Forged Subway Passes - Boston

MBTA is an embarrassment.<p>The cards have serial numbers, but they weren't checked? Seriously? Not even in the nightly audit report? They do a nightly audit report, right?<p>Billsf showed BART how to run an electronic ticketing system 15 years ago. Of course, he got prosecuted for it. But MBTA could surely have learned a thing or two. Amateurs.

So, to recap, if that commuter had told the operator to mind his own business, this would still be going on.<p>Also, the T doesn't bother to count the number of passengers and compare it to the number of tickets sold.<p>Also, the T's management doesn't read Craigslist, and hasn't for years.

I'm actually kind of disappointed this wasn't more complicated, like actually hacking the system or altering cards (<a href="http://web.mit.edu/zacka/www/mbta.html" rel="nofollow">http://web.mit.edu/zacka/www/mbta.html</a>, <a href="http://tech.mit.edu/V128/N30/subway/Defcon_Presentation.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://tech.mit.edu/V128/N30/subway/Defcon_Presentation.pdf</a>) instead of just opportunism.

The passes described are neither "fake" nor "forged" - they were created by a contractor hired to create them, using the system that creates all T passes. The contractor wasn't authorized to create these, but we could call this a licensing issue. It isn't obvious that this is a criminal case (even tho it is being prosecuted as such) unless the MBTA gets special treatment under law. The details make this look more like a copyright violation than a counterfeiting case.