Fake airline boarding pass creator is Google intern

The college student who created a Web site that allows people to make a fake airline boarding pass is a security specialist who is working at Google as a summer intern, according to his resume. Christopher Soghoian is getting a doctorate in cybersecurity at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.

While working at Google this summer, Soghoian invented a new anti-phishing tool, designed a new model for mobile phone-based account verification and studied click-fraud, the resume says. While serving as a security intern at Apple last summer he discovered a significant network-exploitable vulnerability in the Mac OS and developed tools to automate the forensic evidence gathering process, the resume continues. During the summer of 2004 he worked at IBM's global security analysis lab in Zurich researching intrusion-prevention systems and how to fend off malicious Internet virus attacks, he adds.

Soghoian said he created the now-defunct Web site, which allowed people to generate fake boarding passes, to highlight flaws in the current airport security system. His house was ransacked and his computer and other equipment were seized by federal officials last week.