Defcon Subway Hack Document

Here is the story on the subway card hacking by MIT students along with the banned document slide show they were told not to show.

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 speakat 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. EFF staff
attorney Kurt Opsahl said that the temporary restraining order is "violating their
First Amendment rights"; another EFF attorney said a court order pre-emptively
gagging security researchers was "unprecedented." EFF attorneys appeared with
the three students--Zack Anderson, R.J. Ryan, and Alessandro Chiesa--in front
of a crowd of hundreds at an afternoon session at Defcon, but largely prevented
them from answering questions, citing the lawsuit. Although Sunday's talk is
canceled, Defcon organizers hinted that there may be a related presentation on a
similar topic.

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