by rd95
The program, which was run between 2014 and early 2016, used a flaw in Lyft’s rider app to track drivers, according to US news site the Information. When a Lyft rider requests a cab, the app reports up to eight nearby drivers, using their driver IDs for each one. Those driver IDs are fixed and unique, allowing Uber to write a program which spoofed the Lyft app, repeatedly requesting rides in various segments of various cities, to find out which drivers were working where.By harvesting the data for long periods, Uber was able to build up detailed profiles of individual Lyft drivers, the Information reports, eventually allowing it to match multitasking workers to its own driver profiles.
Clever.