Lawsuit dismissed against three MIT students
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
The Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) has dismissed a lawsuit against three MIT students who were going to present how weak the encryption security was for public fares.
Because of the students' discovery, the MBTA filed a restraining order against the students banning Zack Anderson, RJ Ryan and Alessandro Chiesa, from presenting their research at Defcon in Las Vegas last summer.
The students' research showed a vulnerability in the MBTA's payment system could be exploited through forgery and cloning to grant passengers free rides. A judge initially sided with the MBTA, citing the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, SCMagazine reports.
However Electronic Frontier Foundation, who represented the students, said the law only applies to computer intrusions and not research presentations at conferences, according to the article.
Since then, the students prepared a report explaining how the MBTA can fix the problem and ensuring its REID-based CharlieCard and CharileTicket passes can not be compromised.
"This has been a big victory for disclosure. People realize that the way to handle security vulnerabilities is not to try to squelch it, but to deal with it," Anderson told the website.
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