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Author Topic: Uber - 57 million hacked, ransom paid, covered up  (Read 13949 times)

Bowdon

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Re: Uber - 57 million hacked, ransom paid, covered up
« Reply #15 on: November 24, 2017, 03:42:02 PM »

I've never used Uber, and think they have made a short cut across a lot of regulations both in this country and others.

I think the main reason they have become popular is they have embraced the future. The taxi industry I think become complacent.

I know the one time I tried to hail a black cab on the street, everyone went past. I'm not big of playing up disability as I've been around disabled people all my life, so its 'normal' for me. But I can think of no other reason than that. At least with Uber you would be getting interaction instead of being totally blanked.
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broadstairs

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Re: Uber - 57 million hacked, ransom paid, covered up
« Reply #16 on: November 24, 2017, 03:56:59 PM »

The satnav avoids roadworks and traffic.

Satnavs are not infallible and I have seen folks get lost with them. For London you cant beat the Knowledge, and for outside London take a road map, it never fails.

Stuart
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Dray

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Re: Uber - 57 million hacked, ransom paid, covered up
« Reply #17 on: November 24, 2017, 04:28:55 PM »

A road map? in Manhattan? or any other city where Uber operates? I don't think so
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sevenlayermuddle

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Re: Uber - 57 million hacked, ransom paid, covered up
« Reply #18 on: November 24, 2017, 04:58:48 PM »

For my part, I’ve avoided suggesting that Uber should be banned everywhere, as there might be places that they are lesser than other evils. 

But in London, it just seems so pointless.  We have excellent drivers, The Knowledge, and purpose-designed vehicles that can deal with London traffic, manouverable enough to a turn on the proverbial sixpence.   They also have priority traffic bus/taxi lanes that allow them to sneak past queues of Uber and other minicabs.  London’s black cabs are, imho, the best taxi service I have ever encountered - not cheap, but worth every penny.

Worst was Washington DC.   I got an taxi at the airport official rank, and asked him to take me to the Willard Intercontinental, a rather grand and famous hotel.   He’d never heard of it, so I said it was just across the road from the entrance to the White House.   He just shook his said, never heard of the White House either.  Yet he was a licensed taxi driver.  No surprise that Americans seem to take to alternatives, like Uber. :D

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Chrysalis

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Re: Uber - 57 million hacked, ransom paid, covered up
« Reply #19 on: November 24, 2017, 08:46:54 PM »

Stuart its a free country and market, and hence your view is fine.

But looking at the numbers, large amounts of people disagree with you.
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Chrysalis

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Re: Uber - 57 million hacked, ransom paid, covered up
« Reply #20 on: November 24, 2017, 09:01:33 PM »

Oh it does, easily - You don't have to tell the driver where you're going, you don't have to pay the driver, you don't even tip the driver. It's all handled by the app.

Agree with you.

Security ? - No need to carry cash or even a payment card on you.  When I researched the number of taxi driver incidents earlier this year following my uber thread, the information I found suggested uber drivers were only a minority of known bad drivers in the UK. You and the driver are both tracked by GPS as well. Plus the uber system logs who is the driver and passenger for each and every journey, this makes it harder for a driver to do something and get away with it, so actively discourages bad behaviour.
Reliability - Not sure what he meant by this, but if he means drivers honouring jobs, then I can only really compare uber to my previous taxi service of which uber is more reliable.
Service - not much to say really, you dont have to stand out in the street hailing cabs, dont need to ring someone up, dont need cash lying around to pay driver, dont need to prebook in advance even at peak hours, its a on demand taxi service to pick up from your current location, booked online with fully automated payments.  I had one bad experience a few weeks back where a driver cancelled my pickup and the new driver would have been late so I cancelled the new driver, I was then charged as if I had originally cancelled it, I went on the app and said he cancelled it and was instantly refunded.

If black cabs work the same way as yellow cabs in new york and black cabs in Leicester then they are a limited service, you need to find one to use it, In Leicester they parked in the city centre (special privileges) and outside the train station, but otherwise you never ever see one, so if you not in one of those 2 places you not even getting one.  The atmosphere in the vehicle whenever I have used one is sour, you on the backseat behind a metal grating like police cars have, driver doesnt talk, no radio etc.  They deliberately go to traffic jams when they exist so they can charge more on the meter as well I feel, so there is that distrust between the driver and passenger.

So you can see there is an argument for the other side as well as to why uber is superior, and many people in the UK do agree with me, hence the situation we have in london with black cabbies trying to get the competition banned as they unwilling to adapt to more modern practices.

If somehow the uber ban goes through, something will replace uber, the monopoly the black cabs have enjoyed is coming to and end I am afraid stuart.
« Last Edit: November 24, 2017, 09:04:36 PM by Chrysalis »
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sevenlayermuddle

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Re: Uber - 57 million hacked, ransom paid, covered up
« Reply #21 on: November 24, 2017, 10:43:24 PM »

@Crysalis,

It may well be the case that individual Uber drivers happen to be great guys/gals, eager to provide a fantastic service.   But even if that is true they are, perhaps unwittingly, supporting the profits of one of the most evil organisations of modern times (my personal opinion).

Re security... in order to use Uber, you have to sign up, right?  And grant the App access to your location data?    Surely you can see that signing up and providing personal data to a company like I regard Uber, is virtually guaranteed to be a security disaster?  Even if not a data breach, there’ll be something awful in the small print of their T&C.   Handing over a £10 note and saying “keep the change” is infinitely more secure.

The Black Cabs have always had competition, from what we used to call Minicabs, very similar to Uber.   Minicabs in days gone by did serve a purpose, I have used them.   As long as it is a fair and level playing field, I don’t think competition is any threat to London’s professional, licenced taxis.

I’m also not sure black cabs in the provincial towns bear any relation to London black cabs, in terms of driver qualifications, regulatory controls,  or levels of service.  They might be black and taxi shaped, but that does not make them London taxis. :)
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Dray

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Re: Uber - 57 million hacked, ransom paid, covered up
« Reply #22 on: November 24, 2017, 11:02:58 PM »

« Last Edit: November 24, 2017, 11:05:34 PM by Dray »
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sevenlayermuddle

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Re: Uber - 57 million hacked, ransom paid, covered up
« Reply #23 on: November 24, 2017, 11:26:01 PM »

£10? When did you last take a black cab in LDN?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/uber/11902613/Proof-that-Uber-costs-less-than-black-cabs.html

From The Telegraph...

Quote
A one-mile journey in an Uber taxi can be almost one-and-a-half times cheaper than taking a black cab, according to industry figures that support the app's battle against new regulations in London.

Hmm.   If they were ‘half cheaper’ their fares would be 50% of black cabs.  It follows, if they were ‘one times cheaper’, they would be free.   But ‘one and a half times cheaper’, does that mean Uber pay me for travelling with them?   Might be tempted, after all. :D
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Dray

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Re: Uber - 57 million hacked, ransom paid, covered up
« Reply #24 on: November 24, 2017, 11:39:25 PM »

Clearly journalists are not very good at maths :)
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sevenlayermuddle

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Re: Uber - 57 million hacked, ransom paid, covered up
« Reply #25 on: November 24, 2017, 11:44:51 PM »

 :)
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Ronski

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Re: Uber - 57 million hacked, ransom paid, covered up
« Reply #26 on: November 25, 2017, 08:11:28 AM »

I've just had a brief look at that telegraph article, and it's clear TFL's proposals are aimed at making it harder for Uber to operate, therefore protecting black cabs, nothing about protecting drivers or passengers, at least not in that article.

I very rarely use a taxi, but I will give Uber a go next time I do, I like the way it works with the app, but they clearly need to improve the way they run the company.
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stevebrass

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Re: Uber - 57 million hacked, ransom paid, covered up
« Reply #27 on: November 25, 2017, 09:56:59 AM »

I have to say using Uber abroad on holiday in the USA faves us a much better service and experience than taxi cabs.

The knowledge you are being tracked makes a big difference to our feeling of security.

Yes Uber have corporate issues to sort out; I’ll wager as do do a lot more well known companies.

And I suspect many of the local cab companies need more are not bereft of smaller issues.

There is a bigger picture about the gig economy to consider of course.
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sevenlayermuddle

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Re: Uber - 57 million hacked, ransom paid, covered up
« Reply #28 on: November 25, 2017, 10:23:15 AM »

Londn cabs aside...

Where I live, village hamlet in middle of nowhere, the only taxi is a local guy in the next village, with a couple of cars.  Needs to be booked day or two in advance, but you get used to that.   I suspect he makes most of his living from lucrative airport runs, but he’s happy to do local runs too if he’s available.

Seems to be under competition lately, from web-based hirers (no Uber yet), I hope he doesn’t suffer.   People coming to visit will often use their favourite online booking service to get a taxi from the airport, rather than take my advice to let me book the local guy.   It usually ends badly, as the Sat Nav announces “you have arrived” as soon as you enter the postcode area, which is huge.   Houses are widely dispersed and have names, not numbers, so they end up cruising past every house, up and down every branch in the lane, trying to find the name.   The local guy, of course, just knows all the house names. :)

For cost, on longer airport runs, the web-based vs local taxi are similar, circa £90.   But to pick me up and drive to nearest railway station, the local guy wins out hugely - £6 for local guy, vs £20 for web.
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kitz

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Re: Uber - 57 million hacked, ransom paid, covered up
« Reply #29 on: November 25, 2017, 10:56:11 AM »

Aside from the dubious practices - the basic thing is we are down to pricing.   Think of it like broadband TT v AAISP if you like when it comes to pricing.   When it comes to cheap then usually corners are cut somewhere.

I watched a tv program years ago, the cameras followed a guy who was learning the knowledge.  This guy was bombing around London on a moped trying to get experience and know the roads and major hotels/locations/attractions.  It took him years.  In fact just checked it takes on average 3-4 years to pass the knowledge.

So think of it this way - you speak to staff at AAISP then usually they will have spent years getting qualifications in computing and they're going to have a good idea of what you are talking about.   Phone up TalkTalk and you get an Indian call centre following a script. 

Back to taxi's drivers.   Someone spent years learning their trade - v- someone who wasn't even guaranteed a minimum wage following a sat nav.   
It's pretty well known that driving for uber is a step up from being on the dole and the only people getting rich are Uber themselves who don't give 2 hoots about their employee conditions and often exploit them.

So yes I can understand the black cabbies concerns..  they have to live in london and have families to feed - they should be entitled to earn a decent living sufficient not to be rich, but to earn a working class wage for working outside of normal working hours and something which took years to qualify for.

In some respects we appear to be going backwards, so many jobs are now minimum wage/zero contract.  We have record numbers of people relying on food banks or gov top-ups.  Where have all the 9-5 jobs gone?   We are expected to work much longer hours and have little family time.   The gap between the haves and have nots is increasing and more people finding themselves in the have not bracket.  Many kids now spend years getting a degree, finding themselves in many years of debt and no guarantee of a job.   :(   

I personally know a young lad 4yrs at uni studying forensic science and some basic law wanting to do the job that his father/grandfather etc had been in for years.  Came out with a 2.1  and having to take a job that could hardly support his living expenses.  In the end he jacked it in and went working for Aldi as trainee manager which paid more, but still insufficient to be able to get a home of his own.    For the past year or so he's been living in NZ doing a job that he trained for.  He is happy and paid a decent living wage.  His younger brother is also following his footsteps and gone over there now that he has qualified.  I really do feel sorry for some of todays kids.
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