Wow, the MBTA is in deep shit. If you haven’t heard about this, 3 kids from MIT did some analysis on the MBTA fare system and found out how bad it actually is. We’ve (jabra + quine + myself) debated whether the card is actually storing $$ value, and it turns out it is. Check out this VA report published by Wired and the corresponding article. So now they’ve been issued a restraining order, and weren’t allowed to talk at Defcon. Here’s hoping they get off of this, as it has ramifications for security research:

Marcia Hoffman of the EFF (Stolen from Wired):

“Basically, what the court is suggesting here is that giving a presentation involving security to other security researchers is a violation of federal law,” she said. “As far as I know, this is completely unprecedented, and it has a tremendous chilling effect on sharing this sort of research. . . . And we intend to fight it with everything we’ve got.”

I’ll post more info on the highlights from BlackHat / Defcon soon.

/me heads off to buy an RFID cloner + pay EFF dues.