Ever since some MIT students discovered some serious flaws in the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's systems, the state has been trying everything it can short of breaking their knee caps to keep them quiet. It may work in this case, but it just shows that the state is unwilling to play ball and work with security researchers instead of against them. In the future, students will be far more inclined to just release this sort of information as a surprise because of the heavy-handed reaction from the state government.

All of this to keep them from publishing vulnerabilities in the subway card system, when if the bureaucrats had been smart about it, they would have been on the phone threatening the vendor if they don't fix the bugs. That would, of course, be the method of covering one's ass by which one actually puts on a pair of pants, rather than insisting that everyone simply stop looking at the nakedness on display, which is why the state clearly didn't go for that option.

Since the state government is relying on precedent that is related only to commercial activity, and there is no present here on the part of the MIT students, it'll probably have a hard time defending itself on appeals. That's a stupid strategy to rely on, since aside from notoriety, the students will gain nothing from this presentation.