Dear executives of United Airlines, I have some advice for you. 1: Fire whoever is in charge of your online security. 2: Burn down the building in which they worked; it may be tainted. 3: Salt the ground so nothing ever grows there again, to be safe. 4: Hire somebody competent who will not infuriate your users while simultaneously compromising their security.

I know I probably sound like a disgruntled passenger who just had an unpleasant airline experience. Not so! I am actually fond of United, have flown hundreds of thousands of miles with them, and have upper-tier status with them. But I’m also an engineer who writes about security.

It was bad enough when they replaced their free-form password security questions withdrop-down selections— I am not making this up — for “Your favorite artist,” “Your favorite pizza topping,” etc