While those of us in the social media might like to believe that information is open, transparent, and free, the fact is that for the larger Web outside of this niche that this isn’t necessarily the case. This has been made more than apparent with the current legal action against TheFunded.com by EDF Ventures as they sue for the identity of one of the site members. Another example came this past weekend, when three MIT students were gagged from giving a presentation about the security weakness they found in the fare cards used by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.

While the incident with TheFunded.com may end up being a replay of the recent lawsuit against Torrent Bay, the court order to stop the students from giving their presentation at this past weekend’s DefCon 16 get together in Las Vegas is a different matter. As Declan McCullagh reported on the Security blog at c|net:

U.S. District Judge Douglas Woodlock on Saturday ordered the students not to provide "program, information, software code, or command that would assist another in any material way to circumvent or otherwise attack the security of the Fare Media System." Woodlock granted the MBTA’s request after a hastily convened hearing in Massachusetts that took place at 8 a.m. PDT on Saturday.