Free speech clashed with free rides yesterday when three MIT students were barred from giving a free lesson on how to beat the subway fare in Boston.
They had been scheduled to detail security vulnerabilities they discovered with Boston’s fare-card system at a hacker’s conference in Las Vegas.
That was before a federal judge stepped in and issued a temporary restraining order barring the Massachusetts Institute of Technology eggheads from disclosing a formula for what is basically the electronic equivalent of jumping a turnstile.
The injunction left it unclear if hackers could get free rides in New York, where straphangers use magnetic strip MetroCards similar to fare cards in Boston.
A spokesman for New York City Transit did not return a call for comment.
A description of the scheduled panel began with the line that would make any transit executive reach for the emergency brake: “Want free subway rides for life?”
The students, who went by the names Zack Anderson, R.J. Ryan and Allessandro, had also planned to release card-hacking software they had created.
“We were very, very surprised,” Anderson said about the judge’s ruling.
The students’ attorney, Kurt Opsahl, said the decision by federal judge Douglas Woodlock violated the students’ First Amendment rights to free speech.
Lawyers for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, which runs Boston’s subway system, said the reprieve gives their clients a chance to address security concerns by correcting the flaws in the system.