Hacking and National Security

Just when to invoke national security or freedom of expression and use of technology continues to be tested. Three students at MIT had planned to give a talk at the Defcon security conference in Las Vegas yesterday on how they hacked into Boston's subway system to issue fake fare cards. But the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority filed a lawsuit to stop the students from presenting their findings. The authority argued that the students violated a federal law and that their fare card constituted a computer used by a government agency to protect the American public. The suit most certainly will "rekindle a debate about how to properly disclose security vulnerabilities, and whether laws against computer crimes trump the First Amendment," according to a Wall Street Journal blog.