A new report in Bloomberg Businessweek reveals Ripley, the system Uber devised to hide information on company devices from law enforcement. Under Ripley, named after the Aliens protagonist, a supervisor in an office that’s been raided by law enforcement would quickly contact the San Francisco headquarters, from where Uber employees would remotely log-off from every computer in the raided office. Given the computers’ standard encryption, Ripley made it virtually impossible for authorities, often investigating tax laws, to take any evidence from computers during a surprise visit. The Uber security and legal divisions spearheaded Ripley, and the heads of both divisions have since left the company. Ripley has been deployed in Uber offices across several countries.
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