Southwest database fail

Linda: So it turns out that the reason that I've been locked out of my account is that when I booked your ticket their database subbed your birthday for mine, therefore no validation with my birthday would work. Database flaw, they have one. Also, it seems likely that all of my password reset emails are in your spambox somewhere.
(1:29:32 PM) ce: oh, that's ugly :(
(1:29:54 PM) ce: at least it's fixed now?
(1:30:59 PM) Linda: No, it's not. The database also subbed in middle name and gender and I can't fix them from this end for some reason. Unless I get this fixed, there's no way I can get through security again if booking travel through my SW account.
(1:31:03 PM) Linda: Sigh.
(1:31:27 PM) ce: that's fucking terrible.

When I booked a trip for him using my account (and the rewards and vouchers in my account) the database must have inserted his information instead of mine in the fields of: middle name, birthday, gender, and email address. And there's no way to fix it from the consumer side of the webpage.

However, the good news is that, thanks to someone on the help line, I have a password to my account now. The bad news is that I can't book travel yet, unless I want travel booked for a male with my first and last names, but Lance's middle name. ...useless, no? So, back to the phone help line.

Edit: Called customer service 214-932-0333. After some initial confusion on the part of the agent, and then a request that I fax her my drivers license (my reply: "I don't have a fax machine... can I email you a picture?"), she simply changed my data to correct data which I supplied verbally. A quick refresh of my account page shows that she changed my middle name and my gender, and although for some reason my account won't show me what she changed my birthday to, I have no reason to doubt that she did that accurately too.

So, where are the security flaws here?

• Initial database flaw- replacing good information with bad. How far does this extend?
• In password reset attempts, sometimes two attempts with the same data had different results, i.e. either "bad data, please retry" or "email sent, please click link"
• Lack of ability to change your own birthday/gender on the website might be an attempt at security? Or just a bug. Inability to see my own birthday in my account info is definitely a bug, because if I can't see it, it might be wrong and I would have no way of knowing.
• Ability for customer service rep to change account info without evidence other than my voice (and confirmation data that I provided, such as address, name, birthday... all things that someone could find out about me).

By the way... the way to add a Southwest LUV voucher to your account is here: https://www.southwest.com/flight/travel-funds-results.html (for the next time that I forget and get frustrated)

Database hilarity presentation

I need to find someone who likes and understands databases so I can share this hilarious hour-long podcast with them. Yes, I listened to the entire damn thing. Also sent it to a professor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFLRc6y_O3s

this is by this guy https://twitter.com/#!/fuzzychef

His blog about it: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/database-soup/wrecking-your-database-33298

B-tree vs. binary tree

This is inspired by something that Mantas said on Tuesday, about how people he interviews should know a B-tree from a binary tree. Now, I know about binary trees but I've never heard of a B-tree, so I did some research.

To my new (but still very limited) understanding, a B-tree is a tree which can have more than two branches from a node, and more than one data point (number) in each node. B-trees are used in databases "and other places which use large data chunks." Basically, a B-tree is for searching in data which is all or mostly stored on a magnetic disk, i.e. slow retrieval.

It sounds cool. I haven't written one. I kinda want to.

Here's a nice blog about it; obviously this person understands it in more depth than I do, and uses it in practice. http://attractivechaos.wordpress.com/2008/09/24/b-tree-vs-binary-search-tree/

Here's a guy who wrote a Btree, and some code. http://resnet.uoregon.edu/~gurney_j/jmpc/btree.html

Here's the wikipedia page on it, much good may it do you. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-tree

Some more in-depth description (my favorite link) http://www.bluerwhite.org/btree/