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Security The Almighty Buck Transportation Privacy Software Technology

College Student Got 15 Million Miles By Hacking United Airlines (fortune.com) 79

Posted by BeauHD from the frequent-flyer dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Fortune: University of Georgia Tech student Ryan Pickren used to get in trouble for hacking websites -- in 2015, he hacked his college's master calendar and almost spent 15 years in prison. But now he's being rewarded for his skills. Pickren participated in United Airlines' Bug Bounty Program and earned 15 million United miles. At two cents a mile, that's about $300,000 worth. United's white hat hacking program invites computer experts to legally hack their systems, paying up to one million United miles to hackers who can reveal security flaws. At that rate, we can presume Pickren reported as many as 15 severe bugs. The only drawback to all those free miles? Taxes. Having earned $300,000 of taxable income from the Bug Bounty Program, Pickren could owe the Internal Revenue Service tens of thousands of dollars. He's not keeping all of the, though: Pickren donated five million miles to Georgia Tech. The ultimate thank-you for not pressing charges last year. In May, certified ethical hackers at Offensi.com identified a bug allowing remote code execution on one of United Airlines' sites and were rewarded with 1,000,000 Mileage Plus air miles. Instead of accepting the award themselves, they decided to distribute their air miles among three charities.
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College Student Got 15 Million Miles By Hacking United Airlines More

College Student Got 15 Million Miles By Hacking United Airlines

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  • I've seen this before (Score:5, Funny)

    by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Tuesday September 20, 2016 @08:49PM (#52928131)
    First prize is 15 million miles.

    Second prize is 30 million miles.

    • It is United, after all.

      • It being United, I'm surprised they paid at all. They treated him WAY better than they do a paying customer who gets bumped from an overbooked flight.

    • Is it possible to even fly 15000000 miles in a single lifetime?

      (and still have a proper life, I mean, not living in airports and eating airport food)

      • Probably quite difficult. That said, miles probably don't mean what you think they mean. United has three categories of air miles:
        • Lifetime flight miles are the total number of miles that you've flown. These count towards your million mile status (when you get enough in this category, you get status for life).
        • Premiere qualifying miles. These are the number of miles that you've flow, with a few small tweaks, which count towards your premiere status for the next year (25K for silver, 50K for gold, and s

        • Probably quite difficult. That said, miles probably don't mean what you think they mean. United has three categories of air miles:

          • Lifetime flight miles are the total number of miles that you've flown. These count towards your million mile status (when you get enough in this category, you get status for life).
          • Premiere qualifying miles. These are the number of miles that you've flow, with a few small tweaks, which count towards your premiere status for the next year (25K for silver, 50K for gold, and so on).
          • Award miles. These expire if you don't fly with them for a while (18 months, I think), accumulate roughly in proportion to the number of dollars you spend with them (with a multiplier for your premiere status) and can be used to buy flights, upgrades, and so on.

          I believe that this person was given 15 million award miles. That doesn't mean that he can use them to fly a million miles. For example, a transatlantic flight (around 2.5-6K miles, depending on the route) booked with award miles costs either 30K or 60K (depending on whether you want a guaranteed flight or a chance to be bumped). And you still need to pay airport taxes for the trip (likely around $100-150). If you want to upgrade to business class, I think it's another 20K miles and a $500 fee.

          That said, 15M award miles is probably enough that he'd never need to pay full price for a flight ever again. It's enough for 125 transatlantic round trips, which is a lot more than most people take in a lifetime (though some people obviously do: you can spend all of those miles without reaching million miler status).

          They've definitely changed the way they allow you to use miles. I splurged on a 3 person trip to Europe, first class, and it cost me about $120 per person and around 300,000 miles total. That was in 2013. I was thinking about going to Australia for New Years and they wand 180,000 miles + $40 round trip in coach to Sydney. That's per person. The taxes and fees are surprisingly low but the mile cost is high. That being said, I had thought about going to Copenhagen with less than a month's notice and the

        • Probably quite difficult. That said, miles probably don't mean what you think they mean.

          Too bad they don't use a points system instead of stealing an actual measurement which sortakinda seems like it applies to something that can be measured, like miles which is an actual distance that the trip takes, but doesn't mean a damn thing in truth.

          • Without multipliers, the miles correspond to the number of miles that you've travelled. If you got one mile for every mile and one mile let you buy one mile of travel, you'd never pay after your first flight.

            • Without multipliers, the miles correspond to the number of miles that you've travelled. If you got one mile for every mile and one mile let you buy one mile of travel, you'd never pay after your first flight.

              I think I'll add that to my rationale for a points system.

    • You're saying:

      First prize, they send you into space.
      Second prize, they bring you back as well.

  • Georgia Institute of Technology (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20, 2016 @08:50PM (#52928139)

    When I read "Georgia Tech University" I throw up in my mouth. It's the Georgia Institute of Technology.

  • "University of Georgia Tech"? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Ah, c'mon, can't you tell the difference between the North Avenue Trade School and the "to heck with" one?

  • Oh Noes!!!!!! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by OzPeter ( 195038 )

    You have to pay taxes on money you earn? Say it ain't so.

    FFS Get out of the basement and explore the real world.

    I knew a guy who said he'd happily pay a tax bill of (pinky finger to mouth) $1 Million dollars. Because that meant he had learnt a shitload more.

    • The US tax system is fucked if they are considering consumer rewards points as taxable income.

      • Yes, because they have value. All prizes are taxable income. That's why you hear so often of someone winning a house or car, and having to sell it because otherwise they'd be on the hook for taxes they can't afford. Some organizations now award some cash along with the grand prizes so that they can pay the tax.

        I would prefer that there be some sort of deferral for X number of years, or when the prize is sold, for non-cash prizes. But who am I kidding? We really need to get rid of Federal direct taxes o

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bungo ( 50628 )

      Does anyone know how the donation would affect the tax?

      If he owes 25% (or whatever the real rate is) in tax, and he donates 33%, does that count as a write off on the tax and therefore he wouldn't have to pay anything?

      This would make the donation not totally altruistic.

      • No donation you declare on your tax return is purely altruistic. In fact, some argue nothing is altruistic because it feels good to help. Those people are pretty frickin' cynical.

        • It is kind of like the Clintions donating some large percentage of their "charity" to the Clinton Foundation, and getting a tax write off for essentially donating to themselves. Genius!

    • He may or may not need to pay taxes depending on how they handle this transaction. The IRS FAQ [irs.gov] said that usually the donor generally responds for the taxes, but in this case, it may not be so and he would have to pay taxes on the money's worth of the miles he received.

      • It depends on the status of the winnings. If they were a "gift" you would be correct. However, since the miles were issued in response to "work", they can't be classified as a gift, but as income to the person who performed the work.

  • Certificate Program (Score:4, Funny)

    by R3d M3rcury ( 871886 ) on Tuesday September 20, 2016 @09:13PM (#52928269) Journal

    [...] certified ethical hackers at Offensi.com [...]

    Okay, who is the governing body that does this? Because I totally want a certificate that says that I am ethical.

  • If instead of miles they get real money, would they donate that much of their rewards?

  • Well if 15 years prison wasn't bad enough (Score:5, Funny)

    by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Tuesday September 20, 2016 @10:35PM (#52928639)

    I'm not quite sure what is worse, the threat of 15 years prison, or having to fly United.

  • From the summary... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dread_ed ( 260158 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @12:57AM (#52929081) Homepage

    "He's not keeping all of the, though:"

    Well, I either!

  • Basic math (Score:4, Informative)

    by Sun ( 104778 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2016 @01:03AM (#52929097) Homepage

    paying up to one million United miles ... we can presume Pickren reported as many as 15 severe bugs

    No. If each report earns up to 1 million miles, and Pickren got 15 mil, it means he reported at least 15 severe bugs.

    Shachar

  • taxable income for limited miles? what next replays on pinball games count as income?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Dog-Cow ( 21281 )

      Can you transfer the retries to someone else, using a method other than leaving the machine?

  • Hi did not spend 15 years in prison
    FTFA:

    A felony offense that's punishable by a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison and a $50,000 fine.
    This explains why he was instead accepted into a pretrial diversion program. Should Pickren successfully complete the program, the felony charge will be dismissed

  • That's a $100,000 charitable donation. I'm not a CPA or tax lawyer, but I'm pretty sure that's a hefty write-off.

  • For crying out loud, you'd think Slashdot editors could get correct the name of a top 10 national engineering program.

    It's "Georgia Tech," or "The Georgia Institute of Technology." It's not "Georgia Tech University," "University of Georgia Tech," "The University of Georgia at Atlanta," or "The Georgia Technological University."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Shimbo ( 100005 )

      For crying out loud, you'd think Slashdot editors could get correct the name of a top 10 national engineering program.

      Well, you might have thought Fortune editors could get it right in the first place.

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