[NetBehaviour] Judge orders halt to Defcon speech on subway card hacking.

[marc garrett]

Judge orders halt to Defcon speech on subway card hacking.

MIT students Alessandro Chiesa, R.J. Ryan, Zack Anderson, and Electronic 
Frontier Foundation staff attorney Kurt Opsahl speak at a panel turned 
press conference at Defcon.
(Credit: Declan McCullagh/CNET News)

LAS VEGAS--A federal judge on Saturday granted the Massachusetts transit 
authority's request for an injunction preventing three MIT students from 
giving a presentation about hacking smartcards used in the Boston subway 
system.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is representing the students, 
anticipates appealing the ruling, said EFF senior staff attorney Kurt 
Opsahl.

The undergraduate students had been scheduled to give a presentation 
Sunday afternoon at the Defcon hacker conference here that they had said 
would describe "several attacks to completely break the CharlieCard," an 
RFID card that the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority uses on 
the Boston T subway line. They also planned to release card-hacking 
software they had created, but canceled both the presentation and the 
release of the software.

U.S. District Judge Douglas Woodlock on Saturday ordered the students 
not to provide "program, information, software code, or command that 
would assist another in any material way to circumvent or otherwise 
attack the security of the Fare Media System." Woodlock granted the 
MBTA's request after a hastily convened hearing in Massachusetts that 
took place at 8 a.m. PDT on Saturday.

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http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10012612-83.html