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TECHNOLOGY A23
Saturday 6 May 2017
Feds probe Uber’s use of fake app to stymie city inspectors
DETROIT (AP) — The Jus- the report said. This March 1, 2017, file photo shows an exterior view of the headquarters of Uber in San Francisco.
tice Department is prob- BEYOND PORTLAND Associated Press
ing allegations that Uber The Justice Department
used phony software to probe apparently isn’t Uber said it stopped using Uber’s aggressive tactics by its investors at more than
thwart city officials looking limited to Portland. A the software. in its battle with the heav- $60 billion — but one that
at whether the ride-hailing spokesman for the Phila- The company’s cat-and- ily regulated taxi industry. is nevertheless frequently
company was following lo- delphia Parking Authority mouse game with regula- Uber has built a rapidly accused of bending the
cal regulations. confirmed Friday that the tors is just one example of growing company valued rules.q
The city of Portland, Or- agency had been con-
egon, said in an April audit tacted by Justice officials Microsoft takes aim at Google with
report that it was notified of who asked about software
the federal inquiry by the that helped Uber evade in- laptop, slim Windows
U.S. Attorney’s Office in San spectors.
Francisco. Portland says it is “Other than that I can’t BARBARA ORTUTAY Google and its inexpensive Tynker and a new one from
cooperating. Uber and the go into any detail,” said AP Technology Writer Microsoft called Make-
U.S. Attorney’s Office both the spokesman, Martin NEW YORK (AP) — Micro- Chromebooks in the class- Code.
declined to comment. O’Rourke. The author- soft is taking aim at Google — A classroom version of
Reuters and other news ity regulates taxicabs and as it introduced a Surface room, where the latter has Microsoft Teams will let stu-
outlets have reported that ride-hailing services in the device for students and dents (supervised by their
the investigation is a crimi- city in addition to parking. slimmed down Windows made major inroads . teacher) chat and work
nal probe currently before According to a Decem- for the classroom. together online. In class-
a grand jury. ber legal settlement with The new Surface Laptop Microsoft said new educa- room group chats, students
GREYBALLING THE OVER- Uber, Philadelphia authori- is the first Surface device can listen to guest speak-
SEERS ties had figured out that without a detachable key- tion PCs running Windows ers, interact and even send
Uber’s software — nick- inspectors were being board. Microsoft says the emojis and GIF images. If it
named “Greyball” — iden- blocked from Uber rides. new laptop will have up 10 S will start at $189, a bit gets too rowdy, teachers
tified regulators who posed Under one provision of to 14.5 hours of battery life, can mute individual stu-
as riders while trying to col- that agreement, Uber was compared with 12 hours more than the cheapest dents or the whole class,
lect evidence that Uber’s required to reinstate ac- for the MacBook Air. The or delete individual com-
service was breaking taxi counts associated with Surface Laptop will come Chromebooks. The Surface ments. Microsoft hopes the
laws. Uber allegedly served credit-card and telephone out on June 15. tool will serve as a digital
up a fake version of its app numbers the authority be- The laptop runs Windows Laptop, though, will start at hub for classrooms, where
to make it appear the un- lieved were blocked “as a 10 S, a streamlined version teachers can personal-
dercover regulators were result of (Uber’s) enforce- of the ubiquitous operating $999, the same as the Mac- ize learning and commu-
summoning a car, only to ment activities,” a refer- system. It will run only soft- nicate with students and
have the ride canceled. ence to the Greyball sys- ware downloaded from Book Air. their parents.q
Portland officials began in- tem. the Windows Store, a limi-
vestigating Uber after the SHADES OF GREYBALL tation that Microsoft touts Among Microsoft’s other
New York Times disclosed Uber said in an April 21 let- as a security benefit. Mi-
the existence of Greyball ter to the city that its own crosoft’s previous effort at education announce-
in March. “The city of Port- investigation indicated a slimmed-down Windows,
land was notified by the that Greyball was used Windows RT, wasn’t popu- ments:
United States Attorney of “exceedingly sparingly” lar because it wouldn’t run
the Northern District of Cali- in Portland. The company older programs unavail- — Microsoft is adding a
fornia that Uber is the sub- said it removed all Greyball able in the Windows Store.
ject of a federal inquiry,” tags in Portland back in The laptop comes at a coding feature to Mine-
the audit report stated. April 2015 and has not used rough time for the Sur-
In the audit report, the them since. face line, which Microsoft craft Education, the off-
Portland Bureau of Trans- Uber has acknowledged blamed for the small rev-
portation found that Uber it used Greyball to coun- enue shortfall in its latest shoot of its wildly popu-
tagged 17 rider accounts ter regulators working with quarterly report. And it’s a
with Greyball, 16 of which the company’s opponents clear effort by Microsoft to lar creator game. Called
were government officials. to entrap its drivers. It was step up competition with
Uber used the software to part of a broader program “Code Builder,” the feature
“intentionally evade” city called VTOS, shorthand for
transportation officers be- “violations of terms of ser- combines Minecraft with
tween Dec. 5 and Dec. 19, vice,” that Uber says it de-
2014, the report said. veloped to protect its ser- learn-to-code tools such as
The company pulled out of vice.
Portland on Dec. 21, 2014, “This program denies ride
but returned late in April of requests to fraudulent users
2015. After that, the audit who are violating our terms
found no evidence that of service — whether that’s
Uber used Greyball, the re- people aiming to physical-
port stated. ly harm drivers, competi-
“Finding no evidence of tors looking to disrupt our
the use of Greyball or simi- operations, or opponents
lar software tools after April who collude with officials
2015 does not prove defini- on secret ‘stings’ meant to
tively that such tools were entrap drivers,” Uber said.
not used. It is inherently dif- Less than a week after
ficult to prove a negative,” Greyball was exposed,
