for $10"

A: "Okay!"

I would say a government interfering in such a simple transaction is immoral
and violates common norms. Traditional taxi cabs and the gov't regulations
that propped them up is a textbook example of rent-seeking.

~~~
raattgift
The government almost certainly creates and maintains the rights-of-way on
which B will take you.

Revert to horses in countryside settings:

A to B: "I need a ride"

B to A: "I will take you on horseback for a penny!"

B to C: "I need to cross your field/forest/stream"

C to B: "That will be a quarter of a penny, and no refund if you cannot
negotiate for permission to enter and cross the next property along the way"

[repeat]

In the history encompassing the legal tradition of where Uber's HQ is based,
governments have been interfering with this (by road, trackway and holloway
construction and maintenance) since before the Romans invaded Britain.

Indeed, formal regulation of taxi services appeared in England in 1635, with
the Hackney Carriage Act setting up a legal framework, with further statutory
and regulatory tools (including licensing, which imposed training and safety
requirements on drivers and carriage owners, and which granted broad
protections against rent-seeking by road owners, including public bodies)
before the 1670s.

So the "interference" in the market you pine for has been going on for many
centuries.

------
valine
That's actually pretty impressive. I mean, it morally questionable maybe. Is
there a law that says Uber is required to send a cab to city officials? The
official gave Uber access to his personal details. If Uber doesn't want to
fulfill the request it seems reasonable that ultimately it's Uber's decision.
I'm not sure what to think about this one.

~~~
CompanionCuube
City officials are not a protected class in the US that are provided legal
protections connected to being discriminated against.

~~~
wheelerwj
protected class refers to groups of people who shall not be targeted by laws
and regulations.

It has nothing to do with discrimination by companies towards groups of
people.

~~~
maxerickson
It does in the US:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class)

------
alphonsegaston
What if local law enforcement officer was posing undercover as an Uber
customer as part of a sexual assault investigation or trying to track down all
drivers in relation to a recent crime?

This is framed as getting around restrictions on taxi services, but any time
you proactively thwart law enforcement, you're inviting a lot of dangerous
unintended consequences. None of which I'm sure Uber is concerned about.

~~~
a3n
A sideways thought: this could be a good way for a criminal to vet someone
before a meeting. "Take an Uber and meet me at 1st and Green."

~~~
ThrustVectoring
Facebook is already better, with number of mutual friends. It does require
having a social circle that's relatively immune from law enforcement coercion.

~~~
a3n
I'm not on facebook. Does that make me trustworthy or untrustworthy to a
potential criminal employer? :)

------
spitfire
Lets not forget that YC has endorsed Uber multiple times in public statements.
When YC says "be naughty" this is what they mean.

They'll try to distance themselves from this now, but their statements were
"be naughty" while holding up AirBnB and Uber as examples to be proud of.

Take what you will from that.

~~~
getpost
In jurisdictions where Uber is illegal, Uber's graywall activities are
organized crime; there's no other way to put it. How is it any different than,
say, an app that advises drug couriers where there are (possibly undercover)
enforcement agents. This is serious stuff, and in no way does the desire to
provide better taxi service justify it.

In 20 seconds of googling I didn't find pg urging entrepreneurs to be naughty.
I did find YC's ethics policy[1], and the only mention the of the law that I
see is related to sales tactics, "Not using misleading, illegal or dishonest
sales tactics." This needs revision.

There are lots of laws that are challenging and problematic, even impractical
to follow exactly, e.g., the tax code. It's one thing to interpret the tax
code in your favor; it's another thing to write a program to distort your
business information to avoid taxes.

[1] [https://www.ycombinator.com/ethics/](https://www.ycombinator.com/ethics/)

EDIT: Found the naughtiness link. Reading now.... EDIT 2: I'm completely
opposed to drug laws. Drugs laws are sickening and immoral, and our society
and countless individuals have paid a terrible price as a result of these
laws, but that doesn't make it ok for me to sell drugs on the street.

~~~
getpost
I read What We Look for in Founders[1], and I think the section on Naughtiness
conveys the wrong message, unless pg actually intends to suggest that, for
example, the graywall tactics that Uber has used are desireable. Is Portland's
law against services like Uber's a law "that matters?"

pg makes a more specific case for disobedience in The Word "Hacker"[2], and
maybe he really does look for people who will flout the law when they see fit.

I don't see an easy way to rephrase what pg is saying in a way I'd prefer to
see it, except to say that the there is a distinction between civil
disobedience for the purpose of insisting on human rights and mere criminal
behavior. Surely YCombinator does not want to invest in criminal enterprises,
no matter how clever or hackish.

[1] [http://paulgraham.com/founders.html](http://paulgraham.com/founders.html)
[2] [http://paulgraham.com/gba.html](http://paulgraham.com/gba.html)

~~~
getpost
OK, one more thing. This "I can flout the law in my new business" attitude is
a great example of white privilege, and this is why this attitude really
grates on my nerves.

------
nunez
"But unknown to Mr. England and other authorities, some of the digital cars
they saw in the app did not represent actual vehicles. And the Uber drivers
they were able to hail also quickly canceled. That was because Uber had tagged
Mr. England and his colleagues — essentially Greyballing them as city
officials — based on data collected from the app and in other ways. The
company then served up a fake version of the app populated with ghost cars, to
evade capture."

Holy shit that's actually impressive in how deceitful it is.

~~~
splonk
It's actually pretty common if you cast this as an abuse detection tool, which
it sounds like this may have started out as. Think of it like shadowbanning -
when you catch someone, your measures are more effective if the person doesn't
realize you've done it. You want to hide the mechanism by which they got
caught, and then you want to delay their ability to take countermeasures. This
basically checks those boxes.

~~~
mintplant
The name suggests this as well. "Ban" is to "shadowban" as "blackball" is to
"Greyball".

------
olivermarks
I thought the whole 'animated cars' user interface thing was faked anyway?
[http://gizmodo.com/uber-is-faking-us-out-with-ghost-cabs-
on-...](http://gizmodo.com/uber-is-faking-us-out-with-ghost-cabs-on-its-
passenge-1720576619)

~~~
tomjakubowski
I suspect that the counterpart in the Lyft app is not actually faked. I've
often had a driver accept a ride and appear on the map almost exactly where a
car had been previously in the "animated cars" UI.

------
rdtsc
> Uber then served up a fake version of its app that was populated with ghost
> cars, to evade capture.

> To date, Greyballing has been effective. In Portland that day in late 2014,
> Mr. England, the enforcement officer, did not catch an Uber, according to
> local reports.

> To circumvent that tactic, Uber employees went to that city’s local
> electronics stores to look up device numbers of the cheapest mobile phones
> on sale, which were often the ones bought by city officials, whose budgets
> were not sizable.

Holy moley. That is so slimy and sneaky.

Well heck this opens a new startup opportunity -- build a device or service to
create phone and accounts to evade Greyball and sell its usage to local law
enforcement. The price would be low enough if it is sold or provided per hour
for example. They could afford that.

------
RangerScience
I'm confused by what laws were broken by Greyball. It's certainly deceptive,
but is that illegal?

In these cases I'm sympathetic to Uber -

Let's call it "don't delay the pie to get your slice". One of the types of
circumstances described is where a municipality doesn't know how to handle
ride-shares, so Uber does questionable things to get ride-shares going while
the legal situation is figured out. This seems reasonable (within bounds) -
because: should the municipality be able to delay the pie while they figure
out how to get their slice? Not exactly incentivized to do it in a timely
manner; while, if the pie is out there happening, they're incentivized to get
their slice in a timely fashion.

~~~
tyingq
Obstruction of justice comes to mind. There's a concept of "misleading
conduct" typically in obstruction laws.

Not sure, though, if it applies to tort type infractions...which is usually
where Uber plays, or only in cases where the obstruction is hindering
investigation of criminal activity.

~~~
FireBeyond
Exactly.

You are not obligated to assist the police.

But lying to / actively deceiving law enforcement in the act of their work is
usually considered a crime.

------
DannyBee
It says uber legal approved this, but uber legal is mostly corporate and ip
counsel.

I strongly doubt they had anyone with significant criminal experience look at
this, because i have trouble seeing someone not immediately saying "you're
joking,right? Are you stupid?"

(unless they were a canonical tv mob lawyer)

~~~
cbr
Maybe Greyball was approved by Uber legal when it was envisioned as a system
for excluding bad users (rival companies etc) and then without additional
legal review they started using it to exclude suspected law enforcement?

~~~
djloche
My guess is that the approved tool the company allows to merely build a
profile of the additional details necessary to provide additional 'white
glove' style service to VIPs to ensure positive word of mouth occurs. Then
they realized that they were seeing data that indicated that they were being
watched a little closer by the .gov, and 'adjusted' the software to reject or
process those people's Uber experiences differently.

------
leroy_masochist
I wonder what rate of false negatives is, in terms of assigning Greyball
status to someone who is not in fact a local official conducting a sting
operation.

Picture a 19-year-old woman in college whose dad convinced her to put Uber on
her phone so she'd have a way to get home safely at night -- and linked her
account up to his credit card so she wouldn't worry about having to afford the
ride.

Now picture her leaving a house party drunk at 2am. The party happens to be
close to city government offices, and her dad's a cop and his credit card
tracks back to a police credit union. She opens the app and tries to get a
car, but there are no cars. Or there are lots of cars, but none will give her
a ride.

A low-probability edge case, to be sure, but I wonder if Uber considered the
possibility?

~~~
dpatru
Your example would be better put to government officials trying to shut down
Uber.

~~~
leroy_masochist
That's a very fair point.

------
dvcc
At first, I considered it more clever than anything. Using data to reduce
ticketable-offenses for their drivers (in an undeniably unethical way).
However, my view quickly soured when I read:

> If those clues were not enough to confirm a user’s identity, Uber employees
> would search social media profiles and other available information online.

For some reason, I make a mental distinction between some automated system
blocking access and having employees research potential customers online for a
ride-share app. The bad PR week for Uber continues.

------
swang
"we need to permanently track your location on the app to better serve you.
unless you are a possible government official, in which case we will track
your location to block you from the service"

yes definitely not scary at all that they're tracking open/close of the app by
location...

~~~
sokoloff
Where users open the app is just as legitimate a marketing tool as traffic
counts or parking lot counts in retail, or musicians knowing where Spotify
users are streaming their songs to inform concert tour plans, etc.

If you give me location access permission, it seems reasonable to expect that
I'm going to use that location access.

~~~
swang
i understand uber needs to use my location for their service. i don't expect
them to use it to determine whether or not i should be allowed on their
service.

and also i don't expect them to continue using my location once i leave the
app in the name of "user safety" _especially_ given the above info.

------
Dangeranger
Are there legal grounds here for a court decision against Uber based on this?

I suppose the answer depends on the nation or state in which this tactic was
deployed.

This behavior doesn't surprise me based on their strategy of negotiation
regarding regulation.

~~~
tantalor
Speculating: possibly they may be safe if their TOS prohibits using the
service to ticket drivers, which is not the intended purpose of the service.
Courts have generally been kind to private company's TOS.

~~~
duskwuff
Certainly not. You can't protect yourself from a lawful investigation by
writing "NO COPS ALLOWED" on your front door, either.

~~~
tantalor
Agreed but you could refuse access to cops unless they have a warrant, right?

The article did not mention whether they had a warrant, I assume not.

------
trimal
I think Uber needed such tool because they tried to barge their way in a
hostile market. I think people blaming Uber for being unethical should ask
question what led them to do such behavior (because of ancient government
laws) I'm not defending Uber but I think if they didn't enter market people
would have never know what is it.

~~~
vslira
I second this feeling. Uber may be a terrible company led by terrible people,
but they opened the floodgates for a better framework of cab transportation. I
hope that sticks (the model, idc about the company)

~~~
zepto
They did produce a useful innovation, but their strategy is about stifling
competition and there's nothing good about that.

------
nfriedly
It sounds like Greyball started out as a fairly legitimate tool to protect
their drivers and customers from violence and abuse. And, then, of course it's
use started broadening to the current status...

~~~
rl3
This is reminiscent of a dynamic seen with certain intelligence programs.

------
eddieplan9
I am trying to come up with an analogy to comprehend this.

Imagine a city government has a rule against palm oil and no restaurants are
supposed to use palm oil. A restaurant think that rule is nuts and decides to
protest it publicly by using it. At the same time, they rip off the label from
the palm oil. The city was having trouble finding the palm oil in the
restaurant.

You can claim that the restaurant has broken the city rule - which is not a
secret. But I don't think ripping off the label or making the regulators life
more challenging is a crime by itself.

~~~
lordnacho
Imagine murder is illegal. But some guy thinks it isn't and does it anyway.

He puts bodies in acid, hides them in concrete, and so on.

Now this kind of behaviour is likely to mean the authorities will take a lot
longer to find murderers. Murderers will get away with it from time to time.
And a lot of resource needs to be spent just to find the criminals.

We do tend to be more forgiving with crimes where the criminal confesses, and
rightly so.

~~~
eddieplan9
Equating outdated city-level taxi regulations to universal law punishing
murder is disingenuous, to say the least.

FTC did a report [1] in _1984_ about taxi regulations and pointed out why
cities were not well-equipped nor incentivized to regulate for the purpose of
market efficiency:

> There are, in fact, reasons to doubt that existing regulations are
> efficient. One problem is that the analytical and informatiqnal problems
> involved in determining the efficient levels of the relevant policy
> variables are great. It is doubtful that regulatory authorities generally
> have the necessary expertise or information to determine these levels. Also,
> taxi ordinances and the government agencies that issue taxi regulations may
> not be motivated primarily by concern for market failure and achievement of
> an efficient resource allocation. It appears that taxi regulations have
> often been designed to protect public transit systems and existing taxi
> firms from competition.

[1]
[https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/reports/ec...](https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/reports/economic-
analysis-taxicab-regulation/233832.pdf)

~~~
lordnacho
It's totally irrelevant what the crime is, whether you like the rules or not,
or whether the rules are economically efficient.

The point is you can't obstruct law enforcement from detecting that you've
broken the rules.

------
bsder
Magically your Uber cars never arrive and the system _LIES_ to you about it.
At the very least shouldn't this qualify as false advertising?

How does this not disturb people here greatly? Are you really so sure that you
will never magically be in a group that is considered "undesirable"?

If you want to defend Uber on the axis that they are a "proper" taxi
replacement who is "just" sweeping away old, stupid regulations, this just
lost you the argument.

In addition, lying to people is how you get _MORE_ regulation piled on you,
not less.

~~~
Applejinx
You might want to be careful. If Uber employees can associate your identity
with the fact you say things like 'the Uber system lies to you', they already
have a shadowban system set up and might be motivated to punish you for your
cruel, meanie opinions. Perhaps never being able to get transportation would
be a suitable punishment. Who are you going to complain to, the cops? They
aren't running the system ;)

------
memmcgee
People seem to be defending Uber by saying they're disrupting taxi cab
monopolies. But Uber themselves is positioning themselves to become a
monopoly. It's naive to think that once they're there they are going to have
the people's interests at heart.

------
llcoolv
It is very interested how Uber is seen as extremely evil and the government
chaps & taxi drivers are the good.

I'd say that what they are doing is "Rent Seeking"[1], which has extremely
detrimental effects on the economy and that if some of the conversations
between them were made public, they would end up in an even bigger mess.

My impressions come from the halting of the Uber service in Sofia, where the
link between local authorities ans taxi companies was even more obvious than
in Paris, Berlin and other cases.

What are your thoughs on that? It seems to me that Uber is in a lesser moral
violation and hence the lesser evil.

Are there any mainstream medias which represent neo-libertarian or whatever it
is called views and or at least try to be objective?

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-
seeking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking)

P.S. Isn't this nearly morally/legally equivalent to using those speed gun
detectors or police camera location applications?

------
poyu
Well, the final call for Uber in Taiwan is this, the government let anyone to
report the driver and can receive reward in money if successfully doing so.
Soon enough, Uber stopped operating.

~~~
ThrustVectoring
Obvious-to-me countermeasure: spam the government with fabricated false
positives. If most Taiwanese citizens opposed the government on this, it'd
work.

~~~
PhantomGremlin
_spam the government with fabricated false positives_

Right. So you say people should _lie_ to their government???!

Martha Stewart thought that she was so smart that she could lie to the FBI
when they came to talk to her. Unfortunately for her, it turns out that making
false statements to government investigators is a federal crime. Martha wound
up doing time:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Stewart#Sentence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Stewart#Sentence)

I have to believe that the USA is not the only country where it is a crime to
lie to investigators. You have a right to remain silent, not a right to lie.

~~~
ThrustVectoring
Right, good point. I (embarrassingly) forgot that that was an option for
dealing with invalid input.

------
neom
The company I work for builds software platforms for cities, tldr: we have a
pretty basic sub/pub idea for city data, and give them a little abstraction
tool that allows folks who work in cities but don't know what an API is a way
to create and publish one so they can then hold the vendor to account (From
IoT to the Ubers and Lyfts of the world) -

I spent a lot of time in cities talking to them and the way uber has lobbied
and created special interests is absolutely mind blowing. Sometimes a CIO in
city using our tool will go to the Mayor and show them how uber, lyft, airbnb
etc could integrate to give the city more insight, and without fail the Mayor
is scared to push the companies.

~~~
vogt
Off topic, I just checked out your site. Cool stuff. I work for a labor market
data company of whom EDO/WIBs are a large portion of our client base. I'm
curious to what kind of data you have at the zip level.

~~~
neom
Decent. Feel free to email me. John@stae.co

------
Balgair
Hmm, so it seems we have a relatively small corporation duking it out with
many sovereign governments and standing a good chance of winning the fight.
Governments have ultimate authority in their territorial regions (Westphalian
Peace), but that idea may no longer be valid these days. My small survey of
the zeitgeist says that it is likely to continue this way. So then, what is
the next step. We have some sort of corporate-governmental feudalism right
now, where either of them 'farms' the people and you elect to be a serf of
Google or FB or Uber or many at once, just as you were a Huguenot and a
Frenchman and a Gascon all at once. What is the next step here?

------
paulcole
Uber really getting Theranos-ed lately. It's like the press was saving up
their Uber hit pieces and is just unleashing them this week.

~~~
jjawssd
Unlike Theranos, Uber has a product that works very well and at a low cost to
the consumer.

~~~
accountface
The cost is artificially low due to loss-backed driver subsidies.

~~~
kristofferR
What could be greater than getting your rides subsidized by fat cats?

~~~
accountface
livable wages for drivers

------
JohnJamesRambo
This is just as bad as the Volkswagen emission testing scandal and I hope just
as disastrous for the offending company.

------
sidlls
I'm a bit torn by this. On the one hand Uber is a terrible company exploiting
people desperate enough to sell themselves in the "gig economy" and breaking
all manner of laws in the process.

On the other hand I remember my friends and neighbors being abused by police
and our "justice" system on a near daily basis as I grew up so it's hard for
me to muster much sympathy when their efforts are thwarted.

To me this looks like two powerful entities engaged in a game of slap-fight
that ultimately disregards folks of lesser social and economic means.

------
ransom1538
This is clear cut conspiracy [1]. It's 5 years of federal time (no parole). I
am sure once a federal agent arrives at the uber office for a few questions
people will be pointing fingers & divulging information without lawyers.
Brutal. Hilariously, the people that turned over the docs to the nytimes
didn't realize they will also be indicted.

[https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/371](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/371)
[1]

------
Digory
Of all the things Uber is accused of this week, I'm pretty sure this one is
the least concerning. It seems to involve the ethical dilemma of a radar
detector.

Speed limits are about public safety, too, but speed traps are usually about
money. Ride-sharing regulations might be about safety, but Uber 'stings' seem
to be about hurting drivers (not Uber) and preserving the value of taxi
medallions.

If the police want information, subpoena Uber; don't play spy vs spy with
folks trying to eke out a few bucks.

~~~
neilc
_It seems to involve the ethical dilemma of a radar detector._

It is similar, but I think an important difference is that Uber, as an
organization, was deliberately flouting the law and also building tools to
avoid suffering the consequences of that behavior.

I'd say it is similar to the difference between an individual using a radar
detector for personal travel vs. a trucking/shipping company equipping all of
their vehicles with radar detectors and making it a company policy to violate
the speed limit.

~~~
Digory
Yes, the ethics at the level of "should I sell a device that lets (usually)
minor law breakers avoid surprise enforcement."

Uber here seems to be in the same league as radar detector manufacturers,
Waze's "Police" alerts, police scanner apps, etc.

------
joantune
The question is, did they really have to engage in these tactics to "win"?
This just makes Uber sound another notch less moral and legal to everyone
further making it look like the evil corp. It's like their motto is the
opposite of Google's 'Do no Evil'.

And I guess the other question here is: does this matter for people (i.e.
consumers)? I would argue that given two equivalent choices, one would vote
for the one with better reputation, so yes, it matters

------
carlmcqueen
How things like this remain secrets for so long is astounding to me. By
definition of what the day to day of driving strangers around Uber has
hundreds of drivers who hate their job yet it took this long for these stories
to start finding their way into the press.

With Volkswagon cheating the system it was a small group of engineers and
covert approval from the top that explained how they could get away with it
for so long.

------
trjordan
There was a time when Lyft employees would call Uber cars, wait 2 minutes,
then cancel the ride. This left riders driving around to pick up phantom
rides, unable to make any money servicing legit customers.

If you're questioning whether this system should exist, it seems totally
reasonable to build. The question is how aggressively do you use it to protect
the company, and from which threats.

(And yes, Uber did that to Lyft too.)

------
tarunm
If anything, I find this very clever. While there are many valid reasons that
justify anger against Uber (workplace harassment and predatory pricing), I
don't think this is one. Instead of outlawing Uber, cities and governments
should take a step back and reflect on these laws which Uber has proven
servers no one.

------
ChuckMcM
That is pretty interesting, although 'greyballing' as a analog for
'blackballing' as an analog of creating a list of people you won't serve is
taking it a bit deep. I wonder if a counter hack would be to make it illegal
to discriminate against people based on whether or not they were a public
employee.

I think it is completely reasonable to have a 'reputation' system where
drivers can rate passengers as well as passengers rating drivers, and then
sharing that rating so that drivers wouldn't pick up people known to be
combative drunks. Having your app display a bunch of 'ghost cars' always out
of reach has a certain poetic justice.

But parts of this are really mind blowing, going into shops and recording the
IMEI's of burner phones for later correlation? I think that's a service right
there.

------
downandout
This is certainly a hardball approach, but I see nothing especially wrong with
it. When you install Uber, you authorize it to send location data. If you
happen to work at a transportation enforcement office, that is going to be
immediately apparent to them unless you take countermeasures, such as using a
GPS spoofing app.

If I declare myself to be an enemy of a given entity, I fully expect them to
use every resource at their disposal to attempt to defeat me - especially when
that entity has billions of dollars at stake. That they are using tactics like
this shouldn't be surprising. It should be expected.

I kind of have a newfound respect for Uber's ingenuity after reading this.
It's probably one of hundreds of examples of the reasons that they have risen
so fast.

~~~
untog
> If I declare myself to be an enemy of a given entity, I fully expect them to
> use every resource at their disposal to attempt to defeat me

What an absolutely absurd way to characterise the actions of those who enforce
law with those who attempt to break it.

~~~
downandout
It isn't necessarily about breaking laws. There are many legitimate reasons to
deny service to undercover law enforcement personnel who are often simply
looking for ways to boost their agency's revenue through specious allegations.
Uber has no legal obligation to do anything for people that do not declare
themselves to be law enforcement personnel with special rights.

Not that it will ever stop them, but I often build a clause into the TOS of my
websites that law enforcement personnel may not use the site without prior
authorization. I have no idea if this will ever stand up in court, but perhaps
this clause will, for example, be useful in defeating a search warrant for
user information since the suspicion upon which the warrant is based would
necessarily have been obtained without authorization unless the government
asked for permission to access the site in advance. A healthy disdain for
government agents makes for a healthy, free society.

------
joering2
The question I'm not getting answers through reading comments here is this:
can someone go to jail for this?

That's the most important thing. Anything else is a noise, even if considered
bad PR I don't think those who hail for a cheap ride could care less.

------
alexwebb2
Uber is having a very bad month.

~~~
PunchTornado
not as bad as the company deserves.

~~~
menacingly
Kind of weird IMO to think of a company as deserving or not deserving
something. It's a group of people with a with array of opinions and behavior,
many of whom probably like having a place to work

It's much more constructive to want the organization to get better than to
cheer on some kind of punishment we think it's owed

~~~
Dylan16807
> Kind of weird IMO to think of a company as deserving or not deserving
> something.

Companies have patterns of behavior just like any other entity. As much as the
idea of 'deserving' applies at all, it can apply to companies.

> It's much more constructive to want the organization to get better than to
> cheer on some kind of punishment we think it's owed

It's a strange implication that this is different from how we should treat
individuals. We should be _more_ focused on rehabilitation when it's an
individual.

------
stanfordkid
Glad to see the government being handed back some of it's own techniques. They
seriously think they can spy on American citizens? Just wait until the the
large tech companies start spying on them.

------
csense
Even if the law says that Uber must admit taxi inspectors, it's hard to say
Uber's breaking the law if the inspectors don't "show their badge" or
otherwise identify themselves as officials.

Of course if they do show their badge, there's a great incentive for Uber to
say "Sorry, no drivers are available in your area" even if this is not really
true.

So you have this curious cat-and-mouse game where the taxi inspector pretends
to be somebody else, and Uber tries to penetrate the facade.

~~~
alphabettsy
That would make sense if they didn't go out of there way to identify potential
investigators and law enforcement. I don't see how they could create a system
to target law enforcement and then say they didn't know they were.

------
EnFinlay
Where I'm from a taxi driver gets a fine if they refuse service to someone.
Seems that Uber has that built in. Seems like it could easily abused for
discrimination.

~~~
ycmbntrthrwaway
> Where I'm from a taxi driver gets a fine if they refuse service to someone.

Discrimination problem is solved by competition, not regulation. You can't
regulate against discrimination.

See how it works with jobs. When employer doesn't want to employ someone for
whatever reason, he will simply state that candidate didn't pass the interview
or whatever, and you can't prove it otherwise.

~~~
EnFinlay
In this case, I think regulation serves as competition - either you get the
money from the fare, or take a double financial hit from missing the fare and
owing a fine.

Edit: Also I disagree that discrimination can be solved by competition.
Competition can result in mutually exclusive sets of discrimination eg.
extreme nationalism.

------
chinathrow
If you work for Uber and read these stories, day after day, how do you feel
working there?

I am really interested - were there thoughts of walking away because of it?

~~~
iamcasen
I used to work at Uber, and there would always be bad press. Negative spins on
just about everything we did.

It didn't deter me at the time simply because 90% was totally bogus and
completely blown out of proportion. Just like this article is.

I left the company because it grew too big and the culture began to suffer for
it, but all these doom and gloom stories about Uber breaking the law are just
silly. Existing taxi regulations are terrible, and none of it makes any sense.
None of it even benefits taxi drivers. They are designed to benefit companies
who hold medallions, companies who are deep in bed with local governments.

Cities would never have had the incentive to get with the times if it wasn't
for Uber, Period.

------
pcvarmint
Now we know why they wanted your location after your ride -- to profile your
home and work activities and possibly infer your occupation.

------
rl3
Setting aside the rather questionable ethics for a moment, this program is
quite badass when looking at it from a purely logistical point of view.

In fact, it's so machiavellian that it feels like I'm reading an article
disclosing an NSA program and not a private transportation company's
activities.

If only they had the same fervor for say, combating sexual harassment in the
workplace.

------
candiodari
And what if the tool doesn't actually track police officers ? Tracking bad
customers by credit card, and making it difficult for them to inconvenience
other drivers after doing it a few times would seem to be a quite normal thing
for any credit card payment receiver to do.

I mean this thing would probably be looking for jokers (think ordering pizza
to your neighbour's house), people with invalid credit cards, people who abuse
drivers, and so on and so forth.

So what happened is probably more like this: officers order cars, have the
Uber drivers drive up to them, cancel the ride and ticket the driver. The Uber
app then proceeds to ask the drivers to "rate the passenger". Needless to say,
the police accounts get very bad scores. After doing this 2 or 3 times, the
app still shows the police officers the normal interface, but doesn't actually
calls cars, knowing the rides will be canceled. The tool now has 2 or 3
separate pieces of information indicating these are not good-faith customers
and stops acting in good faith towards them. So it don't tell the bad users
it's ignoring them, because they'll just get a new account and start harassing
more drivers again. And there you have it: "greyballing".

So it could very well be this isn't designed to catch law enforcement. It just
happens to.

~~~
Ardren
Please don't throw out random speculations before reading the article.

------
AlexCoventry
So much bad news all at once for Uber, recently. Is there some sort of
campaign in motion to buy them out or destroy them?

------
verdverm
Uber leadership provides yet another reason to be happy with deleting their
app. A weak apology that didn't even mention their most egregious behaviors??!
Travis, you should do the right thing and step down as CEO. You will never be
thought of as trustable or honorable again (if you ever were...)

------
the-dude
A shadowban of a sort. Very effective.

------
waynenilsen
If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to
do so. -Jefferson

------
bandrami
I wonder if this is an airing of dirty laundry ahead of Holder's upcoming
review...

------
RRRA
Good thing Uber was not in the Apple seat about backdooring specific
iPhones...

We know on which side of ethic they are... I'm happy that, at least in
Montreal, we have Téo as a more legit alternative.

------
losteverything
It's a 'bad' culture.

Somebody said we could do this (greyball). I know how.

And some body else above this person should have shot down the idea as "just
wrong"

But the culture missed that lesson.

------
dayaz36
The title of this article could of just as easily been "Uber protects it's
drivers from sting operations". I am on Uber's side on this

------
pegasos1
This seems like one of the first major illicit uses of data science. There
should be more regulation and oversight over the data owned by corporations.

~~~
kristofferR
It seems like a good idea until you think more about it.

I at least wouldn't let the US Government, NSA included, have even more access
to private data.

------
losteverything
One question. If i'm uber and I want to know who is at npa-nxx-xXxX cell
number (not a customer obviously) where does uber pick up that name?

------
erjjones
I don't understand why it was so difficult for officers to find a Uber driver?
Why didn't they just stand outside a bar at 2am?

------
randomname2
"Greyball-as-a-service" would make for a startup with interesting applications
(think protecting sex workers etc.)

------
Jordrok
Wow. This has GOT to be illegal...right?

~~~
CodeWriter23
Isn't that Uber's specialty?

------
andrewflnr
I don't see why this is so bad. They're a private business, and they're
allowed to do business with whom they will. It doesn't really change anything
w.r.t the fact that they're skirting regulation, especially if the given
origin story is true. Pretty tame compared to the other stuff we've been
seeing from Uber, lately.

~~~
DannyBee
"Q: What sorts of acts may constitute obstruction of justice?

A: Obstruction may consist of any attempt to hinder the discovery,
apprehension, conviction or punishment of anyone who has committed a crime.

Q: Does obstruction of justice always involve bribery or physical force?

A: No. One particularly murky category of obstruction is the use of
"misleading conduct" toward another person for the purpose of obstructing
justice. "Misleading conduct" may consist of deliberate lies or "material
omissions" (leaving out facts which are crucial to a case). It may also
include knowingly submitting or inviting a judge or jury to rely on false or
misleading physical evidence, such as documents, maps, photographs or other
objects. Any other "trick, scheme, or device with intent to mislead" may
constitute a "misleading conduct" form of obstruction. "

If the city has made it actually illegal to drive uber vehicles, this is
pretty much textbook obstruction on the part of uber, ....

~~~
harryh
Isn't obstruction of justice something that happens after a crime has been
committed? If I'm a thief and I do my thieving in the middle of the night when
no one is around that's an attempt to hinder discovery but it's not
obstruction of justice (I don't think?).

Similarly if Uber is operating illegally in a city and they use software to
avoid picking up a city official in a sting operation that doesn't sound like
obstruction.

I'm no lawyer though.

~~~
DannyBee
IAAL (but i've only done small amount of criminal work).

A crime has been committed, even if they don't pick up the officials. If uber
is operating illegally, the drivers that have picked _anyone_ up have
committed a crime.

Keeping the cars away from the officials trying to ticket and prosecute those
drivers is the obstruction.

That is, it's not the "avoiding sting" that causes it to be obstruction,
because the crime was committed the second a driver picked someone up.
Instead, the obstruction is "helping drivers who have committed crimes not be
noticed, ticketed, or prosecuted"

That's definitely obstruction in jurisdictions that have this form of
obstruction.

~~~
harryh
But the city's goal with these sting operations wasn't to catch and prosecute
drivers/uber for previous trips. It was to catch them in the act for a single
trip and prosecute them for that.

To use another analogy, if I'm a drug dealer and the cops try to buy drugs
from me in a sting operation and I somehow figure out that they're cops and
walk away before doing a deal is that obstruction of justice? Because I think
that's basically what is (was?) happening here.

~~~
DannyBee
"But the city's goal with these sting operations wasn't to catch and prosecute
drivers/uber for previous trips."

Errr, sure it is. Their investigatory mechanism happen to be to try catch them
on a trip they could prove originated in the city, giving them probable cause
to stop them and ticket them.

This just happens to be easier to do as a sting.

"It was to catch them in the act for a single trip and prosecute them for
that."

That is just the method, not the purpose of the investigation.

Your argument is what would be called "a distinction without a difference"

If the FBI is looking for illegal uranium sellers, and they try to buy/bust a
low level guy as part of the investigation, it does not make the investigation
about the buy/bust, it's still to catch and prosecute illegal uranium sellers.

Here, the investigation's goal was to catch and prosecute uber drivers driving
illegally. In any case, it doesn't matter.

Remember "Obstruction may consist of any attempt to hinder the discovery,
apprehension, conviction or punishment of anyone who has committed a crime. "

Not "the crime you are currently investigating", but _any_ crime.

For example, oneo the the federal statute says: "(a) Whoever willfully
endeavors by means of bribery to obstruct, delay, or prevent the communication
of information relating to a violation of _any criminal statute_ of the United
States by any person to a criminal investigator shall be fined under this
title, or imprisoned not more than five years, or both."

(emph mine)

(Ignore the bribery part, there's a ton of these statutes,i'm just pulling out
one)

"To use another analogy, if I'm a drug dealer and the cops try to buy drugs
from me in a sting operation and I somehow figure out that they're cops and
walk away before doing a deal is that obstruction of justice? Because I think
that's basically what is (was?) happening here. "

This isn't obstruction, but it's not what is happening here.

Imagine if the cops were investigating you for dealing drugs. They already had
evidence you deal drugs. They ask your friend where you are, even just to talk
to you, to try to get cleaner evidence, and he deliberately lies about where
you are to protect you. Congrats, that's obstruction in a lot of
jurisdictions. No sting reuired.

Here, the cops are asking the uber app where the drivers are. They know or
have probable cause to believe the drivers have committed crimes (again, the
sting part is just about having a very clean prosecution, it's not required or
necessary here). Uber deliberately lies about where the drivers are, with the
purpose of protecting them from this investigation.

You can ignore the sting they were doing completely. The crime was complete
the second a law enforcement officer, trying to investigate the crimes of an
uber driver, opened the app in an attempt to find a driver (even just to talk
to!) and got fake results.

~~~
harryh
As the lawyer in this conversation I'm gonna assume that you're right. Seems
like a pretty broad law though. Seems like it could be an add on to almost any
other criminal act as criminals almost always try to avoid getting caught one
way or another.

~~~
Trombone12
Eh, seems fine to me that you can add on extra punishment for not simply
owning up to the crime, it's not like avoiding to be caught is a desired
behaviour.

------
kybernetyk
>Uber had tagged Mr. England and his colleagues — essentially Greyballing them
as city officials — based on data collected from the app and in other ways.
The company then served up a fake version of the app populated with ghost
cars, to evade capture.

Wow, that's genius.

Uber has my full support when it's them vs. outdated entrenched state
regulations.

------
dpatru
It's sad that Uber has to go to such lengths to avoid busybody government
officials from interfering in peaceful commercial transactions. The people of
Portland should fire these officials. Not only are they wasting taxpayer
money, but they are also imposing costs on Uber and their customers.

~~~
ForrestN
It's sad that sweatshop owners have to go to such lengths to avoid busybody
government officials from interfering in peaceful commercial transactions with
children. The people of the United States should fire these officials. Not
only are they wasting taxpayer money, but they are also imposing costs on
manufacturers and their customers.

Uber has demonstrated a willingness to treat their employees like shit. The
fact that local governments haven't interfered _more_ is a testament to the
pervasive attractiveness of two-bit libertarian confusion. I don't want to be
driven around by a driver on their 14th hour of work. I don't want to be
driven around by a driver with a poor driving record. I don't want to be
driven around by a worker who is being exploited because they have been
wrongly classified as a contractor and willfully mislead about their earning
prospects. That's why we have government labor and safety regulators, because
the profit motive is constantly in conflict with the rights of individual
works or customers.

Don't like e coli? Don't like false advertising? Don't like children smoking
cigarettes? Don't like predatory lending? Thank a regulator!

~~~
dpatru
Regulators are not protecting the public when they go after Uber; they are
protecting the monopoly profits of the taxi services. Uber, a ride-sharing
service, is not a dangerous bacteria; it's not a sweatshop using child
laborers; it's not false advertising; it's not children smoking cigarettes;
and it's not predatory lending. Associating Uber with these is an attempt to
substitute misdirection for honest arguments.

------
nunez
Greyball officially makes Uber the Zenefits of the ridesharing industry now.

------
rock57
It seems to me that Uber here is facing its "Zenefits moment".

------
CodeWriter23
It seems like someone really wants Kalanick to step down.

------
perseusprime11
Why so much negative news around Uber recently?

------
pencilpup223
This insane, yet somehow I'm not surprised. Could this culminate in a real
change at Uber - no more Travis, maybe?

------
transfire
Uber did it.

------
davidf18
There are laws that protect people from physical harm such as licensing for
doctors or to keep people in certain fields from working too many hours (e.g.
airline pilots and Emergency Room Doctors). There are laws that protect
patents, copyrights, and other forms of IP so that inventors, writers can get
some returns on their work.

Then there are laws put in place by special interest groups to benefit
themselves economically creating a market inefficiency (e.g. "rent-seeking")
at a cost to others. In NYC, before Uber/Lyft came on the market the was a
political restriction ("rent seeking") of 13,000 hailable cabs throughout a
city of population exceeding 8 million creating a politically-induced
scarcity. At times it was hard to get cabs, the value of a Taxi medallion was
$1.2 million.

Then Uber/Lyft/Gett/Via came along and hailable taxis are more readily
available at lower costs but the value of the Taxi medallion is now less than
$750,000. Naturally the medallion owners fought politically to protect their
politically induced scarcity that harmed consumers in both availability and
pricing.

Many of the laws that Uber is countering is in the form of "rent-seeking" laws
that create a market inefficiency benefiting special interests and that harms
consumers in terms of availability and price.

It is wrong that taxpayer money go into enforcing these laws that benefit
special interests over consumers. Tax money on law enforcement should be spent
fighting violent crime and activities that lead to violence crime, insider
trading and other forms of white collar crime, etc.

~~~
wheelerwj
You call it "rent seeking" but that's just not the case. Almost every law is
founded in some sort of public interest. In 1937, NYC passed the Haas Act to
clean up the taxi industry which had become so competitive that taxi drivers
were not able to make ends meet (sound familiar?) and were turning to less
than legal means to supplement their income.

While that law is 80 years old, its original principle was to provide a safer
more reliable experience for the average person. And it worked. Should it be
re-examined, yes absolutely. But to disregard it as "rent-seeking" and suggest
that uber/lyft other tech startups shouldn't be subject to the same rules as
everyone else is grossly negligent and demonstrates a true lack of
understanding of the problem at hand.

Not to mention, this is entirely off topic from the Greyball tool.

~~~
hyperpape
This is a common and bad form of argument: "there is at least one conceivable
justification for this law, so it is not rent-seeking".

But no one ever makes their primary public justification "we'd like to screw
over the public and make more money". There is always something about some
harm that the law will prevent. The question is whether the law is well
targeted and proportionate. The restrictions on supply for taxi medallions
fail that criterion by a long shot.

~~~
wheelerwj
its not a bad form of argument if its he truth. the world isn't black and
white as much you might try and force to be.

I have taken a number of ubers that I wish had been regulated better: Both
from safety and cleanliness.

Yes, the taxi medallion issue is wildly inappropriate at this point in time.
But it obviously served a purpose.

------
beedogs
Unethical, shitty company does unethical, shitty thing. Cue unwavering show of
support from the HN faithful.

------
mdns33
bash them for the sexism agreed, but not everything. When riding a taxi was
ridiculously expensive. Uber made it affordable and bought it to the middle
class. Haters will remain haters.

~~~
subpixel
In the US, riding in a taxi has never been ridiculously expensive, and it has
not gotten any cheaper on account of Uber.

Moreover, Uber did not create a business to offer affordable rides to the
middle class. They created a business to offer the sort of luxury that titans
of industry who have private drivers experience, to people willing to pay for
that service.

What Uber did do is make the 'car on demand' idea functional and ubiquitous.
But A) they didn't do it legally and B) it turns on the 'on demand' part
matters more to customers than the 'luxury' part.

So today, because rides are subsidized, you can summon a car and be driven
around for what seems like quite a bargain. But subsidies are pretty much the
opposite of 'product market fit'.

This news appears to be a clear-cut example of Uber not only breaking the law,
but of obstructing justice to protect their illegal operations from
enforcement of the law. I think that ought to be looked upon contemptuously.

------
douche
I am so sick of Uber news

~~~
heywire
I bet they are too.

------
briandear
I'm not supportive of Uber anymore because of the apparently toxic culture,
however, I DO side on the free market, especially when it comes to things like
taxis, etc. The fact that a grown adult with a car can't engage in a
transaction with another consenting grown adult to exchange money for a ride
somewhere (or pick your product of choice..) to me, that's anti-liberty.

The argument has always been "we have to protect the public." However, if
that's the case, then why wouldn't the government "protect" people from
hitchhiking? Apparently hitchhiking is legal.
([https://expertvagabond.com/hitchhiking-
america/](https://expertvagabond.com/hitchhiking-america/)) Getting into cars
with strange guys someone meets at a bar is also legal. Going to eat food at
someone's unlicensed kitchen in their home is legal -- as long as you don't
pay for it. All "dangerous" activities.

In terms of "protecting" the public, why does the public always need
protecting? For example, arguments against marijuana, yet alcohol is legal.
Drinking 1000 Coca Colas is perfectly legal, but the Szechuan peppercorn was
was banned in the US from 1968 until 2005 to "protect" people. Kinder Surprise
eggs are illegal. Swimming pools kill over 3,500 people per year in the US --
far more than die (or are even injured) in Ubers. Yet we need to restrict
Uber/Lyft/etc. because "protecting the public?"

Regarding "protecting" us from "unsafe" drivers -- that really ought to be up
to the individual to decide. If Uber, Lyft, et al were getting into daily
fatal accidents, then the public would likely chose another means to get a
ride -- meaning, the market (when it's allowed to work,) does achieve an
equilibrium. If one service is "dangerous" or "rude" or whatever, a competitor
can win business by promoting "safety" or "politeness." Yet, when the taxi
mafia controls a town, the market can't respond because there are artificial
barriers to entry.

"Don't like Yellow Cab? -- ok, you could try calling Yellow Cab if you want an
alternative."

I strongly condemn Uber's apparently toxic culture -- but in terms of the need
for "regulation" or other such nonsense, I feel like grown adults ought not
need to be continually "protected." There are some notable exceptions;
pharmaceuticals for example because there are long-term ill effects from
faulty medicines and the general public isn't knowledgable about molecular
biology. However there aren't any long-term ill effects from riding in an Uber
-- not any more so than riding in any other paid conveyance. Regulating hair
stylists? Even exotic dangers have to have a license in many places: a girl
actually has to have permission from some city agency to take off her clothes
and dance. That's just nonsensical.

Freedom ought to matter, but nowadays it seems as if it's freedom, as long as
you fill out a bunch of forms and pay a fee or have political influence (as
does the taxi mafia.) Who cares if some dude wants to take people in his car
for money. If you don't like it, nobody is forcing you to ride. Cities are
pissed at Uber not because citizens are dying in Uber wrecks but because
they're missing out on extortionate fees and/or campaign donations from the
taxi lobby. Funny how "liberal" Portland and Austin had banned Uber. Not very
liberal at all if you ask me -- just old fashioned money-grubbing cronyism.
Portland had legal marijuana but illegal Uber. Ridiculous. True liberalism is
about freedom -- not the nanny state.

Good for Uber in doing what they can to thwart these "officials" that seem to
think their mission in life is to control, subdue and "protect" the
population.

------
rc_bhg
I came away from this article impressed with how smart the guys at Uber are.
Very impressive!

~~~
chris_wot
Not smart enough to realise the ethical and moral line they were crossing, it
appears.

------
harryh
Let's be clear here. The laws Uber violated here were bad laws. They were the
result of a semi-corrupt relationship between city governments and taxi cab
companies. Uber has been the prime mover in killing these laws. That's a good
thing.

~~~
mikey_p
Laws about accessibility and safety are bad laws?

~~~
harryh
Portland trying to prevent Uber from operating there had nothing to do with
accessibility or safety.

------
remx
I like this. Some call it hustle, others call it evading LE because cashflow
is king, and nothing shall stop the flow.

I commend this but also frown at it for being so brazen. If such a tool was
used for the opposite reasons (spotting crime and reporting it to police),
then perhaps the tool might stand a chance, but showcasing it in full view of
LEOs is outright brazen and guaranteed to embarrass.

People are campaigning on Twitter to #DeleteUber[0] but fail to recognize the
naive nature of the story. I consider Uber nothing more than an ongoing
experiment, and any tool they release to increase their revenue should be both
commended and also be treated with suspicion.

[0]
[https://twitter.com/hashtag/deleteuber](https://twitter.com/hashtag/deleteuber)

~~~
PhasmaFelis
> _I commend this but also frown at it for being so brazen. If such a tool was
> used for the opposite reasons (spotting crime and reporting it to police),
> then perhaps the tool might stand a chance_

That's like commending a hammer murderer for his swing technique, but frowning
on him for practicing on skulls instead of nails.

