Yandex spoke about the first results of the investigation conducted in connection with the discharge of internal traces.
The company noted that nothing threatens ordinary users. The audit revealed several cases of violation of the rules of corporate ethics and “Yandex principles”.
Also, fragments of tests of algorithms, which were found only to check the operation of services within the company itself, got into the network. One is the device’s microphone without mentioning Alice. The algorithm is written to detect the number of false positives during detection and to detect the quality of voice assistant activation.
In the code were data of some partners, including drivers. Some parts of the codes contain words that may be “offensive to people of different races and nation-states”.
Cases were recorded when the logic of the services was corrected not by algorithmic methods, but by “crutches” (approx. Yandex – at the place of origin the so-called temporary solution, the implementation is suboptimal and in a hurry). Through such “crutches”, errors in the detection system were discovered, which are responsible for additional elements of search results, and regulate the search for images and videos.
We are very ashamed, and we apologize to people and partners. We will resume work on the creation of technoethics series.
We will be creating a new build shortly to prepare for software and policy development. In addition, we are already transferring from the repository all data that is not related to algorithms and service configuration. This data is given additional protection.
— Yandex
These are not all found errors and vulnerabilities. In particular, the company noted that the presence of signs of priority support for a small group of users in the services Taxi and Food.
Most of the problems identified are related to trying to travel on public transport or bandwidth. The company has had a Zero Bug Policy for a long time – a policy of zero tolerance for “bugs”.
The implementation of the approach in practice led to the fact that some of the “bugs” were fixed with the help of temporary solutions. The company will reconsider its approach to this issue. [Яндекс]
Source: Iphones RU
