news.cnet.com — A federal judge on Saturday granted the state of Massachusetts' request for an injunction preventing three MIT students from giving a presentation about hacking smartcards used in the Boston subway system. The undergraduate students are scheduled to give a presentation Sunday afternoon at the Defcon conference.
Aug 9, 2008 View in Crawl 4
locojonesAug 10, 2008
The Judge isn't an idiot for doing his or her job. Injunctions are easy to get, all you have to do is show that if the conduct is allowed to go on unabated, it will result in irreperable harm. The Subway Authority here obviously made that showing. The Judge's only responsibility under those facts is to issue the injunction now to stop the potential harm and sort things out later at a more fleshed out trial. There's no conspiracy, it happens all the time. If there are First Amendment issues, then those will be properly dealt with.
enantiodromiaAug 11, 2008
i know exactly what Defcon is, thanks. do you really think those "Serious" engineers aren't going to Black Hat, then accidentally staying a few extra days to hang out at Defcon, "for laughs".the _real_ "conferences" about security are happening in the hotel rooms, bars, and strip clubs around Black Hat and Defcon, NSA, CIA, and the like included.
sidepocket2600Aug 11, 2008
The problem with security in general is that if you tell companies you have a security hole they do not believe you or they cover it up because its easier than actually fixing it. For example, people told the Airlines that planes could be used as banzi bombers and nobody lissend. Then Septermber 11th happend, now they know. It took a ton of lives lost and ruined with WWIII to let them know that a plane could be used as the bomb itself.
sidepocket2600Aug 11, 2008
But see, what you are talking about applies to everything. So what you are sugesting is that it is a waste of time testing and improving any system because every system is inherantly flawed?
alkoAug 13, 2008
I have to agree with the criticism that the MBTA should be using the info the students use to work with them and fix their security issues. Most competent companies attempt to patch their security holes (even M$ makes the attempt).What I don't understand is why students are demonized by the authorities as if they were the "terrorists." That's just absolute BS. Making the legitimate and concerned citizens the target is what this government has turned into since the aftermath of 9/11 and "Homeland Security." Here's the Register's article on this:<a class="user" href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/09/defcon_talk_halted/">http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/09/defcon_tal ...</a>