On August 19, the judge rejected the MBTA's request to extend the restraining order and the TRO likewise expired, thus granting the students the right to discuss and present their findings.

[2] In December 2007, cautions were published separately by Karsten Nohl[3] and Henryk Plotz regarding the weak encryption and other vulnerabilities of the particular security scheme as implemented on NXP's MIFARE chip set and contactless electronic card system.

[10] In May 2008, MIT students Zack Anderson,[11][12] Russell J. Ryan,[13] Alessandro Chiesa,[14] and Samuel G. McVeety presented a final paper in Professor Ron Rivest's 6.857: Computer and Network Security class demonstrating weaknesses in the MBTA's automated fare collection system.

[23] The MIT students retained the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Fish & Richardson to represent them and asserted that the term "transmission" in the CFAA cannot be broadly construed as any form of communication and the restraining order is a prior restraint infringing their First Amendment right to protected free speech about academic research.

"[26] On August 19, the judge rejected the MBTA's request to extend the restraining order and the TRO likewise expired, thus granting the students the right to discuss and present their findings.