News Report: United Airlines Glitch

One of the biggest technology stories in the news this past week has been the Google glitch that caused the United Airlines stock to plummet. The event occured on Monday, when an old newspaper article about United Airlines filing for bankruptcy (which they did in 2002) appeared in a South Florida paper and, as a result of GoogleBot, spread like wildfire. The consequences were enormous. Because traders believed that United Airlines was filing for bankruptcy a second time, the stock plummetted from $12 to $3 in a matter of hours. Though the truth eventually came out, this created huge confusion.



In the past week a lot of information has come out regarding who is to blame. The newspaper that the article came from (the Tribune) blames GoogleBot for this confusion. The GoogleBot searches for news stories and mistook the Most Popular Article for a current article, and it immeadiatley reached the Google newsfeed. The Tribune also claims that it had asked Google to stop using GoogleBot on its page after it had found problems with the program.



Although this article doesn't directly relate to the hacking portion of security, there are definite concerns. First of all, some articles question the amount we rely on both Google, as well as automated computer programs (such as this article from the New York Times http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/10/a-stock-killer-fueled-by-algorithm-after-algorithm/index.html?scp=2&sq=united%20airlines&st=cse). With so many automated systems, one mistake can have a huge impact on so many things. This is a security threat in a way, as we are unable to determine the integrity of the data and information we access through certain systems. In addition, there is a threat to News agencies who are trying to protect their integrity. Whether it was their fault or not, the Tribune is getting a lot of bad press. Though they asked Googlebot to stop searching their webpage, they did nothing else to secure the site. This could become a security concern for any newspaper after this event, which means there could be a need to protect against GoogleBot.


Here is a link to another of the many articles on this:
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=security&articleId=9114462&taxonomyId=17&intsrc=kc_top

-Katie R.