Hackers’ Delight: 1 Million Miles for Reporting United Airlines Security Flaws
Now here’s a rewards program Julian Assange could love. United Airlines has confirmed that it paid 1 million frequent flier miles each to two hackers who found serious flaws and security breaches in its computer systems.
Related: Millions of Samsung Galaxy Phones May Be Vulnerable to Hackers
This past May, United started a “bug bounty” program to find loopholes in its security, but it’s hardly the first corporate entity to do so. Google, Facebook and Yahoo all offer rewards or incentives to hackers who report bugs to them privately. Netscape engineer Jarrett Ridlinghafer is largely credited with coming up with the concept of rewarding good, or “white hat,” hackers for trouble-shooting in 1995.
Jordan Wiens, founder of cybersecurity company Vector 35, was one of two winners to claim a million airline miles for his prize. He posted a screenshot of his mileage account on Twitter. (He submitted the bug on May 15, got a response on May 19, a validation notice on June 24 and then the payout on July 10.) A second bug he reported won a lesser prize of 250,000 miles. Kyle Lovett from Montgomery, Calif., was the other million-mile winner. Lovett Tweeted that he will use some of the miles to fly out his mother and brother to California.
Wow! @united really paid out! Got a million miles for my bug bounty submissions! Very cool. pic.twitter.com/CEclmhmyUq
— Jordan Wiens (@psifertex) July 10, 2015
No doubt the airline saved a ton of money in preventing computer issues. In recent months United has had to ground it flights twice as a result of computer system glitches. On June 2, an automation issue affected 150 flights, or 8 percent of its morning schedule. On July 8, a network connectivity issue due to a router malfunction locked up its reservations system and grounded thousands of flights worldwide.
Looks like the airline has more miles to dole out, too: Twitter was full of happy pronouncement from hackers claiming smaller prizes and begging Delta to do the same.
Deficit Hits $738.6 Billion in First 8 Months of Fiscal Year
The U.S. budget deficit grew to $738.6 billion in the first eight months of the current fiscal year – an increase of $206 billion, or 38.8%, over the deficit recorded during the same period a year earlier. Bloomberg’s Sarah McGregor notes that the big increase occurred despite a jump in tariff revenues, which have nearly doubled to $44.9 billion so far this fiscal year. But that increase, which contributed to an overall increase in revenues of 2.3%, was not enough to make up for the reduced revenues from the Republican tax cuts and a 9.3% increase in government spending.
Tweet of the Day: Revenues or Spending?
Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX), ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee and one of the authors of the 2017 Republican tax overhaul, told The Washington Post’s Heather Long Tuesday that the budget deficit is driven by excess spending, not a shortfall in revenues in the wake of the tax cuts. The Wall Street Journal’s Kate Davidson provided some inconvenient facts for Brady’s claim in a tweet, pointing out that government revenues as a share of GDP have fallen significantly since 2015, while spending has remained more or less constant.
Chart of the Day: The Decline in IRS Audits
Reviewing the recent annual report on tax statistics from the IRS, Robert Weinberger of the Tax Policy Center says it “tells a story of shrinking staff, fewer audits, and less customer service.” The agency had 22% fewer personnel in 2018 than it did in 2010, and its enforcement budget has fallen by nearly $1 billion, Weinberger writes. One obvious effect of the budget cuts has been a sharp reduction in the number of audits the agency has performed annually, which you can see in the chart below.
Number of the Day: $102 Million
President Trump’s golf playing has cost taxpayers $102 million in extra travel and security expenses, according to an analysis by the left-leaning HuffPost news site.
“The $102 million total to date spent on Trump’s presidential golfing represents 255 times the annual presidential salary he volunteered not to take. It is more than three times the cost of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation that Trump continually complains about. It would fund for six years the Special Olympics program that Trump’s proposed budget had originally cut to save money,” HuffPost’s S.V. Date writes.
Date says the White House did not respond to HuffPost’s requests for comment.
Americans See Tax-Paying as a Duty
The IRS may not be conducting audits like it used to, but according to the agency’s Data Book for 2018, most Americans still believe it’s not acceptable to cheat on your taxes. About 67% of respondents to an IRS opinion survey “completely agree” that it’s a civic duty to pay “a fair share of taxes,” and another 26% “mostly agree,” bringing the total in agreement to over 90%. Accounting Today says that attitude has been pretty consistent over the last decade.
