As I mentioned in a previous post, the MBTA v. MIT scenario is extremely distasteful to me. I do believe the MIT students have a “right” to disclose the information they had. I also believe they increase risk in the process.

It was the phrase “I get how maddening that is, and it is even more maddening for me because I have to defend the MBTA’s right to protect itself against the exposure of this insecure junk” that I took issue with. I don’t believe they have a right to protect themselves in this circumstance, at least not as they have done.

Perhaps I’m just misinterpreting what you wrote.

While I agree that the legal issues are interesting, that wasn’t really the focus of this post. My intention was to comment on the immediate and near-term impact on risk, even under distasteful circumstances.

The question here isn’t one of harm. The worst harm the MBTA is claiming is some financial damage. The first amendment is quite clear on this point, as is supreme court case law. The constitution is the controlling legal document, not the CFAA, and the judge mistakenly said, and the MBTA claimed.

I’m hoping that this doesn’t need to turn into a protracted legal battle.

For a nice read on previous first amendment cases I recommend “Speaking Freely” by Floyd Abrams.

None of this deals with whether the students could/should have disclosed responsibly. Since they didn’t commit a crime, they can’t be prosecuted and as such, we can wish all day for how they could have done this differently, we simply shouldn’t ask the government to step in and enforce that viewpoint.

as i understand it, the students had no intention of revealing sufficient details to help people mount an attack and if mbta had made it clear that they wanted to see a copy of the presentation at an earlier date then a lot of nonsense that’s occurred since wouldn’t have happened and the confidential document the students prepared for the mbta that DID contain sufficient detail to help an attacker wouldn’t have found it’s way into mbta’s public court documents…

i too think the mbta should have the right to keep secret certain details that could have cost them a lot of money, but i think they’ve handled the issue in a completely incompetent manner…