Miss Behavin

MIT students respond to allegations

August 13th, 2008

In response to allegation by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority lawsuit, which effected censored research claims on the weakness of the RFID technology, the MIT issued the following statements. (btw taken from EFF’s site)

• The MIT students, through their Professor Ron Rivest, initiated contact with the MBTA. The students wanted to let the MBTA know what they found and wanted to provide some ideas about how to fix the system.
• The meeting referenced in the MBTA’s statement was held on Monday, not Tuesday.
• In the course of the Monday meeting, the MIT students confirmed that the DEFCON presentation would not provide technical details sufficient for others to use their research to defeat the security systems in place at the MBTA. To address the concerns raised by the MBTA, the MIT students asked DEFCON to revise the description of the presentation originally posted on the conference website.
• After the Monday meeting, the students understood that the MBTA’s concerns were resolved, and that the students were to provide a confidential vulnerability assessment by the end of the week. Contrary to the MBTA statement, the students did not believe that the MBTA wanted to see a copy of the presentation slides, and they did not agree to provide them to the MBTA.
• Between the Monday meeting and Friday, there were communications between various people involved in this dispute, including (contrary to the MBTA statement) communications between MIT Professor Rivest and the MBTA.
• The students provided the MBTA with a confidential vulnerability assessment by the end of the week and prior to their scheduled presentation, as promised. The vulnerability assessment was marked “Confidential” because the MIT students felt it was in the best interests of the MBTA to keep the information in the report confidential.
• The students did not understand that the MBTA wanted a copy of the presentation slides until Friday.
• The MBTA went to court on Friday afternoon before providing notice to the MIT students of their intent to sue, and sought an immediate hearing. The MBTA’s actions deprived the students of an opportunity to have representation in court on Friday at the initial hearing held in the federal district court in Boston. (A subsequent hearing was held Saturday morning.)

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