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Someone hacked YandexTaxi and ordered all available taxis to the same location

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Re: Someone hacked YandexTaxi and ordered all available taxis to the same location

#61

Post by munk-a »

hinkley wrote: post #6

This is what happens when optimists win and the realists are cut out of the conversation. As a taxi service, I believe I would want to know if I'm about to have a shortage of taxis in any one area of town, and I'd better only have a concentration in one area of town for an event the entire world is talking about, like a reunion tour or a championship game. Even with the hack, the moment all of the taxis started conve…

In most areas taxi-companies use a zone-based system where cars will flag what zone they're in (rarely automatically using GPS and more often via button presses) this is an effort by the cab company to keep their vacant vehicles well distributed to keep a high response rate and increase customer turnover.

It also happens to have the side benefit that an operator watching the flagged zones would be able to see this kind of an issue happening in advance and maybe check into why every cab is suddenly bee-lining it to zone 3.

Re: Someone hacked YandexTaxi and ordered all available taxis to the same location

#62

Post by meibo »

inasio wrote: post #57

Back in the day (1960s?) two relatives of mine had a prank battle going on. One of them posted an add in the local newspaper offering to buy old Christmas trees, at the address of their adversary. Half the city showed up, were told trees were not in fact being bought, and everybody dumped the trees at their door.

Seems like a great way to stock up your firewood supply for the next winter, if you manage to target it in a way that doesn't cause half the city to show up, but maybe a little less than that?

Re: Someone hacked YandexTaxi and ordered all available taxis to the same location

#63

Post by munk-a »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #48
onion2k wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

low pain outcomes All your customers thinking your app isn't secure any more isn't "low pain".

99% of customers won’t care, because they will only briefly see the news, this hack did not harm them, they don’t care that much about security of an app and they don’t have a good alternative. The impact of such incidents on company reputation and revenue is often exaggerated.

A few customers will have strong negative opinions "I was waiting at the airport in the rain for four hours!" but most people will indeed shrug this off. It's a much different issue than what happens when payment systems are compromised.

A lot more people care if they're informed their credit card was stolen and told to carefully watch statements for the next month - that leverages a real PITA cost on the customer.

Re: Someone hacked YandexTaxi and ordered all available taxis to the same location

#64

Post by EwanG »

DonHopkins wrote: post #22

Elevator Pitch: jammr.com: It's like Uber for Traffic Jams!

I suspect you're kidding, but you know, having lived through a few very long traffic jams I could imagine some scenarios where I'd be willing to pay for:

1) Rickshaw or cargo bike with a narrow pull along trailer to let me use the bathroom 2) Similar setup with food and drink 3) Similar setup with a few gallons of gas if I've gotten a bit too close to empty 4) More expensive (XL?) version of the service where I am getting delivery from a helicopter (since drones flying over congested traffic is not an FAA approved delivery method)

You might not be able to make this a daily thing, but when things get bad I suspect the margins might be unreal.

Re: Someone hacked YandexTaxi and ordered all available taxis to the same location

#65

Post by zeven7 »

meibo wrote: post #62
inasio wrote: post #57

Back in the day (1960s?) two relatives of mine had a prank battle going on. One of them posted an add in the local newspaper offering to buy old Christmas trees, at the address of their adversary. Half the city showed up, were told trees were not in fact being bought, and everybody dumped the trees at their door.

Seems like a great way to stock up your firewood supply for the next winter, if you manage to target it in a way that doesn't cause half the city to show up, but maybe a little less than that?

Pine is really smokey and burns fast

Re: Someone hacked YandexTaxi and ordered all available taxis to the same location

#67

Post by eropple »

meibo wrote: post #62
inasio wrote: post #57

Back in the day (1960s?) two relatives of mine had a prank battle going on. One of them posted an add in the local newspaper offering to buy old Christmas trees, at the address of their adversary. Half the city showed up, were told trees were not in fact being bought, and everybody dumped the trees at their door.

Seems like a great way to stock up your firewood supply for the next winter, if you manage to target it in a way that doesn't cause half the city to show up, but maybe a little less than that?

It's not. You don't want to burn softwoods; they're resinous and create a ton of smoke.

Re: Someone hacked YandexTaxi and ordered all available taxis to the same location

#68

Post by Gunnerhead »

squarefoot wrote: post #55

Quite surprised that Uber still operates in Russia given the situation.

Uber was selling it's stake back in February [1]. Not sure of the results of that, but maybe it's a contractual licensing issue?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-28/uber-to-a...

Re: Someone hacked YandexTaxi and ordered all available taxis to the same location

#69

Post by gdy »

MaKey wrote: post #37
wmeredith wrote: post #29

What does "all available" mean in this context? YandexTaxi operates in 1000+ cities and is connected to 700,000 drivers.

This happened in Moscow, so probably all available taxis in Moscow.

Nope, just dozens of taxi app accounts were hacked and used to order taxis to the same street. That's a tiny fraction of over 70'000 taxis in Moscow.

Re: Someone hacked YandexTaxi and ordered all available taxis to the same location

#70

Post by wsinks »

_jal wrote: post #30
nytesky wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve had this worry for years of a state level attack via network connected FSD cars. But I’m hardly alone, it was shown in a Fast and Furious movie, so people are thinking of it.

First mention of using driverless vehicles as weapons I recall was Daemon by Daniel Suarez. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_(novel_series)

Maybe one day I'll re-read Daemon. A book not so far ahead of its time.

Might feel a little too close to home to re-read.

I'll never forget the gig worker assembly scene.

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