Big dark-web market goes offline

19 March 2015 Last updated at 11:15

One of the biggest drug marketplaces on the dark web has abruptly shut down.

The Evolution site closed as its administrators went offline reportedly taking with them bitcoins people had deposited with the underground bazaar.

The two administrators are believed to have absconded with about $12m (£8m) in bitcoins.

Evolution was one of several drug-selling sites that filled the gap created when a similar site, the Silk Road, was closed down in 2013.

The Evolution marketplace was a hidden site on the Tor network. This system is used by many people to hide their identity and location and others have found ways to host sites on it in a similar fashion to those found on the wider web. The Tor network conceals information by bouncing data through several different machines and encrypting it at every step.

According to tech news site Ars Technica the marketplace let people buy illegal drugs, stolen ID information, weapons and hacking services. Payment for these goods and services was only made using bitcoins. Evolution offered an "escrow" service which let people deposit bitcoins on the site to help speed up the sales process.

Security expert Brian Krebs said this meant the administrators had "direct access to a tempting amount of virtually untraceable currency".

The temptation appears to have been irresistible, said Mr Krebs, as many people who bought and sold via the site took to social news site Reddit to report the administrators had absconded with their escrowed bitcoins.

Evolution rose to prominence following the closure of the Silk Road site in 2013 following raids by the FBI and other US law enforcement agencies. It also prospered when the Silk Road 2.0 went offline.

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Tag Heuer to make Android Wear watch

19 March 2015 Last updated at 13:01 By Leo Kelion Technology desk editor

Swiss watchmaker Tag Heuer has announced it is to build an Android Wear-powered smartwatch.

The firm - which is part of the luxury goods-maker LVMH Group - is forming a partnership with Google and the chipmaker Intel to create the device.

Switzerland dominates the high-end watch sector. This marks the first of its companies to join Google's wearable tech ecosystem.

One analyst linked the move to Apple's entry into the market.

The announcement was made at the Baselworld trade show in Switzerland.

Jean-Claude Biver, president of LVMH's watch division, told the BBC that it made sense to look beyond Switzerland's borders once his firm had decided to enter the smartwatch market.

"There are two operating systems: one is Apple's iOS, the other is Android Wear - who are we to invent another language at that level?" he said.

"It would be absurd, it would be arrogant to believe that we could develop our own [operating system]. It would be a catastrophe to believe such a stupid thing.

"There is no doubt that we could eventually go to Apple, but why should we do a partnership with Apple, who is producing watches? On the one side they would be partners, on the other a competitor.

"Google is not producing watches, so the relationship is perfect."

Intel noted that Tag Heuer's 155-year-old brand had long been associated with "being dynamic, disruptive and modern" making it a good partner.

But it added that it wanted to pursue other tie-ups with traditional watchmakers.

"Our hope is that this type of partnership will set a precedent for other brands to consider diversifying into wearable tech and enhancing their products with technology," said spokeswoman Ellen Healy.

'Palpable buzz'

About 720,000 watches powered by Android Wear were shipped in 2014, according to market research firm Canalys.

To date fitness tracking wristbands have outsold the smartwatch sector as a whole by a wide margin.

However, next month's launch of the Apple Watch - backed by a big budget marketing campaign - is expected to raise interest in the sector.

Apple's wearable is only compatible with its own handsets, and phones powered by the Android operating system are much more widespread.

"The palpable buzz around the Apple Watch has raised consumer awareness levels to a point that traditional watchmakers can no longer ignore this emerging opportunity," commented Ben Wood from the tech consultancy CCS Insight.

"Tag Heuer's decision to partner with technology companies to deliver a smartwatch will likely be the first of many similar deals. As the Baselworld event shows, the luxury goods space is big business."

Emotional smartwatch

The Swiss firm has not revealed any images of what the device will look like yet.

But Mr Biver suggested it would stand out from other smartwatches.

"The whole look of the watch will be different," he said.

"It will be a traditional look. It will not look like an Apple Watch. An Apple Watch looks like a miniaturised copy of its phone. Our watch will never look like a phone.

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WATCH: The BBC's Richard Taylor has a hands-on with Android Wear

"Our watch will [have] all the emotion and the DNA of Tag Heuer and it will fit into our collection."

Earlier in the day US-based watchmaker Fossil Group teased it forthcoming "connected accessories". They will include Android Wear-powered smartwatches as well as other sensor-equipped models, as part of the firm's own tie-up with Google and Intel.

The company makes a wide range of watches under both its own brand and others', including Emporio Armani, Diesel, Michael Kors and Burberry. To do this it creates modular components that can be used across multiple designs.

'Fusion'

Fossil signalled that it would take a similar approach to creating a diverse portfolio of tech-enhanced wristwear.

"There are many many products coming to market that all look the same," said Theresa Palermo, a marketing executive at Fossil, at the firm's Baselworld press conference.

"[But] what we all know and love about fashion is the ability to be unique, the ability to be different.

"That is what we see as the big opportunity - merging the fusion of technology that users need and want… with our incredible ingenuity and design innovation."

She added that the first products would be released this year.

Fossil recently reported a 1% year-on-year drop in watch sales at a time many of its rivals were reporting growth.

It accounts for about 6% of all watch sale revenues, according to market research firm Euromonitor, making it one of the five biggest firms in the sector.

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Ted winner to create voice archive

19 March 2015 Last updated at 11:33 By Jane Wakefield Technology reporter, Vancouver

A radio broadcaster who has spent a decade collecting the conversations of ordinary people intends to make the project digital, thanks to a $1m prize.

Each year Ted (Technology, Entertainment and Design) awards the prize to someone working on a project with a global impact.

Dave Isay has spent the money on a smartphone app that will allow anyone to contribute conversations.

He hopes to create an "archive of the wisdom of humanity".

Mr Isay was originally a radio documentary maker, and he formed StoryCorps in 2003.

Describing it as a "crazy idea", he said the aim was to collect and preserve the conversations of ordinary Americans.

He set up a booth in Grand Central Station in New York where two people are invited in to have a conversation.

Since then the project has added mobile booths and three other fixed ones.

It has collated the conversations of 110,000 Americans - with some of the best recordings making it to air on US national public radio station NPR.

Mr Isay described it as the "largest archive of voices ever gathered".

Global voices

Now he wants to make the project global and digital.

The app allows people to record interviews with someone whose story they wish to preserve, whether that be a stranger, a family member or friend.

The app is simple to use and comes with tips about how to create a good interview.

People can choose to save the conversation just for themselves or upload it to the StoryCorps website.

Copies sent to StoryCorps will also be sent to the US Library of Congress to save as an oral history of people's lives.

During his speech at the Ted conference in Vancouver, Mr Isay played excerpts from some of the conversations he has collected over the past decade.

They included an elderly man explaining to his wife why he loved her and a moving conversation between a mother and her autistic son.

Mr Isay hopes that he can create special events with the app, including a day each year when children record a conversation with an elderly relative.

He also hoped people would record the voices of people not often heard - from nursing homes or prisons, for instance.

He spoke of his ambition for the StoryCorps app "to help create a world where we listen closely to each other and recognise the beauty, grace and poetry in the lives and stories we find all around us".

He added: "The act of honouring a loved one (or a stranger) in this way can help us recognise all that we share in common as human beings, and remind us that every life matters equally and infinitely."

The free app is available on both Android and iPhone. It is currently only available in English, but StoryCorps is looking into making it available in other languages.

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Yahoo pulls the plug on China office

19 March 2015 Last updated at 06:39

Internet giant Yahoo is closing its China office as part of a worldwide consolidation aimed at cutting costs.

The Beijing research centre is Yahoo's only remaining physical presence in the country after it sold its Chinese operations to Alibaba in 2005.

A spokesperson said "around 350 jobs" would be eliminated.

"We are constantly making changes to align resources, and to foster better collaboration and innovation across our business," Yahoo said in a statement.

Analysis: Martin Patience, BBC News, Beijing

The news that Yahoo was closing its last remaining office in mainland China travelled fast.

Outside the Yahoo research centre, an employment agency staged a guerrilla-style PR campaign offering the sacked staff new jobs.

Many Yahoo employees appeared unimpressed as they walked by men dressed up in silver, alien outfits.

One employee said the news was "very sad." He added, "I had good relations with my colleagues and now I need to say goodbye."

The move by the internet giant, however, doesn't come as a huge surprise.

Yahoo has been rapidly retreating from the Chinese market. In 2013, it stopped offering services to email users in China.

It's had an often fraught relationship with the Chinese government. Controversially the firm handed over information to the authorities that led to the jailing of two Chinese dissidents.

But according to reports, this closure was nothing to do with government pressure or censorship. Instead it's been driven by the internet giant's desire to cut its global operating costs.

Yahoo has been struggling to maintain profit growth in the face of growing competition from rival online search portals like Google.

The Sunnyvale, California-based firm has also been trying to adapt to consumers increasingly using mobile devices, which attract less advertising revenue.

As a result, Yahoo Chief Executive Marissa Mayer has made a slew of acquisitions in a bid to diversify business and add new revenue streams.

Earlier this year, Yahoo also announced plans to spin off its stake in Alibaba, China's largest e-commerce company, which is valued at more than $30bn.

The tech giant also owns a lucrative stake in Yahoo Japan. Yahoo had a global workforce of about 12,500 workers at the end of 2014.

China operations

Yahoo is the latest US technology firm to exit operations in China.

Continue reading the main story

When you're as weak as Yahoo globally, it doesn't make sense to have a research and development arm in China since its too expensive."

End Quote Shaun Rein China Market Research

Google partially withdrew in 2010 after clashing with Chinese authorities over censorship.

Earlier this year gamemaker Zynga closed its office and shed more than 70 jobs after its products failed to gain traction against local competition.

Shaun Rein, managing director of consultancy China Market Research said it was very difficult for consumer-facing foreign internet players to find success in China.

"Unlike rest of the world, they're facing well-funded, aggressive home-grown players," he said.

"In China you have really strong entrepreneurship in the online space and they're able to react quicker to consumer trends."

Mr Rein added that it makes sense for Yahoo to "cull through headcount and business lines that aren't making a profit".

"When you're as weak as Yahoo globally, it doesn't make sense to have a research and development arm in China since its too expensive."

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Google wants self-drive cars by 2020

18 March 2015 Last updated at 12:02 By Jane Wakefield Technology reporter, Vancouver

The director of Google's self-drive car project has revealed his motivation for ensuring that the technology is standard on roads within five years.

Chris Urmson told delegates at the Ted (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference that his eldest son was 11-years-old and due to take his driving test in "four and a half years".

"My team are committed to making sure that doesn't happen," he said.

He also laid out Google's commitment to fully automated cars.

Some automotive firms have opted to introduce driver-assist functions in cars in the hope that the technology can gradually win over the many sceptics who would be uncomfortable in a fully automated car.

By contrast Google's own car - a prototype electric pod revealed in December - will have no steering wheel or conventional controls although for early testing, extra controls will be fitted so one of Google's test drivers can take over if there is a problem.

The fact that people are driving more and getting stuck in traffic jams for longer were two other good reasons to roll the technology out as soon as possible, he said.

But, most importantly, self-drive cars could drastically reduce traffic accidents, he said.

"Some 1.2 million people are killed on the roads around the world each year. That number is equivalent to a jet falling out of the sky every day."

The incremental changes some car-makers are introducing are not enough, he said.

"That is not to say that driver-assistance cars won't be useful but if we are really going to make changes to our cities, get rid of parking lots, we need self-drive cars," he said.

AI developments

Google's retrofitted self-drive cars have undergone extensive testing, racking up more than 700,000 miles on the road, and in 2013 were given to one hundred employees to test.

Mr Urmson shared with the Ted audience some of the more unusual traffic situations that the fleet of Google self-drive cars had encountered, including a child driving a toy car in the road and a woman in an electric wheelchair chasing a duck.

"There is nowhere in the handbook about how to deal with that situation," he said.

But, he added, the car slowed down and reacted appropriately in each case.

Some urge caution on the development of fully-automated cars.

Sven Beiker, executive director of the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford, has said that driverless cars may still require human input in extreme circumstances and that people may forget how to operate their vehicles if they do not do it regularly.

AI debate

Mr Urmson was one of several speakers in a Ted session entitled "Machines that learn".

The head of Stanford's Artificial Intelligence Lab Dr Fei-Fei Li spoke about her project to develop visually-intelligent computers.

Using a database of millions of images taken from the internet, her team has taught a computer to both understand a picture and generate a short audio description of that image.

The Ted audience also heard two differing points of view on the growing debate about how damaging AI will be for humanity.

Philosopher Nick Bostrom urged those involved in building super-intelligent systems to make sure AI's "were motivated to pursue our values".

But Oren Etzioni, chief executive of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence maintained that just because we are developing intelligent machines did not necessarily mean that they would operate autonomously.

"AIs will empower us and help us tackle the real problems that face humanity," he said.

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Budget boosts digital cash research

18 March 2015 Last updated at 16:00

UK research into digital cash could get a £10m boost from government.

The plan to funnel cash into the "opportunities and challenges" of digital currencies such as bitcoin were announced in the budget.

It was one of several technology-related policies unveiled in the Chancellor's speech.

Others include money to improve mobile networks and a pledge to bring superfast broadband to remote areas more quickly.

Ultrafast push

The funds will swell the money the government already puts into research into digital currencies, it said in a statement. It is also planning a new research initiative overseen by the UK's research councils, the Digital Catapult tech accelerator and the Turing Institute.

The Turing Institute was announced in the 2014 budget and, once up and running, will be an R&D centre specialising in ways to collect, organise and analyse large data sets.

Alongside the spending will go changes to the way digital currencies are policed in the UK. The Chancellor announced plans to apply anti-money laundering regulations to the UK markets where digital cash is traded and to look at ways to protect consumers who buy and sell them.

The £10m pledge showed the government was "serious" about digital currencies, said Garrick Hileman, an economic historian from the London School of Economics.

"The net impact of the announcements is to make the UK, and London specifically, an even more attractive destination for investment in the crypto-currency economy," he said.

The budget also contained a pledge to put about £140m in research cash towards smart cities, driverless cars and the internet of things.

Mr Osborne also announced ways to improve UK broadband speeds. The Chancellor unveiled an "ambition" to ensure that "ultrafast broadband of at least 100 megabits per second should be available to nearly all UK premises".

"It's a really good ambition for the UK," said Malcolm Corbett of the Independent Networks Co-operative Association. "We would encourage the government to ensure that they support a competitive response to this ambition."

Andrew Ferguson, co-founder of the Think Broadband news site, said the commitment to ultrafast was "exciting" but said the details needed to be fleshed out.

"The 'nearly all' line might mean 90% or it might mean 98%," he said.

In addition, the government plans to boost online speeds by changing the terms of the Universal Service Obligation (USO) that sets out the minimum telecom service every home should expect to get. The basic speed that homes should get will be raised from dial-up to 5 megabits per second, said the Chancellor.

Mr Ferguson from Think Broadband said: "The USO change is the big news for rural and could be done quickly if they want since vouchers for satellite install are easy."

The budget also promised a new £4m fund to help video games start-ups and a further £4m for a skills investment fund to boost the training available to people already working in the sector.

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Bill Gates calls for 'germ games'

19 March 2015 Last updated at 09:36 By Jane Wakefield Technology reporter, Vancouver

The world needs to prepare for the next major health crisis, Bill Gates has told delegates at the Ted (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference.

While Ebola seems to be being kept under control currently, next time "we may not be so lucky" the Microsoft co-founder warned.

He said that there were plenty of technology tools that could be used to contain the spread of a virus.

And, he added, governments should learn from how nations prepare for war.

"Nato plays war games to check that people are well-trained and prepared. Now we need germ games," he said.

He also called for a reserve "medical corps" similar to the reserve armies that civilians can join.

Technology can play a big role in helping prevent the spread of a virus, he told the Ted audience.

The proliferation of mobile phones mean that citizens can easily report where disease breaks out and satellite mapping can quickly collate where the problem areas are.

Meanwhile advances in biology have drastically cut the time it takes to develop vaccines for new viruses

During the Ebola crisis, technology firms such as IBM contributed tracking systems that allowed the authorities to create detailed maps of outbreaks based on text messages from citizens.

Bill Gates has long had an interest in global problems such as poverty and disease and the Gates Foundation, which he set up with his wife, has contributed millions to help solve the issues.

The fight against Ebola

During the recent Ebola crisis, the Gates Foundation shipped vests lined with ice-packs to help doctors and nurses, who must cover themselves in protective gear, keep cool.

At the Ted conference, a mock-up of an Ebola hospital showed how tough life is for the doctors and nurses who work in them. Delegates were invited to try on a protective suit, perform tasks in it and take it off without allowing any part of it to touch skin.

More long term it is vital that strong health systems are built in poorer countries, Mr Gates said.

Meanwhile the world needs to be prepared for the next epidemic.

"We can get ready, we don't need to panic. We don't need to hoard cans of spaghetti and hide in the basement," he told the Ted audience.

"If there is any good to have come out of the Ebola crisis it is that it has acted as a early warning, a wake-up call," he added.

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Registered to vote? Computer says no…

19 March 2015 Last updated at 10:47

This May, technology could have quite an impact on the way the general election is conducted.

No, we are not about to try online voting - that's a long way off - but millions of people will have registered to vote by going online. The government's revamped website gov.uk now allows you to register. But could mixed messages and a lack of joined up thinking between central and local government cause confusion?

It certainly has in my household. The other day a letter arrived from my local council with a simple message:

"The way you register to vote has changed. It only takes a few minutes, and will mean you can vote at elections." It continued with this warning: "You need to provide this information by 20th March 2015. If you don't, you could be fined £80." Now, this was quite a shock. I've been living at the same address for more than 20 years and was sure I was already on the electoral register.

Nevertheless, spurred on by that threat of a fine, I followed the instructions on the letter to go to the site and register. It's a commendably clear and simple process. You just need your date of birth, your National Insurance number, your permanent address, and are asked to confirm whether you have moved in the last 12 months.

But having completed the form, I was then presented with a message saying: "Your name is not yet on the electoral register." It went on: "If your application is successful, your name will appear on the next update to the electoral register."

This left me with the distinct impression that I was not registered to vote and that it was a jolly good thing I had taken action. Then I asked some other people to go to gov.uk and try the process themselves - they all reported back with the same experience. "Thank you," tweeted one person. "I was certain I'm on, went to check, turns out I'm not, despite living same address 18 years."

Giving people the option to register online seems like a very good idea [but] creating confusion in the run up to a general election does not seem so smart"

End Quote

What is going on? Had I uncovered a mass deregistration of voters? I contacted the Cabinet Office which is in charge of the gov.uk website. A spokesman explained that the site was designed to allow people to register more easily, not to tell them whether or not they were already registered. Indeed, that would not be possible because there is no central electoral register - all the data is held by local authorities.

But he agreed that the wording on gov.uk was confusing and said that "following user feedback", the sentence, "Your name is not yet on the electoral register," had now been replaced with, "Your application has been received and is being processed." That still left me unclear whether or not I was on the register and there is no way of checking online.

So I rang my local council and found a very helpful man. He looked at their records and told me that yes, I was already on the electoral register as I'd thought. He explained that the records were being tidied up as part of the move from household registration to individuals, and some confusion over my exact name had led to that letter being sent out.

The Cabinet Office told me that about 10% of voters are receiving this kind of letter, and says this is a much lower figure than had been expected, given the massive task of cleaning up the electoral register and making sure there are no duplicate or inaccurate records.

But that means millions may be left confused about whether or not they are allowed to vote. Giving people the option to register online seems like a very good idea. If it produces a more accurate and comprehensive register of those allowed to vote, all well and good. However, creating confusion in the run up to a general election does not seem so smart.

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Target to pay $10m over data breach

19 March 2015 Last updated at 12:35

Target has agreed to pay out a total of $10m (£6.74m) to people affected by a data breach in 2013, according to reports.

Each claimant will get up to $10,000 in damages under the proposed settlement of a class-action lawsuit, pending court approval.

Consumers said that their credit card details were among the data leaked.

The proposal also requires Target to adopt and implement data security measures.

"We are pleased to see the process moving forward and look forward to its resolution," said Target spokeswoman Molly Snyder.

Target will deposit the settlement amount into an interest bearing escrow account under the settlement and claims will be submitted and processed primarily online through a dedicated website.

Should a judge formally grant the motion to settle the case, the firm would also have to appoint a chief information security officer and maintain a written information security program.

Court documents filed in Minnesota on Wednesday stated that the parties had conferred and Target had not opposed the motion.

CBS News, which reported the settlement, said a court hearing on the proposed settlement was set for Thursday in St Paul, Minnesota.

Target has said at least 40 million credit cards were compromised in the breach during the 2013 holiday shopping season and may have resulted in the theft of as many as 110 million people's personal information, such as email addresses and phone numbers.

A US judge in December cleared the way for consumers to sue the retailer over the breach, rejecting Target's argument that the consumers lacked standing to sue because they could not establish any injury.

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Watch: Ben Hammersley looks at one of the biggest data breaches of all time, on the Target store, in America.

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Uber endures nightmare week

19 March 2015 Last updated at 15:31

Uber's "low-cost" UberPop service has been banned in Germany after a court decided it contravened transport laws.

Judges imposed fines of €250,000 (£181,000) for each violation of the order.

It followed the news that the company's Paris offices were raided by police investigating the same service.

And, in South Korea, nearly 30 people linked to the company were charged with running an illegal taxi firm.

Earlier reports suggested Uber chief executive Travis Kalanick had been among those charged by the Seoul authorities. However, Uber denied this on Thursday.

Uber said it regretted the Frankfurt District Court's decision, saying it represented a "fundamental infringement of our ability under European law to establish and provide a service".

While UberPop, which unites passengers with drivers who don't have professional licences, is banned, the company insisted it would continue to run its services using licensed limousine and taxi drivers in Germany.

A spokesman said it would also appeal against the court's decision and, in the meantime, would introduce an "alternative ridesharing service that we are developing specifically to fit the court's interpretation of existing regulations in Germany".

The spokesman added that Uber would continue discussions with German regulators in the hope of finding a compromise.

The case, brought by German taxi operator group Taxi Deutschland, is one of more than a dozen lawsuits which have been filed in countries across Europe in recent months against the San Francisco-based company.

Unlicensed drivers

Dieter Schlenker, chairman of the Taxi Deutschland cooperative, hailed the decision as a move that would protect professional taxi drivers from competition by unlicensed Uber drivers.

The presiding judge Joachim Nickel said Uber violated German laws on commercial passenger transportation because its drivers did not have the right kinds of licences.

And he said Uber's business model violated both national and European Union laws because it did not fully insure drivers or passengers in the event of accidents.

Lawyers representing Uber denied it was subject to rules governing taxi operators, claiming the company merely acts as an exchange connecting drivers with clients.

In response, Uwe Eilers, one judge on the three-judge panel that delivered its decision on Wednesday, said: "In that case, you should include in your business description that Uber offers rides for free."

The judges' decision came after it emerged that Uber's Paris offices had been raided by police investigating its UberPop service on Monday. Staff and other people linked to the firm in South Korea were charged with running an illegal taxi firm as part of a separate investigation.

Uber said its South Korean staff had not broken any laws and called the Paris raid "disproportionate".

In France, 30 police officers descended on the company's Paris headquarters looking for information, the company told the BBC.

A spokesman said the officers stayed all day and took away mobile phones that were intended for the use of Uber drivers.

'Intimidation'

He called the raid "intimidation", saying: "Why would they send 30 police officers? We are 46 [people] here. The only things we have are computers and telephones."

Uber said the police investigation was based on French legislation it has already complained to the European Commission about, and was confident would be scrapped.

According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), dozens of non-professional UberPop users have been fined since the start of the year.

UberPop has been ruled illegal in France, but the company has appealed against a €100,000 (£72,000) fine it received last year, it said.

According to a report from the South Korean news agency Yonhap, 29 people connected to Uber had been charged.

The agency reported Mr Kalanick, who has already been indicted on charges of establishing and running Uber Korea, had been charged again on suspicion of conducting an illegal business, citing local police sources.

But, on Thursday, Uber said that - barring December's indictment - he had not been charged by South Korean authorities.

Among those also charged were the heads of six different car rental firms, who were suspected of connecting passengers with nearby drivers through the UberTaxi app without a licence, police told Yonhap.

According to the reports, police said the Uber app posed a risk for passenger safety because drivers were not screened, cars were uninsured and mobile phone numbers and credit card numbers could be leaked.

Police also said Uber Korea took 20% of passengers' taxi fares as commission and paid the remainder to drivers.

By providing such services, one car rental firm made 96 million won (£58,000) in three months, officers claimed.

Asked about the reports, an Uber spokesman said: "Uber has fully cooperated with the police during the course of their investigation and we will continue to do so as the matter is referred to the prosecution for review.

"Uber does not believe the employees in Korea have engaged in any misconduct or illegal behaviour. We believe the prosecutors will come to a similar conclusion."

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