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Coordinated operation: 50 Waymo taxis lured into a cul-de-sac.
In San Francisco, around 50 Waymo autonomous vehicles were led into a cul-de-sac simultaneously. The action was initiated by the social-media user Riley Walz, who on the platform X (formerly Twitter) claimed to have organized 50 people for the experiment. All participants simultaneously ordered a vehicle via the Waymo app to the same location.
The autonomous taxis subsequently drove into the cul-de-sac on their own, without the orderers boarding the ride. After about ten minutes, the vehicles left the location again. The app charged the orderers a $5 fee each, as they had not appeared.
Self-styled “DDoS attack” on an autonomous fleet
Walz described the coordinated action as the “world's first DDoS attack on Waymo.” The term “Distributed Denial of Service” originally refers to an attack in which a digital system is overwhelmed by a large number of simultaneous requests. In this case, the physical traffic of the autonomous vehicles would be temporarily blocked.
On X, Walz wrote:
“We did not enter the vehicles. They drove off again after about ten minutes and charged everyone five US dollars because we didn’t show up. […] I felt as if I were back in school. Everyone was elated, and whenever a new vehicle appeared there was cheering. Among them were three or four real drivers. They all laughed and immediately turned around again.”
Company response
According to Walz, Waymo reacted quickly to the situation. The company disabled the ability to book further rides in the affected area. The restriction remained in place until the following morning.
Possible parallels to real-world usage peaks
The action did not lead to any long-term disruption or traffic obstruction. Walz, however, suspected that similar situations could also occur unintentionally – for example, when after major events many people simultaneously request an autonomous vehicle. (Source: t3n, X)
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