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Comment by lvs | Hacker News Reader

Looks like it has to do with the venerable Sabre system (scroll to bottom):

http://kottke.org/12/06/the-worlds-worst-password-requiremen...

It's worth noting that when you say "venerable" you mean it. Basic research for what would become Sabre first started in 1953, development started in earnest in 1957, and it was online in 1960.

It's also interesting that the project got its start because an IBM salesman just happened to be sitting next to the president of American Airlines on a flight, and that salesman happened to be working on a massive air defense computer system for the Air Force. Goes to show the power of knowing the right people, or in this case, coincidentally meeting them on a plane.

Less of a coincidence when flying was expensive enough to be reserved for the "jet set".

No doubt. Interestingly, this meeting didn't happen on a jet and probably predates the term "jet set", as the first jet airliner had only entered service the year before. The IBM salesman thinks it might have been a DC-6:

http://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/11299/107637/1/oh034rbs...

Interesting little note from that:

"I learned later that he would be sitting in his office in New York and he'd suddenly wonder how things were getting along in L.A. He would tell his secretary, "I'm going to L.A." He would go to the airport, just walk on a plane, and fly out without a shaving kit, pajamas or anything. Then he would take a look around and catch another plane back."

I doubt many company presidents are taking that sort of approach anymore.

I know of British Airways executives who flew from London to New York on Concorde only to attend meetings from which they returned again the same day without having left the airport.

Granted, I'm not in the same boat as exec's, but I'm a student and have had dealings with people from other universities in the UK (I'm irish), and I have flown, met them in airport hotels, and flown home same day or first flight following morning.

Yeah but New York => LA is over 5 hours. Is there any flight from Ireland to the UK that takes more than 1:30?

Flying UK-Ireland takes less time than most intercity train journeys, so that is not surprising.

I've done Heathrow -> Dulles -> meeting in Sterling, VA -> Dulles -> Heathrow same day. It's not fun, but it's also not that unusual, even without the Concorde.

UK -> US east coast works reasonably well that way, given that the flight is 5-6 hours, and 5 hour time difference, so you can get on a flight early morning from London, arrive early morning at the east coast, have your meeting and catch an evening flight back out which'll arrive back in the UK in the morning local time.

> I doubt many company presidents are taking that sort of approach anymore.

That's why they buy a jet with company money now.

Sure, but how often do they just decide, on a lark, to go check out how operations are going at one of their sites on the other side of the country?

It depends on the executive, but I would say it's not uncommon. Perhaps not on a lark, but because something pops up at the last minute. This portion of Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs biography comes to mind:

> Early in his tenure, Cook was told of a problem with one of Apple's Chinese suppliers. "This is really bad", he said. "Someone should really be in China driving this." 30 minutes later he looked at an operations executive sitting at the table and unemotionally asked, "What are you still doing here?" The executive stood up, drove directly to San Francisco Airport, and bought a ticket to China.

That's not even remotely similar.

Known as 'management by walking about' in the UK and fairly common (small, densely populated country).

We do NY -> LA -> meeting -> red eye back to NY on a "regular" basis. It works out great if you're able to sleep on a plane.

Goes to show the power of knowing the right people, or in this case, coincidentally meeting them on a plane.

It's funny how air travel, in some regards, actually turns out to be somewhat egalitarian, especially on Southwest where you have no "First class cabin". You can go for "Business Select" but that just means you get in line earlier to get on the plane, but it doesn't put you in any special area.

Amusing anecdote... I was flying back to NC from San Francisco last week and started talking to the guy sitting next to me. He mentioned being in the beer industry, so I asked who he worked for, and he said "Miller-Coors". Later I happened to ask him what his role there was, and he replied "CEO".

Turns out he's from North Carolina and we had a nice talk on the way in. And as it was, I wasn't trying to sell him anything (we mostly talked about beer), but it's funny that I got to sit and chat for an extended period of time with a big-shot CEO that I never could have gotten a meeting with otherwise.

So yeah, air travel can definitely result in some interesting chance encounters.

This is the premise of "Delta Innovation Class"[0].

[0] http://www.deltainnovationclass.com/

Who says just because JetBlue uses Sabre, it uses it for storing customer profiles? Sabre system is a system for agents and services, not for end users.

From that list, the first one mentioned is the worst of the bunch. "8) A password cannot be too similar to a previous password.”

How can you possibly know this without storing the password in plain text or without storing something in the database that reveals critical information about the pattern?

You can ask for the old password and the new password twice. Solves your concern without storing anything critical.

Also: "Must not have been used within your last 20 passwords."

So you just have to provide your last 20 passwords.

Sabre Red and JetBlue's customer loyalty program (of which these requirement are for) probably have nothing to do with each other. I'm trying to think of how they could be related in a way that would affect what passwords could be used but I can't.

jaw drop omg crappy sites that don't do more than store a grocery shopping list have better security.

Crappy sites that don't do more than store a grocery shopping list haven't been in continuous operation for five decades.

Given that the web is only really 35 years old, that's a truism.

Nothing says that legacy systems which are on the internet today can't have started out well before the internet. The legacy system that JetBlue is dealing with in this case has, in fact, been in continuous operation for over five decades.

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