Use your Android phone to cheat the transit authority

Say, do you remember those phone hacks of the 1970s -- free calls using a whistle inside Capt'n Crunch cereal boxes? Or perhaps you recall the 1980's version, depicted in movie WarGames with a soda can pull top? Supposedly you can relive the underground hacking days, quite literally, using an Android app to get free subway rides.

My boss spotted a ZDNET story about this little, ah, gimmick from the Intrepidus Group. Due to a Near Field Communication-chip flaw, would-be digital turnstile jumpers can reset some transit cards to their original state using an Android app. That's another 10 free rides for you, bud.

In the video above, a Samsung Nexus S, which ships with stock Android and has NFC, is used to borrow subway rides (yes, we know it's stealing). Too bad iPhone 5 doesn't have NFC, eh? Of course, iPhone users won't risk phone profiling from transit cops.