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EFF To Appeal Court Order Vs. Subway Hack Demo
snydeq sends along InfoWorld coverage of the EFF's plans to appeal a US District Court order that kept three MIT students from presenting detailed flaws in the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority e-ticketing system at Defcon. And an anonymous reader points out that the MBTA, in addition to triggering the Streisand Effect, released in open court more information on vulnerabilities (PDF) than the students had any intention of presenting. See Exhibit 1 to this court filing.
Actually, under constitutional law, the preferred situation is to let the speech happen and hash out any legal issues later. The term for preventing a publication is "prior restraint", and it's very much frowned upon compared to going to court over speech that's already been published.
In this case the judge used a computer intrusion statute. I don't know the terms of it, but some such laws do prohibit trading in passwords or other access devices. Seems like a stretch, and I don't consider it justified, but that might be the reasoning. I'm not a lawyer, but if I were them I'd look out for the highly abusable conspiracy laws.
Why is it that every time I read about the EFF or Lesig I hear about how they are going down in flames in once case or another? Are we taking about the Washington generals here? Whats it going to take for them to actually win something for a change.
http://www.eff.org/victories
http://www-tech.mit.edu/V128/N30/subway/
Direct link to the presentation PDF:
http://www-tech.mit.edu/V128/N30/subway/Defcon_Presentation.pdf
At least from what's in the linked PDF, the undergrads' work is not all that impressive. They look at both the CharlieTicket (magstripe) and the CharlieCard (RFID).
Hacking the CharlieTicket sounds fairly trivial. Magstripe cards are extremely easy to read and write to, and documentation on how to do this with homemade equipment is all over the Internet. The undergrads' work essentially consists of figuring out how the 6-bit checksum is being calculated (though it's not disclosed in the linked documents). This is probably the most difficult thing that they did.
Hacking the CharlieCard, which is a MiFare Classic, is more involved, but the undergrads used a previously known attack, simply duplicating it. (Some might call that the behavior of a "script kiddie"?) There's hardly anything novel about this.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
In this case the judge used a computer intrusion statute. I don't know the terms of it, but some such laws do prohibit trading in passwords or other access devices. Seems like a stretch, and I don't consider it justified, but that might be the reasoning.
According to the complaint the MBTA is calling the CharlieCard and even the CharlieTicket a "computer." Understanding how the "computer" works and disseminating that information constitutes fraud.
According to the referenced US Code, a "computer" is:
the term "computer" means an electronic, magnetic, optical, electrochemical, or other high speed data processing device performing logical, arithmetic, or storage functions, and includes any data storage facility or communications facility directly related to or operating in conjunction with such device, but such term does not include an automated typewriter or typesetter, a portable hand held calculator, or other similar device;
The court issued a 'temporary restraining order', which is legal-jargon for "don't do anything until we can get a decent hearing". It does not mean that the court has accepted the MBTA's position or even jurisdiction over the case. It is merely a tool* to ensure that neither party can unilaterally change the status-quo just because the courts do not operate 24/7 and are sort of slow (making sure everyone has a chance to speak generally doesn't allow for fast decision making). Rarely does a TRO last more than a week until a preliminary hearing can be held.
IMO, therefore, even if the MBTA has no case whatsoever (almost certainly true) they are entitled to a TRO for a few days until the court can read (and almost certainly deny) their application for a permanent injunction. I don't see any major damage from having a presentation delayed for all of 72 hours either (note, if we were talking permanent injunction, it would be totally bogus -- that's a different matter entirely).
* Yes, I'm aware the information was already published on the internet and that it cannot effectively be "recalled". That is not the point -- the MBTA, as any other litigant, has the right to have a court hear their case -- even if they really don't have one.
And hopefully that means that they will lose the case. (Actually, I'd hope that anyone bringing such a suit would lose, not just governmental entities.) But this is just an injunction. An injunction is temporary, and is only intended to prevent potential damage from being done until the true merits of the case can be assessed. An injunction doesn't require a good case, it just requires a case that has sufficient merit to go to court.
Personally I don't think this injunction should have been granted, but it's not nearly the slam dunk obvious thing that many people here think it is.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
Maybe im not understand the situation, but if you attempt to release information that can cause harm to a business or person or society. that speech can definitely be limited.
That is a pretty general, and pretty wrong, statement. I can voice my opinion on a business all day long, even if that harms the business. I can voice my opinion on public figures all day long, even if their polling numbers decline as a result.
There are certain limitations, sure, but merely bringing an undesired effect to the affected party is not enough.
Its like calling fire in a building with no fire and someone getting hurt.
No, it's not. These students are not putting people's life in jeopardy.
It seems like in this case, if this information got mass attention there might be some way to construe harm.
There is ALWAYS some way to construe harm. The question is whether it's reasonable.
I mean I can think of allot of ways to fabricate the perception of harm, even though it is unlikely.
And this is the kicker. The MBTA is trying to sweep this under the carpet by claiming outlandish claims of public safety and harm -- when it is plain to see that this presentation poses no such threat.
Im trying to put myself in their shoes, someone or someones do not want to have to deal with this if people start mass circumventing the system...
Too freaking bad, use a more secure system. The undergrads even made suggestions as to how to go about it (which they are not obligated to), and are generally behaving responsibly enough (they are not / were not going to release the checksum algorithm or the keys they found).
money loss, reputations, and the like are surely involved.
And rightly so. You see, it's not the undergrads' fault that the system is shoddy. They did not make it shoddy, they did not do the evaluation before buying it, they were not the implementers, and they do not leave network switches unattended behnind open doors. Somebody else is doing that. The undergrads are just pointing out that somebody else is doing that. If that somebody else loses money, reputation, and the like over this incident, then it is their own fault.
it doesn't matter if it has been done before, this particular event makes stuff like this a hot topic, because people that build or manage insecure systems look really, really stupid to the professional community.
This is no reason, at all, to curtail the freedom of speech of these undergrads. Don't like the criticism ? Don't fuck up like that. If you do, take the criticism.
The whole handling of the matter reeks of incompetence, anyway. Apparently these people never heard of the Streisand-effect (seriously, how many more people now know about these weaknesses, in detail, since the MBTA began to sue ?), have never heard about court documents being on the public record (everything they submit as "evidence" is forever in the public eye), have not even researched whether the materials they are trying to suppress have already been circulated (hint: yes, they have), and likely just encouraged others to re-engineer the reverse-engineering. Those others may not be as responsible as these undergrads and release full details, including encryption keys, checksumming algorithms, ready-made software, etc.
A+.