MIT Students Forced To Tell All

Posted by The Candle 08/15/2008 09:00 AM

Tags: charliecard, MIT, mbta, mit hackers, boston subway

The MBTA Triple Threat is getting bogged down with more questions today. A federal judge ordered the three MIT hackers to supply the court with more answers. The MIT students hacked into MBTA fare systems and were rumored to be talking about revealing their plan's hairy details at well-known hacker convention, Defcon 16.

The MBTA took the rumors very seriously and sued the three students and even managed to stop them from trying to reveal the details at Defcon 16. MBTA is now stubbornly pushing the students to divulge more information on their scheme. After the students presented the court with a lengthy 30-page file of secret MBTA hacker information, the courts were still not satisfied.

According to the students, they discovered a way to hack into the Charliecard system when doing research for a class and never had any intention of announcing their brilliant findings. The students are currently in the midst of a legal battle with MBTA.

Although the MBTA might win now, experts say that students at other tech schools will soon figure out the system too. This will ultimately lead to the revamp of fare systems across the nation.

Comments

Anonymous says,

Its a real shame that this didn't come durring a full term at MIT. If that had been the case. any data and code not released would have most likely been re-reverse engineered within the week. Of course free speech advocates in Boston should hurt the MBTA where it counts. in its pocket book by refusing to ride Posted 08/15/2008 4:58 PMReply

Anonymous says,

"hacking into the MBTA" is simply discovering a fatal flaw in the charliecard encryption system, which was very poorly designed.

Interestingly enough, they weren't going to divulge this information at DEFCON, but instead talk about why the cards were insecure.

Also, the MBTA knew about this. The students talked to them beforehand, and they were ok with their talking at DEFCON. But then they decided to sue the students. Posted 11/15/2008 2:05 PMReply