More On Why Blackboard Prevented Security Talk

Legal Issues

from the broke-into-the-damn-box... dept

It sounds like Blackboard is slowly starting to release more details about why they prevented some students from giving a talk on security holes in their system used for students on college campuses to purchase things. This latest press report on the story points out that one of the students physically took apart one of the card reader boxes from a laundry room in a dorm at his university. So, this wasn’t a case of figuring out a software hole, but where he physically broke into a box that didn’t belong to him – which certainly seems a bit more likely to be classified as a crime. Either way, if he did turn up security flaws, Blackboard would be better off fixing the security holes than denying they exist. Update: The Washington Post has even more details, talking about how the guy also quizzed Blackboard’s VP of product development at a trade show last month before identifying who he was. And, he was sent to that trade show by one of Blackboard’s competitors.