{"id":337728,"date":"2017-04-06T02:12:51","date_gmt":"2017-04-05T18:12:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1473222"},"modified":"2017-04-06T02:12:51","modified_gmt":"2017-04-05T18:12:51","slug":"uber-finds-one-allegedly-stolen-waymo-file-on-an-employees-personal-device","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/uber-finds-one-allegedly-stolen-waymo-file-on-an-employees-personal-device\/","title":{"rendered":"Uber finds one allegedly stolen Waymo file \u2013 on an employee\u2019s personal device"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Uber admitted today that it had found one of the documents Waymo alleges was stolen by a former employee \u2014 who left its self-driving car effort to join Uber\u2019s \u2014 on the employee\u2019s personal computer.<\/p>\n

The document was found on a personal device belonging to\u00a0Sameer Kshirsagar, Uber\u2019s attorney Arturo Gonzalez said at a court hearing today. It\u2019s the first time that Uber has acknowledged that any of Waymo\u2019s documents are in the possession of any Uber employees. However, Uber emphasized that the document was not found on Uber\u2019s computers. \u201cWe did collect documents from him and thus far we have only found one document from his computers that matches the documents identified in the complaint,\u201d Gonzalez said.<\/p>\n

Waymo claims that Kshirsagar downloaded several confidential documents in June 2016, one month before resigning and joining Anthony Levandowski at Uber. The names of the five specific documents are partially redacted in court filings, but one references \u201claser questions\u201d and another \u201clens placement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Levandowski is one of three Uber employees accused of taking Waymo trade secrets, and Waymo says he took 14,000 documents, while Kshirsagar and\u00a0Radu Raduta took only a few. Waymo is now asking for Uber to turn over those stolen documents as part of the discovery process in its trade secret lawsuit against its competitor, while Uber argues that it cannot\u00a0hand over anything from Levandowski without violating his Fifth Amendment rights and that it has already thoroughly searched for the documents at Uber.<\/p>\n

Uber said it has interviewed 85 current and former employees, 42 of whom worked in the automotive division. Uber searched 10 of the employees\u2019 computers and looked through the company\u2019s git repository for files that matched Waymo\u2019s descriptions. The company found 31,000 hits but described them as \u201cnot substantive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u00a0believe that we will demonstrate to you that those 14,000 files never made it to Uber,\u201d Gonzalez said.<\/p>\n

Waymo claimed in a letter to the court that Uber did not meet the deadline to hand over documents and refused to provide all of the documents Waymo had requested, particularly the 14,000 confidential Waymo documents Levandowski allegedly downloaded before he left the company to lead Uber\u2019s self-driving car unit.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo the extent Uber tries to excuse its noncompliance on the grounds that Mr. Levandowski has invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to provide Uber with documents or assistance, Waymo notes that Mr. Levandowski remains \u2014 to this day<\/strong><\/em> \u2014 an Uber executive and in charge of its self-driving car program. Uber has ratified Mr. Levandowski\u2019s behavior and is liable for it,\u201d Waymo attorney\u00a0Charles K. Verhoeven wrote in a letter to the court (emphasis his).<\/p>\n

Judge William Alsup, who is presiding over the case, ordered Uber to search more thoroughly for the documents. He told Uber to search using 15 terms provided by Waymo, first on the employees\u2019 computers that had already been searched, then on 10 employees\u2019 computers selected by Waymo, and then on all other servers and devices connected to employees who work on Uber\u2019s LiDAR system.<\/p>\n

Featured Image: Bryce Durbin\/TechCrunch<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"\/ <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5817,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[59,66,26],"class_list":["post-337728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-media","tag-techcrunch","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5817"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337728\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}