Uber faces criminal probe over software used to evade authorities
Uber has nowhere to hide here. Let's say you're ordinary schlubs who are engaging in illegal activity at work, what's the dumbest possible thing you could do? Leave evidence, of course, or worse, create evidence. Such as talking about it over email. That would be super, super dumb.<p>Let's look at the stratospheric levels of dumbness that Uber got up to here. This is a handy checklist of things <i>not</i> to do if you're engaging in criminal activity:<p>Document their crimes by talking about them openly on official, archived communication channels such as email.<p>Make the criminal activity <i>official corporate policy</i>.<p>Write software to support their criminal activity, with no reasonable believable cover story.<p>Give their criminal conspiracy a project codename.<p>Even garden variety street gangs aren't this idiotic. Imagine the police pulling someone in for questioning and opening up their bag to find a notebook. Page 1 of the notebook begins with this heading: "Project Keys: Smuggling Heroin into the United States". Page 2 of the notebook is an extended description of the exact methods used to smuggle heroin past border security. Page 3 of the notebook is a list of dates, times, and individuals who have smuggled heroin into the US. And so on. No drug dealer is that stupid, because that would put you in jail for a very long time if it fell into the hands of law enforcement. And yet, here we are, Uber really is that stupid.