Three MIT students managed to hack into Boston's transit payment system (Charlie Ticket) and reprogram the cards, thus increasing their credit so that they could use the subway free of charge.

Obviously enough, the story did not end here; the three decided to make an academic paper out of their law bending project. This is where things got a bit complicated, as the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) pressed charges against the students, accusing them of computer fraud. The MBTA also requested a postponement for the paper’s presentation, until its people could go about fixing the problem.

Following the trial, the MBTA lost; according to Judge George O'Toole, the presentation of an academic paper does not break any computer fraud laws. 

As Marcia Hofmann, an Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Staff Attorney, said, the decision that Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) would not be relevant in a case in which security researchers engage in an academic talk, was perfectly correct. It was added that a presentation within a security conference is not the same with a computer intrusion.

According to the EFF, the MBTA admitted its Charlie Ticket system had a series of vulnerabilities and fixing them would require several months of work.

Anyway, all is well that ends well as the three lawsuit winners, Zack Anderson, R.J. Ryan and Alessandro Chiesa, were eventually given "top marks" for their paper, thus putting an end to the entire situation.