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Knock me over with a feather. This is not how this kind of story almost always ends:
US airline United has rewarded two hackers who spotted security holes in its website with a million free flight miles each.
The flight provider operates a "bug bounty" scheme that rewards hackers for privately disclosing security flaws rather than sharing them online.
It has given the maximum reward of a million flight miles, worth dozens of trips, to two people.
One security expert said the scheme was a big step forward for online security.
"Schemes like this reward hackers for finding and disclosing problems in the right way. That makes the internet safer for all of us," said security consultant Dr Jessica Barker.
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Hackers of US Airline United Given Million Free Flight Miles
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
The last time I saw him he was walking down Lover's Lane holding his own hand.
-- Fred Allen
(Score: 4, Informative) by Kromagv0 on Friday July 17 2015, @05:54PM
The problem is to redeem them you have to fly United.
I really hate flying, especially on the race to the bottom of service American carriers. Then add in the TSA and the supposedly "random" enhanced screenings I always get as well as the always "random" checked baggage search I get.
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 17 2015, @07:56PM
Stop looking suspicious bledand you won't get pulled. You walk up with dark glasses and a hoodie they will know you are troule
(Score: 5, Informative) by NCommander on Friday July 17 2015, @08:36PM
No you don't. I was a United 1k when I worked at my old job (flew more than 100,000 miles in a single calendar year), and UA miles can be redeemed on any Star Alliance partner. I've used UA miles to fly on Signapore Airlines to Japan in first class, several times in Lufthansa in first or business (the first class terminal in Frankfrut is fun), and business class on Turkish Airlines to and from Iraq. While I do feel UA went downhill after the merger with Contential, I prefer them over Delta as they have a rewards program that isn't complete crap, and E+ is reasonably priced if you're not Premier Executive/Gold.
I also had a large batch of US miles from promotions and contests, but I didn't burn them all as of yet, so I think they got converted to AA miles.
Still always moving
(Score: 2, Informative) by dogvomit on Saturday July 18 2015, @01:38AM
While I do feel UA went downhill after the merger with Contential, ...
Really? I mean, really?
I'm a United frequent flyer. 1K this year, platinum last year, 1K the year before that, etc. I was a mostly Continental customer before the merger, with a large exposure to United when it was unavoidable. Back then, Continental was the best US major airline, and United was about fourth. This is not just my opinion, it was J.D. Powers awards over and over. After the merger, United+Continental is certainly better than United used to be, but not as good as Continental was.
I'm happy with United now, and Star Alliance is good. (I agree completely about the Senator lounge in Frankfurt!)
—George
PS: A big drawback of Star Alliance is that their Middle East coverage sucks. I did get to fly first class on Qatar Air last year though, and the experience boggled my mind. I sat down in their lounge in Doha after getting a plate of what turned out to be really excellent food and draped my jacket over the back of my chair before I tucked in. Some guy came running over with a jacket rack and hung up my jacket right beside my table. On the flight, the attendants could have been pole dancers. The food and wine were out of this world, and all the little doo-dads on the the seat were personalized with my name.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Saturday July 18 2015, @09:05AM
Well, alright, if I'm completely honest, it was more of a mixed bag. From the merger, we did get a functional web site, and an award booking system that isn't crap (I used to have to use the ANA tool, but now I can find actual awards without having to contort in interesting directions. However, from an operations standpoint, I had more issues with rebooking and misconnects than I did before. SHARES simply seemed to have more issues than FastAir, so nothing went as smoothly when things went belly up.
Major agree with the fact that despite *A's size, they've got some annoying gaps. Africa isn't great on Star Alliance either, although we do have SAA, and EygptAir. It wasn't *so* bad when you could book Emirerates awards with Mileage Plus points, but that's long gone. Oneworld basically has the middle east locked up tight. SkyTeam has Sadaui Airlines, but the usual issues with connecting in Riyhad apply to them.
Still always moving
(Score: 2, Informative) by dogvomit on Saturday July 18 2015, @01:41AM
It's not so bad. One great thing about United is that they make it really easy to redeem your miles. They have two tiers of free tickets, a limited availability tier that costs less miles for a flight, and another tier that takes more miles but is nearly always available. So, my wife and son fly free a lot. :-) I got my wife business class to France for 150K miles just this summer. Folks make no mistake, this million-mile bounty that United paid out is really valuable to those receiving it. It's worth thousands of dollars.