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July 21, 2008, 12:50 PM ET
Dutch Court Allows Researchers Who Cracked Chip to Publish Their Results
A court in the Netherlands ruled last Friday that a Dutch research team can publish a scientific paper on security shortcomings in the most popular chip used in transit systems worldwide, according to CNET.com.
In March a team of scientists at Radboud University Nijmegen, in the Netherlands, led by Bart Jacobs, a professor of design and verification of secure software systems, cracked the cryptography of the Mifare Classic Chip showing that London transit-system cards could be cloned.
The university informed the Dutch government and NXP Semiconductors, the manufacturer of the chip, of these findings, giving the company time to fix the problem before publishing the results, said Radboud University Nimejen in a press release.
But NXP sued the professor and the university in July, to prevent the publication of the paper. The company argued it would be irresponsible to make the sensitive information public. The university said such a ban would go against academic freedom.
The Dutch court ruled in the university’s favor, pointing out that the institution had acted with due care. The paper will be published in October during a scientific conference, as the researchers had initially planned.—Maria José Viñas
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