Please, don’t ban me or fix this @waymo lol,” she tweeted.
Wong, based in San Francisco, explained to TechCrunch that she could personalize the characters displayed on the self-driving Jaguar I-Pace dome by adjusting settings through the Waymo mobile app.
“I simply exploited the Waymo mobile app to change the Car ID to something it wouldn’t typically accept, as the servers did not validate the input for Car ID from non-employees. Wong later mentioned she was no longer able to modify the Car ID.
Waymo spokesperson Sandy Karp acknowledged that Wong had discovered an unreleased feature that was subsequently disabled for regular users like herself.
In 2020 Waymo announced the incorporation of moving LEDs into the dome to help riders identify the vehicle day and night especially in scenarios with multiple Waymo cars waiting. A security researcher discovered a hidden, yet-to-be-released feature in the Waymo app that allowed her to customize the display on the robotaxi’s roof with any characters she desired.
Jane Manchun Wong, a renowned security researcher, shared an image on X highlighting the roof display of a Waymo vehicle, known as the “dome,” which featured her X handle and various character strings.
“I managed to tinker with the Waymo mobile app on my Android phone while waiting for the robotaxi to arrive, enabling me to showcase unconventional texts like an empty string, ‘wongmjane,’ and emojis as the Car ID. The dome also serves as a means of communication signaling to pedestrians that the car is yielding or to cyclists that a passenger is about to open the car door. No ‘jailbreaking’ or ‘rooting’ of the car itself was involved. Join industry leaders for a day filled with strategies, workshops, and valuable connections. né?. It was more of harmless experimentation,” Wong noted.
Despite her playful request, Waymo appears to have updated the app to prevent users from customizing the dome like Wong did né?. Furthermore the dome is utilized for marketing purposes.
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