Breaking the System

If you and a few friends uncovered a really big secret who would you tell? What if it was a secret that could save thousands of people a lot of money but it was uhhh...wrong in many people’s eyes?

Well in my cybermedia law class we have been discussing the the first amendment and were assigned readings to get a better understanding. One of the readings we had to do was about three MIT students who had a lawsuit filed against them.

Although the story dates back to August 2008 it is intriguing and definitely pertains to not only the first amendment but ethics as well.

From the First Amendment Center’s website it states that “three MIT students were barred from talking publicly about security flaws they discovered in the state's automated mass transit fare system.” See the three students found “breaks” throughout the MBTA, Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, transit system. It included locating gates that were unlocked, finding important keys laying around, how to make your own transit card and how to find materials to pose as a MBTA worker.

They were going to present the information at an annual hackers conference but were stopped due to a temporary restraining order, from MBTA, that prevented them from reporting their findings. Eventually a judge overturned the restraining order and did not allow a five-month injunction to be placed on the college students.

My thought goes further then just the first amendment and their right to freedom of press. This goes into whether it was ethically ok for them to publicly present private findings at a conference. There is an act, the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, that is meant to protect many different aspects of the “private” computer world so were these students violating this act even if the judge said they were not? The information that they were coming forth with was very sensitive to the MBTA. Although they did have slides in their presentation that said the information was only for education purposes how could they prove that? Couldn’t attendees at the conference been anyone? Perhaps...

Do you think they should have been allowed to present this information which they uncovered? Do you think it was ethically ok for them to present their findings even though it is technically breaking rules? Although I pose many questions, personally I would have tried to present the information in the same way as the students. They were highly intelligent and were thorough enough to find all these breeches in the system. The MBTA should have been more careful to protect themselves. I mean they were leaving GATES OPEN. That seems a little absurd to me. I say that if anyone finds a gate open well then...go through it. Although a little voice in my head says it is not the right thing to do and perhaps because of my morals I would hesitate for a second but....well...you have to be able to survive in the real world. I would go through those gates, I would present that information, and I would do it with my head held high. (haha)