The three students were set to highlight security holes in the automated fare collection system used by the city's transit service, at a security conference on Sunday.

Zack Anderson, R.J. Ryan, and Alessandro Chiesa were set to give the talk at the DEFCON Conference in Las Vegas (PDF of full presentation available here from MIT). The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority complained that the students were going to show attendees how to exploit the hole, without first giving it a chance to fix the problem.

An informal poll conducted by What They Play, a sort of Rotten Tomatoes site for video games, recently pointed to parents' areas of concern in video game content.

The fist poll, conducted on April 4-10 of this year, asked participants to select from a list of choices which item would they find most offensive in a video game. The responses were: a man and woman having sex (37%); two men kissing (27%); a graphically severed head (25%); and multiple use of the F-word (9%). This survey had 1,266 participants.

Common stock in five companies formerly under the IAC (InterActive Corp.) banner, owners of Ask.com and Match.com, will begin "when-issued" trading on the open market tomorrow under five new stock symbols.

This is the realization of an announcement by the holding company made in November 2007, when it made public its intent to spin off its properties Home Shopping Network (HSN). Ticketmaster, Interval Leisure Group (a real estate and timeshare company), and Lending Tree.

In a Texas court case, the recording industry group may be forced to accept a lower penalty per song as part of an "innocent infringement" defense by one defendant.

Whitney Harper, a college-aged woman, had previously admitted to copyright infringement through the use of the Kazaa P2P system when she was 16. However, unlike other defendants who had plead guilty, her lawyers are providing an interesting defense.

Last week, an appeals court determined that Cablevision wasn't liable for copyright infringement if their customers chose they programs it recorded. Could that ruling present a new loophole for Internet streaming radio?

In a completely unanticipated twist due to unforeseen repercussions, the Copyright Office of the US Library of Congress extended its hearing for public comments on the viability of copyright law for Internet radio into next month. This after it was determined that an appeals court decision last week in favor of cable TV provider Cablevision, ruling that its proposed remote DVR technology was not in violation of copyright, may have an impact on current copyright law regarding Internet streaming radio.

US-based wireless carrier Sprint Nextel is contemplating future measures for its iDEN network, which could include its ultimate sale.

Though there were talks several months ago of a "unified service architecture" that would bridge the gap between CDMA, iDEN, and the burgeoning Xohm WiMAX platform, a recent US Securities and Exchange Commission filing from Sprint Nextel shows the company is examining the potential sale of its iDEN network.

The presumptive Democratic nominee for President said over the weekend that subscribers to his text messaging list would be the first to find out his vice presidential choice.

Alerting users of such important news via text is only the latest way Barack Obama has turned his back on political conventions. Typically, such an announcement comes during a carefully staged rally or campaign event. While such an event may still happen, it surely wouldn't have the suspense of other campaigns.

CEO Steve Jobs said that nearly 60 million applications have been downloaded, generating about $1 million in sales per day for the company.

Obviously with an average selling price of 50 cents -- and the minimum charge for an application being 99 cents -- a large portion of iPhone applications downloaded through the Apps Store have been free. Even so, the number is quite impressive.

In 1993, Intel blanketed the world with advertising that stopped just short of placing a "TM" in front of the number "5" in the public conscience. This morning, the company has sent out an advance warning: Prepare for an onslaught of "7."

In advance of its annual US Developers' Forum next week, Intel today formally announced its branding for the generation of processors we've been calling by its code-name, "Nehalem." Rather than stay the current course of emphasizing the number of cores -- in which case, it might have been "Core 4" -- Intel will formally christen its desktop version of Nehalem with the new brand nomenclature "Core i7."

Microsoft's regular pre-briefing on monthly security issues contained some dire news, including patches for a reportedly "Critical" vulnerability affecting Windows Media Player for XP, Vista, and Windows Server 2008.

The dynamics of this problem, in keeping with Microsoft's current policy, are not being revealed until at least next Tuesday, though the company did acknowledge its existence late yesterday. If the company is implementing its so-called MAPP policy, announced earlier this week, then it's possible that some select partners who produce security software may know the details.

Religious fundamentalists in West Virginia are now being exempted from getting their digital photos emblazoned on their driver's licenses, after objections over carrying around what they conceive as the biblical "mark of the beast."

Although objecting West Virginians will still be required to have their license photos taken at a state Department of Motor Vehicles office, their photos will be removed from its computer immediately afterward, with the state retaining hard copies of the pictures at its main office.

Had someone with ill intent been as smart or as lucky as security engineer Dan Kaminsky, the entire Internet could have been rendered mostly inoperative. The extent of just how big a fix he implemented, is only now being realized.

There is an entire subculture that has developed around the notion of deconstructing information technology. And like those who prefer to fish in pre-stocked ponds, the people who populate this subculture are not, for the most part, particularly clever. They may be adept with their tools, but they don't construct exploitation strategies for themselves. Rather, they wait until someone smarter can do it for them.

Openmoko has finally decided to release the full schematics for its open source, "build-your-own" phones, apparently after the removal of stumbling blocks surrounding non-disclosure agreements for GSM chips.

About a month after shipping its own Neo FreeRunner phone, Openmoko today rolled out plans to post the compete inner workings of that phone and its predecessor, the Neo 1973, on its Web sites at Openmoko.com and Openmoko.org, for use under a Creative Commons (CC) license.

Last week, Congress sent letters to Internet platform providers expressing concern over targeted advertising. Now those letters have resulted in action from at least one company, which will now enable users to opt-out.

As part of its new privacy policy announced this afternoon, Yahoo will give its users a choice as to choose whether to opt-out of the company's targeted advertising across its properties. It is already offering its users an option to opt-out of similar ads served by third-party networks.

Users who want to lower their cell phone bills could be in for a treat -- or maybe not -- if the FCC responds favorably to a petition filed jointly by the nation's top three wireless providers, backed by powerful industry groups.

In their petition to the US Federal Communications Commission, AT&T, Sprint Nextel, and Verizon Wireless -- along with the CTIA, the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), the VON Coalition, and other parties -- are mutually seeking uniformity around, and reductions in, the carrier "terminating rates" which service providers charge each other for helping to carry one another's traffic over networks.