In order to deal with its perpetual run-ins with regulators and law enforcement, ride-sharing app Uber developed a program that could remotely shut down all computers in an office in order to thwart police raids, Bloomberg reported . The program, known internally as Ripley, was put into action at least two dozen times in order to prevent regulators and law enforcement from gaining access to information from the company's computers--even when a proper warrant was provided. Uber reportedly trained its employees working in foreign offices to utilize Ripley any time police came knocking at their door. During such an event, a manager would call a number for a phone in the company headquarters in San Francisco. There, a special team was waiting to field the call and spring into action.

Last Friday, the Northern District Court of California finally posted a long-awaited document, a letter written by the lawyer of an ex-Uber security employee. It was a doozy, a 37-page compendium of alleged criminal and unsavory activity witnessed by that employee, Ric Jacobs, while he worked at the company in 2016 and 2017. The letter came to light last week (after much legal tussling) as part of an ongoing lawsuit between Uber and Waymo, Alphabet's self-driving car spinoff. Waymo alleges Anthony Levandowski, a former employee, made off with trade secrets when when he left to found his own company, then brought those secrets to Uber when it acquired the startup. It's bad news for Uber in this legal fight, but the damage may not stop there.

Lots of algorithms go bad unintentionally. Some of them, however, are made to be criminal. Algorithms are formal rules, usually written in computer code, that make predictions on future events based on historical patterns. To train an algorithm you need to provide historical data as well as a definition of success. We've seen finance get taken over by algorithms in the past few decades. Trading algorithms use historical data to predict movements in the market. Success for that algorithm is a predictable market move, and the algorithm is vigilant for patterns that have historically happened just before that move.

Editor's Note: This story was originally published on May 9, 2017. It has been updated to reflect developments including Uber's firing of 20 employees following an internal investigation into its corporate culture, as well as self-driving engineer Anthony Levandowski. If you haven't heard (maybe you've been toiling in Elon's tunnels?), Uber has had a rough start to 2017. The Department of Justice has launched a criminal probe into the company's use of "Greyball," a system it used to identify regulatory officials and block them from booking rides. In January, it lost riders who objected to CEO Travis Kalanick's (soon abandoned) seat on President Trump's economic council.

If you haven't heard (maybe you've been toiling in Elon's tunnels?), Uber has had a rough start to 2017. The Department of Justice just launched a criminal probe into the company's use of "Greyball," a system it used to identify regulatory officials and block them from booking rides. In January, it lost riders who objected to CEO Travis Kalanick's (soon abandoned) seat on President Trump's economic council. In late February, former Uber engineer Susan Fowler published an explosive blog post, accusing Uber of fostering a misogynistic corporate culture. A few days later, Google autonomous driving spinoff Waymo filed a lawsuit alleging Uber boosted its self-driving program by stealing its trade secrets.

The Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into Uber's use of a secret software that was used to evade authorities in places where its ride-hailing service was banned or restricted, according to a person familiar with the government's probe. The investigation, in its early stages, deepens the crisis for the embattled company and its chief executive and founder, Travis Kalanick, who has faced a barrage of negative press this year in the wake of high-profile sexual harassment complaints, a slew of executive departures and a consequential trade-secrets lawsuit from Google's parent company. The federal criminal probe, first reported by Reuters, focuses on software developed by Uber called "Greyball." The program helped the company evade officials in cities where Uber was not yet approved. The software identified and blocked rides to transportation regulators who were posing as Uber customers in an effort to prove that the company was operating illegally.

Uber could be facing a criminal probe by the Department of Justice into its use of a ghost-app program called Greyball, according to a Reuters report late Thursday. The controversial program allowed Uber engineers to take over a user's app and send them a map that did not accurately reflect which drivers were in the area. Uber admitted that Greyball was used in part to track and avoid regulators who might be hailing rides to scrutinize the company's business practices, and discontinued the practice five days after a March 3 New York Times report exposed the program. If true, a criminal investigation would represent a significant ratcheting up of problems for the world's most valuable startup, which already is dealing with an internal probe about a sexist work environment and a lawsuit from Waymo over allegedly stolen self-driving car technology. Uber declined to comment, but provided a letter the company sent to Portland, Ore., officials in March that describes the program.

After a spate of turbulence, ride-hailing giant Uber made a point Tuesday of reaffirming its loyalty to Chief Executive Travis Kalanick and its commitment to having an inclusive workplace. "It's clear both Uber and the whole ride-sharing industry would not be where we are today without Travis," Uber board member Arianna Huffington told reporters during a conference call. She was responding to a question about whether Uber's board of directors would consider asking Kalanick to step down from his post, given the bumpy road down which he has led the San Francisco-based company. "The board has complete confidence in Travis. He started as a scrappy entrepreneur and now he has to bring about changes in himself," she said.

Uber's president has resigned after just six months on the job, the ride-hailing company confirmed Sunday. Uber didn't provide public comment explaining Jeff Jones' departure. But the tech blog Recode, which first reported his resignation, said Uber Chief Executive Travis Kalanick told employees that Jones decided to resign after Kalanick announced his intention to hire a chief operating officer earlier this month. Jones, a former chief marketing officer at Target Corp., told Recode that his values didn't align with Uber's. "The beliefs and approach to leadership that have guided my career are inconsistent with what I saw and experienced at Uber, and I can no longer continue as president of the ride sharing business," he said in a statement.

Uber will stop using its "Greyball" tool to evade law enforcement efforts, the ride-hail company announced Wednesday, just days after it defended the controversial program as necessary to protect its drivers from harm. "We have started a review of the different ways this technology has been used to date," Uber's chief security officer Joe Sullivan wrote in a blog post. "In addition, we are expressly prohibiting its use to target action by local regulators going forward." Uber's backtracking comes less than a week after the New York Times revealed that the company had been serving up an alternative (and non-functioning) version of its app to public officials in cities where its service violated regulations. It also comes shortly after the company reversed course on applying for a permit to test self-driving cars in California.