My question is: with all the spying power, etc, how come the government can't stop the hackers?
'They attack and take down wonderful, wonderful websites like this one and his one, but they can't take down porn sites? WTF?!
And now the state is hassling some kids because they figured out how to loot the looters?
"T hacking exposes a deeper clash; Where agency sees attack, MIT students talk of constructive exploration" by Michael Levenson, Globe Staff | August 18, 2008
Impressive stuff. But it's not generating half the attention as his project for Professor Ronald L. Rivest's Computer and Network Security class last semester. That endeavor, for which he earned an A, has gotten the fresh-faced senior from Beverly Hills, Calif., a visit from an FBI agent, an MBTA sergeant detective, nationwide press attention, and a starring role in a federal lawsuit.
Yeah, it was turned into a "national security" issue, sig heil!
Zack Anderson, along with his freshman-year roommate, R. J. Ryan, 22, and another student in the class, Alessandro Chiesa, 20, claimed in their project to have developed a way to hack into the MBTA's recently installed $180 million automated fare-collection system and provide fellow hackers with "free rides for life."
Not surprisingly, the T was not pleased to learn of the development.
Government looters don't like competition.
The agency, which is strapped for cash and contemplating a fare increase in 2010, successfully sued the students to prevent them from presenting their findings at DEFCON, a hacker's convention that recently drew more than 6,000 people to the Riviera Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.
The trio face a hearing in Boston's federal court tomorrow when a temporary restraining order keeping them from releasing their findings expires.
The T, which did not return calls for this story, has said the students' findings could cause "significant damage to the transit system." The agency has also sued MIT, saying the institute failed to teach its undergraduates "to responsibly disclose information concerning perceived security flaws."
The students strongly disagree, and their case has electrified the cowboy community of hackers, where the line is often blurry between those who break into a system so the system's flaws can be exposed and patched and those who crack into a network merely to create mischief.
"It was all the discussion at DEFCON," said Dave Marcus, security research and communications director at McAfee Avert Labs in Santa Clara, Calif., who attended the Aug. 8-10 convention. "Anytime you suppress research, it goes through the research community like wildfire. We can all feel like 'the man' is coming down on us as security researchers."
Hackers say they generally divide into three camps: do-gooder "white hats," nefarious "black hats," and "grey hats," who fall somewhere in between. Some say the MIT students' project might fall in the middle of the ethical gray scale.
Zionist trolls are usually the black hats.
"I can understand the MBTA's response," said Joe Grand, a 32-year-old hacker who calls himself Kingpin and was part of a 1990s hacker crew in Boston called L0pht Heavy Industries. "Nobody likes to have their work broken and publicly announced. I also agree that people need to know about systems that are broken. So there is definitely a fine line."
That's the fine line of AmeriKan tyranny he's talking about.
And how would you feel, readers, if the government wanted EVERY SCRAP of RESEARCH MATERIAL? I heard they even want the pizza boxes and the feces the kids laid while studying.
"Judge awaits students' research paper" by John C. Drake, Globe Staff | August 18, 2008
A First Amendment battle three MIT students are waging against the MBTA could intensify tomorrow if they have not provided a federal judge with a research paper that outlines flaws in the transit agency's fare-reading apparatus and computer software they created to beat the system.
An MBTA lawyer told the Globe that the students rejected US District Judge George A. O'Toole Jr.'s order to secretly provide the class paper and computer code they had planned to share at a hackers' conference in Las Vegas earlier this month. The attorney, Ieuan G. Mahony, said the students submitted only correspondence they had with conference organizers, which was part of the judge's order, in time for a Saturday deadline.
"We need to review the legal basis for not producing the paper," Mahony said Saturday. A spokeswoman for a legal advocacy group representing the students declined to specify yesterday what was provided to the judge, other than to say they responded to the order.
"Basically what the judge asked for in asking that these documents be handed over was . . . prepublication review by a government agency of these students' speech," said Rebecca Jeschke, a spokeswoman for the California-based Electronic Frontier Foundation. "It's the kind of prior restraint that the First Amendment was designed to abolish."
There is no more First Amendment! That thing has been gutted and shredded!
As Bush said, "it's just a god-damned piece of paper!"
The students are under a 10-day gag order that prevents them from going public with system security flaws within the MBTA system. That Aug. 10 order, which prevented the students from making their presentation to the DEFCON hacker convention, expires tomorrow, and the judge said he needed the additional materials to rule on the MBTA's request for a preliminary injunction against dissemination of the information. A hearing is scheduled tomorrow on the preliminary injunction request.
The MBTA had asked the judge to require the students to turn over even more documents, including early drafts of their class paper, notes and research materials they used in writing, fare cards and devices they altered or created in their research, and documents identifying any other people who may have had access to the altered fare cards or devices. The judge's order represented a small slice of what the MBTA wants to see.
--more--"
Of course, the reason the T is in BILLIONS in debt is because of these two-bit criminals.
One of Gilberto Carrasquillo's jobs, as a senior revenue collection agent, was bringing fare boxes from the subway stations to a locked vault, but recently, MBTA security officials suspected they were coming up short, said spokesman Joe Pesaturo.
Hey, he was just learning from his superiors (second story down).
Carrasquillo, 43, of Dorchester, a 22-year MBTA employee, was arrested at work early yesterday after a transit police sting caught him stealing subway fare money, Pesaturo said.
In March 2007, Robert P. Gibson, a retired electrician who worked for the MBTA for 20 years, was found to have stolen more than $40,000 worth of ride tokens over the years.
In May 2006, Jose Arriaza, a foreman for a firm that cleaned MBTA stations, was arrested for allegedly stealing coins and tokens from fare boxes at Harvard Station. He was fired from the cleaning firm. In 1997, two employees were caught stealing thousands in cash and tokens from the MBTA's money room.
--more--"
Yeah, it is all THEIR FAULT the T is BILLIONS in the hole, yup!
Now, I don't believe in thievery; however, this is what is known as SCAPEGOATING, a common tactic by the divisive, agenda-serving press.
They DON'T CARE about CORPORATIONS and the ELITE ripping us off -- it's only that guy in a UNION that rips you off, taxpayers!!!!
