There really is no excuse for the behavior of the MBTA--they may not be experts in law, or technology or public relations, or indeed, transportation.
But they don't need to be either, as they have all of those services hired and in place, and given the threat of having everyone in the area riding for free, they should have asked for expert advice and if their experts were any good, they would have recommended quietly changing the technology, and suing the system manufacturer (assuming that they bothered to put any sort of security requirement into the contract in the first place.)
Ignorance is no excuse. It just means that you aren't doing your job.
As to companies learning from experience--most individuals don't seem to, so why should a company?
Since in the majority of companies examining what went wrong is used primarily to place blame, not to improve, it is in no one's best interest within a company to examine failures.
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Just Clone 'em
Since MBTA gives away the blank Charlie Cards, the initial decryption effort can be paid for by selling cloned cards to travelers at 50% value.
If they're smart, they'll upgrade to the DES version of the card ASAP. Which is, of course, what they should have used in the first place.
Who needs terrorists if we're this inept? Note that the slide presentation includes the fact that security systems are not manned and that gates and doors are often unlocked.
MBTA ought to be in for a round of heat from Homeless Insecurity as well as a local investigation into the operation of the service by the local governments, to find out where their money is actually going--since it isn't being spent on the security as supposed.
Easiest would be to support it completely by taxes and give everyone the right to ride at no extra cost--it's not like the area needs the traffic congestion it suffers from today.
Save a bundle on new roads and maintenance, while saving billions of tons of carbon dioxide generation.
Or does that make too much sense...?
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