Court Rules in Favor of Dutch Scientists Who Cracked the Oyster Card

As promised, NXP has sued the Radboud University so that it would not publicly disclose how Wouter Teepe and Bart Jacobs managed to crack the Oyster card which uses NXP Mifare technologies. The court hearings which began on the 10th of July came to an end today when the judge ruled in favor of the university.

"Radboud University Nijmegen is pleased to learn that the judge in the preliminary injunction court in Arnhem has ruled in a summary injunction that Dr. B. Jacobs, Professor of Computer Security, may publish his article on the Mifare Classic Chip. The judge has ruled that publishing this scientific article falls under the principle of freedom of expression and that in a democratic society it is of great importance that the results of scientific research can be published. The article will be published at the beginning of October during a scientific conference in Malaga in Spain," says a press release from the Dutch university.

According to the aforementioned institution, out of social responsibility it has decided to brief the Dutch Government and NXP about the security flaws discovered in the British Oyster card and its Netherlands counterpart, the OV-chipkart. Specific, technical details in regard to this security issue have not been made public so that involved parties could address the problem.

The findings of the study were sent to NXP Technologies in June, but instead of appreciating the gesture and issuing a fix to the problem, come July the previously mentioned company had decided to try and prevent the data from reaching the general public by taking out an injunction on the university and Professor Jacobs.

Fortunately, the judge determined that the Radboud University took a proper course of action and "acted with due care". Preventing it from making this information public would represent creating a dangerous legal precedent, one that would not allow academic institutions to conduct scientific research.

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