Leaked Uber docs reveal frequent use of 'kill switch' to deactivate tech, thwart investigators
- Reference: 1657521908
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/07/11/uber_leak/
- Source link:
The leak was provided to The Guardian and shared with the nonprofit International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) which helped work though the 124,000 records, which include 83,000 emails, iMessages and WhatsApp exchanges.
The records detail internal conversations within Uber, plus interactions between Uber executives and government officials. The trove contains documents detailing interactions with 30 countries and cover the period 2013 to 2017, when Uber was on the rise and confronting pushback from both regulators and the taxi industry.
Appear confused when you cannot get access, say that IT team is asleep in San Francisco
The 18.7GB cache reveals that the kill switch used to block authorities from probing Uber's IT systems – which was already known to a [1]lesser extent – was actually deployed at least 12 times in France, the Netherlands, Belgium, India, Hungary and Romania.
The first instances known of the kill switch being used were in late 2014 in France during two separate raids. A November raid took only 13 minutes between email instructing the action to an IT engineer in Denmark and access being cut.
[2]
Emails show the kill switch was used at the command of top-level executives, including none other than former CEO Travis Kalanick, as well as legal staff. Both execs and legal staff were often copied in to emails instructing access cuts.
[3]
[4]
The kill switch, known internally as "Ripley", was used in conjunction with a remote-control program called "Casper" that cut network access after devices were confiscated by authorities. Because Uber was fond of these justice-obstructing programs and their code names, there was also of course [5]Greyball , revealed in 2017, which blocked cops from booking cabs, lest they were interested in busting unregulated drivers.
Uber learned to predict and prepare for raids, and even issued a manual to employees containing 66 bullet points on how to respond. Titled "Dawn Raid Manual", it instructed employees to stall by escorting regulators to meeting rooms without files and never to leave them alone.
[6]
Employees were also advised to "play dumb" as their systems severed connection to the company's main IT systems just as police began to search their equipment, as shown in a text exchange between former EMEA head of public policy Mark McGann and current global head of sustainability Thibaud Simphal.
During a raid by the French tax agency, a top Uber lobbyist advised the head of Uber France that employees should play dumb when the kill switch was activated. "Try a few laptops, appear confused when you cannot get access, say that IT team is in [San Francisco] and fast asleep." [7]pic.twitter.com/cGBcbqDoTa — Frédéric Zalac (@fredericzalac) [8]July 10, 2022
[9]Ex-Uber security chief accused of hushing database breach must face fraud charges
[10]Uber and its 245 million reasons to settle with Google's Waymo
[11]It's 2019, the year Blade Runner takes place: I can has flying cars?
[12]Stop us if you're getting deja-vu: Uber used spyware to nobble dial-a-ride rival, this time Down Under, allegedly
The trove of files goes beyond the technical systems in place to stymie investigations. It also details lobbying efforts, close relationships between execs and public officials including France's then-economy minister [13]Emmanuel Macron , use of Bermuda as a tax haven, public relations efforts to use violence against its drivers to garner public sympathy, and more.
in the [14]#UberFiles trove of 124k documents, one text message stands out. as Uber drivers were at risk of attacks by taxi drivers, former CEO Travis Kalanick assured colleagues that Uber may benefit from such violence. story from [15]@byaaroncdavis [16]https://t.co/HPXmT0Jb64 [17]pic.twitter.com/oq6cqeGLvM — Doug MacMillan (@dmac1) [18]July 10, 2022
Uber issued a statement on Sunday characterizing the events as actions as ancient history that do not reflect its current values or practices.
"When we say Uber is a different company today, we mean it literally: 90 percent of current Uber employees joined after Dara [Khosrowshahi] became CEO," wrote senior vice president of marketing and public affairs Jill Hazelbacker.
"Dara rewrote the company's values, revamped the leadership team, made safety a top company priority, implemented best-in-class corporate governance, hired an independent board chair, and installed the rigorous controls and compliance necessary to operate as a public company," [19]argued Hazelbaker before detailing the numerous socially conscious achievements she feels Uber is entitled to praise over.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for former CEO and [20]man immortalized on screen by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Travis Kalanick, issued a statement to [21]The Guardian stating that he "never authorized any actions or programs that would obstruct justice in any country" nor "suggested that Uber should take advantage of violence at the expense of driver safety."
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The Kalanick spokesperson then questioned the material's authenticity and the motives of the ICIJ, painted Uber as the underdog in a fight for a "much-needed development of the transportation industry" and cited use of Uber services by journalists and consortium members as evidence of the service's necessity. ®
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[1] https://www.theregister.com/2018/01/11/uber_ripley/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Ysv0yT3ztl12NTtWxhv4OgAAAAc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Ysv0yT3ztl12NTtWxhv4OgAAAAc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Ysv0yT3ztl12NTtWxhv4OgAAAAc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2017/03/03/uber_app_greyball/
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Ysv0yT3ztl12NTtWxhv4OgAAAAc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://t.co/cGBcbqDoTa
[8] https://twitter.com/fredericzalac/status/1546248582235205632?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/29/exuber_security_chiefs_alleged_coverup/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2018/02/09/uber_245m_settle_waymo/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2019/01/01/blade_runner_today/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2019/03/21/uber_down_under/
[13] https://www.icij.org/investigations/uber-files/key-people-in-uber-files/
[14] https://twitter.com/hashtag/UberFiles?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
[15] https://twitter.com/byaaroncdavis?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
[16] https://t.co/HPXmT0Jb64
[17] https://t.co/oq6cqeGLvM
[18] https://twitter.com/dmac1/status/1546182598975692800?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
[19] https://www.uber.com/newsroom/icij-statement/
[20] https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a39300903/uber-ceo-travis-kalanick-now-super-pumped/
[21] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/jul/10/travis-kalanick-response-uber-files?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_b-gdnnews&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1657483387
[22] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Ysv0yT3ztl12NTtWxhv4OgAAAAc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[23] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Neelie Kroes
there was already an obvious response from Macros spokesbot, to the effect that as a politician he has a duty to contact blahblahblah he's a president fuckoff.
And please don't mention Boris J...
Re: Neelie Kroes
Macron is France's Tony Blair, he's just in it for the personal glory. The shit is now hitting the fan.
Uber is a different company today
At the risk of giving them ideas, unless they've set up a new business and transferred the brand, they're very much legally the same company.
Re: Uber is a different company today
Too bad that argument doesn't hold water for young offenders of the law that get caught 10 years later. They're still accountable for their actions, regardless if they have turned over a new leaf and seen the error in their ways. Do not pass Go, do not collect 200 quatloos... go directly to jail. No get out of jail free cards!
F%ck the corporate world and their SOP, worse that gubbermints in some cases!
Re: Uber is a different company today
Sure sounds like an ongoing criminal conspiracy to me. If you ask me, prosecution couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch.
I think their only hope is the Federal Witness Protection Program. Maybe they can be disguised as a manufacturer of paper cups and novelty items based in Caribou, Maine?
Re: Uber is a different company today
I agree, but I feel bound to point out that the "we've changed" line is being advanced as a PR defence, not a legal one.
If there are specific legal repercussions incoming, they will be met with equally specific defences designed to deflect, repel, or in the worst case to limit their damage. Which is what anyone faced with legal charges does, whether a company or an individual.
Re: Uber is a different company today
Even then, unless pretty much everyone in the management chain has been sacked and replaced after the new CEO, very little will change.
Companies like this neve change, whatever politically correct spiel is spewed out. It is a fundamental cultural issue of these "disrupter companies" which loosely translates to "no regulation of any sort applies to us, anywhere in the world we choose to operate because we are new, funky, based on Tech with an App and our head office is in the US".
Re: Uber is a different company today
If they'd changed, wouldn't they want to confess and pay the penalty for past failures ?
The fact that they're wriggling shows that they haven't changed.
"Dawn Raid Manual"
If you work in a company that has that kind of manual, you urgently need to find a job somewhere else.
Uber is the sewer of the business world.
Re: "Dawn Raid Manual"
I was pondering who else would have a "Dawn Raid Manual". Instantly thought of drug cartels and scientology.
Re: "Dawn Raid Manual"
Agreed. However, since they operated under the constant threat of regulation being dropped, I can see why they might want this.
Uber was obviously a shit bag of a company in its early days (and may well still be) but they were operating in a lawless loophole.
If a government decided to 180 and outright ban everything that Uber was doing, theirnprscrices would go from legal to illegal overnight which means data and information that was previously legal is now super illegal.
A lot of countries essentially encourage this sort of system because of the way they implement new laws on a whim and retroactively apply them.
I'm not trying to back up Uber here, but we really should condemn the way laws are passed in some places. As a lot of these dickhead lawmakers would say "think of the children".
Re: "Dawn Raid Manual"
they were operating in a lawless loophole
If that were genuinely the situation, there could have been no successful legal case against them.
Re: "Dawn Raid Manual"
"theirnprscrices"
Having a bit of a covfefe?
Re: "Dawn Raid Manual"
Not really, that kind of response is quite normal. Competition authorities in a retail setting, for example, do "Dawn Raids" - but they're only called that - they rock up during business hours...
Contacting legal teams and permanently shadowing the inspectors until they are done is a reasonable response.
The rest of Ubers stuff isn't normal though that's definitely illegal...
Re: "Dawn Raid Manual"
Actually any multi-national company with serious compliance needs (Banks, Pharma, ...) or competent in-house lawyers will have such a manual. They are less sinister than what they sound, outlining responsibilities and roles of different people in case of an unannounced visit from the authorities.
But hey this boring stuff doesn't make for IT comedy.
Full disclosure: I have some experience with dawn raids at customers, and yes the FTSE 100 company I work for has one in multiple languages.
Re: "Dawn Raid Manual"
Actually any multi-national company with serious compliance issues (Banks, Pharma, ...)
ftfy
Obviously whoever got the idea of the Kill Button is not a reader of the Who Me? column on The Reg ......
I told you!
I told you they were evil! I said it back then, and never became a customer as a result. Finally I am vindicated, and they will.. retire in luxury to their Caribbean islands.
There's no justice :(
Neelie Kroes
was also involved. The one that helped fine Microsoft and Intel for whatever. Wonder if either of those 2 companies are "looking" at this. But given that Macron is an ex banker, well his behaviour is just par for the course.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62057321
Ishy