<story><title>Alphabet&apos;s Waymo Alleges Uber Stole Self-Driving Secrets</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-23/alphabet-s-waymo-sues-uber-for-stealing-self-driving-patents?cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&amp;utm_content=business&amp;utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&amp;utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_medium=social</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>itchyouch</author><text>Based on the story from Flash Boys, that Goldman engineer was taking something like a couple of megs worth of his own work that was related to various open source projects.  But he became the poster boy for stealing trade secrets and an example to be made of.&lt;p&gt;His mistake was that he used the company internet connection to upload said source files to something like his personal github or dropbox of the sort, so there were proxy logs of him stealing corporate secrets.&lt;p&gt;Most people would&amp;#x27;ve gotten their personal-ish data off a corporate laptop with a usb key&amp;#x2F;harddrive which they probably wouldn&amp;#x27;t have triggered any alarms.</text></item><item><author>mevile</author><text>It seems criminal. I remember an engineer from goldman sachs went to prison for doing something similar.</text></item><item><author>xt00</author><text>Yea that&amp;#x27;s incredibly bad if that&amp;#x27;s what that guy did.. in general for EE designs, the schematic&amp;#x2F;layouts are not that hard to deduce how you would do it if you are in contact with the company that makes the LIDAR device (the unique and difficult part -- basically just need to ask them, like &amp;quot;yo, how roughly should I interface with this thing and whats your recommendation on a number of the components.. and can you give me a reference schematic..&amp;quot;). So copying stuff means that the guy actually probably was clueless as to how it actually worked and planned to just hand it off to somebody else who did understand it -- so definitely super bad...</text></item><item><author>chollida1</author><text>From another source to provide some colour:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; According to a lawsuit filed today in federal court in California, Waymo accuses Anthony Levandowski, an engineer who left Google to found Otto and now serves as a top ranking Uber executive, stole 14,000 highly confidential documents from Google before departing to start his own company. Among the documents were schematics of a circuit board and details about radar and LIDAR technology, Waymo says&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; The lawsuit claims that a team of ex-Google engineers used critical technology, including the Lidar laser sensors, in the autonomous trucking startup they founded, and which Uber later acquired&lt;p&gt;I was confused as to what stealing a patent actually meant:)&lt;p&gt;Waymo has also posted this....&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;medium.com&amp;#x2F;@waymo&amp;#x2F;a-note-on-our-lawsuit-against-otto-and-uber-86f4f98902a1#.mn83yyh0t&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;medium.com&amp;#x2F;@waymo&amp;#x2F;a-note-on-our-lawsuit-against-otto...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;From this post...&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Recently, we received an unexpected email. One of our suppliers specializing in LiDAR components sent us an attachment (apparently inadvertently) of machine drawings of what was purported to be Uber’s LiDAR circuit board — except its design bore a striking resemblance to Waymo’s unique LiDAR design.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; We found that six weeks before his resignation this former employee, Anthony Levandowski, downloaded over 14,000 highly confidential and proprietary design files for Waymo’s various hardware systems, including designs of Waymo’s LiDAR and circuit board. To gain access to Waymo’s design server, Mr. Levandowski searched for and installed specialized software onto his company-issued laptop. Once inside, he downloaded 9.7 GB of Waymo’s highly confidential files and trade secrets, including blueprints, design files and testing documentation. Then he connected an external drive to the laptop. Mr. Levandowski then wiped and reformatted the laptop in an attempt to erase forensic fingerprints.&lt;p&gt;Ooops, that does sound bad after a first read.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>isubkhankulov</author><text>&amp;gt; Most people would&amp;#x27;ve gotten their personal-ish data off a corporate laptop with a usb key&amp;#x2F;harddrive which they probably wouldn&amp;#x27;t have triggered any alarms.&lt;p&gt;Most top banks use Citrix technology (or similar virtual desktops) to stream workstations for employees accessing both locally and remotely, so the only way you can get data out is by using your phone to take photos.</text></comment>
<story><title>Alphabet&apos;s Waymo Alleges Uber Stole Self-Driving Secrets</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-23/alphabet-s-waymo-sues-uber-for-stealing-self-driving-patents?cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&amp;utm_content=business&amp;utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&amp;utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_medium=social</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>itchyouch</author><text>Based on the story from Flash Boys, that Goldman engineer was taking something like a couple of megs worth of his own work that was related to various open source projects.  But he became the poster boy for stealing trade secrets and an example to be made of.&lt;p&gt;His mistake was that he used the company internet connection to upload said source files to something like his personal github or dropbox of the sort, so there were proxy logs of him stealing corporate secrets.&lt;p&gt;Most people would&amp;#x27;ve gotten their personal-ish data off a corporate laptop with a usb key&amp;#x2F;harddrive which they probably wouldn&amp;#x27;t have triggered any alarms.</text></item><item><author>mevile</author><text>It seems criminal. I remember an engineer from goldman sachs went to prison for doing something similar.</text></item><item><author>xt00</author><text>Yea that&amp;#x27;s incredibly bad if that&amp;#x27;s what that guy did.. in general for EE designs, the schematic&amp;#x2F;layouts are not that hard to deduce how you would do it if you are in contact with the company that makes the LIDAR device (the unique and difficult part -- basically just need to ask them, like &amp;quot;yo, how roughly should I interface with this thing and whats your recommendation on a number of the components.. and can you give me a reference schematic..&amp;quot;). So copying stuff means that the guy actually probably was clueless as to how it actually worked and planned to just hand it off to somebody else who did understand it -- so definitely super bad...</text></item><item><author>chollida1</author><text>From another source to provide some colour:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; According to a lawsuit filed today in federal court in California, Waymo accuses Anthony Levandowski, an engineer who left Google to found Otto and now serves as a top ranking Uber executive, stole 14,000 highly confidential documents from Google before departing to start his own company. Among the documents were schematics of a circuit board and details about radar and LIDAR technology, Waymo says&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; The lawsuit claims that a team of ex-Google engineers used critical technology, including the Lidar laser sensors, in the autonomous trucking startup they founded, and which Uber later acquired&lt;p&gt;I was confused as to what stealing a patent actually meant:)&lt;p&gt;Waymo has also posted this....&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;medium.com&amp;#x2F;@waymo&amp;#x2F;a-note-on-our-lawsuit-against-otto-and-uber-86f4f98902a1#.mn83yyh0t&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;medium.com&amp;#x2F;@waymo&amp;#x2F;a-note-on-our-lawsuit-against-otto...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;From this post...&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Recently, we received an unexpected email. One of our suppliers specializing in LiDAR components sent us an attachment (apparently inadvertently) of machine drawings of what was purported to be Uber’s LiDAR circuit board — except its design bore a striking resemblance to Waymo’s unique LiDAR design.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; We found that six weeks before his resignation this former employee, Anthony Levandowski, downloaded over 14,000 highly confidential and proprietary design files for Waymo’s various hardware systems, including designs of Waymo’s LiDAR and circuit board. To gain access to Waymo’s design server, Mr. Levandowski searched for and installed specialized software onto his company-issued laptop. Once inside, he downloaded 9.7 GB of Waymo’s highly confidential files and trade secrets, including blueprints, design files and testing documentation. Then he connected an external drive to the laptop. Mr. Levandowski then wiped and reformatted the laptop in an attempt to erase forensic fingerprints.&lt;p&gt;Ooops, that does sound bad after a first read.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rayiner</author><text>The Flash Boys presentation is not accurate: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=9047068&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=9047068&lt;/a&gt;. (Though I don&amp;#x27;t think you should be sent to prison for a crime like that.)</text></comment>