The three students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology taken to court by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority were cleared of all charges by a court ruling yesterday and they are now free to present their paper anywhere and to whomever they choose.

"I hope it gives people comfort that they can do security research . . . without fear that they're going to be dragged into federal court and gagged," said Cindy Cohn, legal director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is an international non-profit advocacy and legal organization that decided to  represent the students.

The defense was built on the idea that silencing researchers will not improve security and that this should be considered a very good chance for significantly improving the system.

Boston’s federal court, led by U.S. District Court Judge George O'Toole, considered that the students’ presentation does not violate any computer fraud laws.

The whole incident started during a hacker convention in Las Vegas, where the three students, Zack Anderson, R.J. Ryan and Alessandro Chiesa were scheduled to present their research on the flaws of the "Charlie Card" automated fare system, which enabled them to offer people free subway rides. At the time, in an effort to keep the information secured, the MBTA intervened, stopping the presentation.

Unfortunately, the presentation, with all of its 87 slides, was already available for several weeks on MIT’s Web site and it was also included on the conference’s complimentary presentation CD. It didn’t take long for a significantly large number of people to get a hold of all the details needed for accessing the system.