Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Accused murderer wins right to check source code of DNA testing kit

theregister.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 520 posts

Re: Accused murderer wins right to check source code of DNA testing kit

#281

Post by JoeAltmaier »

curryst wrote: post #116
calciphus wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compile it, run it with the same inputs the prosecution claims was provided, and see if you get the same result. That's sorta the point of computers, right? Same inputs on the same program, same output?

> Compile it, run it with the same inputs the prosecution claims was provided, and see if you get the same result. That's sorta the point of computers, right? Same inputs on the same program, same output? One difficulty here is that the input is a real world effect. That means the answers are rarely exactly the same. The last time I looked, breathalyzers have a ~50% margin of error. So if you blow a 0.06, your BAC is…

Not true universally. In-car breathalyzers are calibrated regularly; have margins much closer to 10%. They are portable and simple to use.

Maybe in the 'bad old days' it was worse. But today its been scrutinized in court so many times, it has to be bulletproof to get deployed.

Now, blood testing may differ from breath testing. Which is aligned with impaired driving? Breath testing may be the better measure. If state laws are often couched in terms of breath alcohol, then they are the only correct measure.

Re: Accused murderer wins right to check source code of DNA testing kit

#282

Post by tsimionescu »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #251
tekromancr wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is REALLY hard to overstate how dangerously naive a view of the american justice system that is

I don't understand what you mean. I would expect them to make the obviously correct decision, though I'm fully aware that they very often don't.

It depends on the definition of 'expect'. You should expect it of them, as in consider it unethical if they don't. You shouldn't expect them to live up to this standard, as in, if you were to bet on it, you'd likely lose.

Re: Accused murderer wins right to check source code of DNA testing kit

#283

Post by pvitz »

fatnoah wrote: post #277
pvitz wrote: post #82

I have worked with MATLAB code with 20,000 lines of code. Only over the past years, OOP and unit-testing has become properly available and usable. My guess is that this 170,000 lines are written in the old procedural way (also for performance reasons) and are full of bugs, also thanks to the lack of supporting tools. Most likely, this grew out of a research prototype that just worked too well to be reimplemented in a…

I wonder if bug tracker and other reports would be part of discovery in this case.

Equally interesting is in my opinion who should do the review. Mathworks' own consulting service is probably the best to do so, but I wonder if they would objectively work against one of their own customers.

Re: Accused murderer wins right to check source code of DNA testing kit

#284

Post by nickodell »

gidan wrote: post #223
nickodell wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>My prediction: this firm will probably try to get removed from the case, rather than open source their shitty code. That isn't necessarily their choice. The prosecutors will make the decision about whether to withdraw the DNA evidence. They probably won't, given that they would need to give the defendant a new trial, which could lead to an accused murderer getting off. A bad look for any prosecutor. More to the poin…

That would be implying that the prosecutor would prefer taking the life of an innocent rather than having it hurt his career, making the prosecutor kind of a criminal.

>taking the life of an innocent

The prosecutor isn't unilaterally deciding whether the DNA evidence is valid. There will be a public hearing where both the prosecution and defense show evidence about the validity of the DNA evidence, and a court will rule based on that evidence.

Re: Accused murderer wins right to check source code of DNA testing kit

#285

Post by Spivak »

Ekaros wrote: post #173
Spivak wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People keep saying that but electronic voting would be great! Set it up so the process is exactly like mail-in ballots except digital and you can’t have made it any worse. It’s not like emailing a PDF to be opened by an election official is any different than mailing a document to be opened by that same official.

No one should use mail in voting either...

Except for the sick, disabled, elderly, deceased, people overseas or out-of-town, anyone in the military that's deployed, people who don't have good access to transportation, people who work long continuous shifts like healthcare workers and firefighters, poll workers, people in jail awaiting their trials, people with stalkers...

Re: Accused murderer wins right to check source code of DNA testing kit

#286

Post by _Wintermute »

meowster wrote: post #175
fxleach wrote: post #156

> it would take eight and a half years to review at a rate of ten lines an hour Wow, the co-founder's argument to not disclose the source code to the defendant was that it's too many lines of code. Also... ten lines reviewed in an hour!?

In the TV shows and books, opposing counsel always want to inundate the protagonist with truckloads of boxes full of printed papers when they could just handover a flashdrive instead. Are there any lawyers here who can speak to the accuracy of such portrayal? It would seem the next logical step would be for every other lawyer to say they shouldn't hand over discovery because it would take to long for the otherside wh…

Not sure if it's the best source, but according to a "Youtube laywer reacts" video [0], it's a common tactic but you can complain about it to the judge and request documents in a more appropriate form.

[0] https://youtu.be/spr5smxuO5E?t=1284

Re: Accused murderer wins right to check source code of DNA testing kit

#287

Post by tsimionescu »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #224
kingkawn wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your sentimentality is not enough for a good justice system.

On the contrary, that's what the American justice system is entirely based upon. Fair judges, juries of peers and so on. Its the bedrock of justice. Engineers have some notion that it can all be replaced with science. In so far as science can certify the reliability of tests, that is good. But in the end one has to trust the humans between those tests and the courtroom.

The whole point of this discussion is that this trust is being largely misplaced.

A lot of forensic science in itself is essentially phrenology (tooth prints, hair analysis - the non DNA kind, even fingerprinting is of exaggerated value). A lot of labs systematically turn out biased results with generally no expectation of risk, either personally to researchers and definitely not to higher ups.

Ultimately, forensic evidence should be seen as a signal, but not nearly as trustworthy as witness testimony (which in itself is not very trustworthy), despite what many believe.

And this is important for the general public to understand, the people who will participate in juries. The mystique that forensic experts have can make juries give extremely wrong decisions (even bad aquitalls on lack of forensic evidence).

Re: Accused murderer wins right to check source code of DNA testing kit

#288

Post by WaitWaitWha »

The tone of this thread is leaning to "forensics evil, government lackeys out to get the little guy".

In the USA, all sides can call and rely on their own forensics. There is no government mandated & approved single-source-of-truth (with some minor exceptions).

> Forensic labs and companies are expert witnesses with black box processes and the incentive to protect the authority of their profession.

This statement is at minimum an extreme generalization. Forensic field is a very large field, with many government and private "forensicators".

There are no "black box processes". The very word "forensic" is based on presenting in full view, front of the fact finders (jury & judges usually).

How deep this gets dug into depends on the fact finders and attorneys.

In all court cases the forensic examiner can be called to demonstrate with extreme nuance how they performed the procedures. Any tools used are can be requested to be examined, including software. Vendors that I have worked with all have experts on staff specifically to appear in court and detail the inner workings of their tools.

Not only tools, processes, and environments, but the examiner can be drilled on their experience, education, degrees, previous cases, failures, etc. They do call it "voir dire" for a reason.

This does not negate the fact that there are some bad apples, bad prosecutors, and bad judges.

Re: Accused murderer wins right to check source code of DNA testing kit

#289

Post by tsimionescu »

caconym_ wrote: post #247
IgorPartola wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When your negligence results in people wrongfully spending decades in prison I would argue that it ought to be criminal negligence. If your software does not produce results that are accurate, precise, and have confidence intervals included, how OK are you with people going to prison based on them?

Yeah, there need to be consequences for this. The alternative is empowering people and corporations to destroy lives with impunity in pursuit of their own goals, as long as they can later claim it wasn’t intentional. What really pisses me off is how we fail again and again to ask the question of whether these entities should have been doing what they were doing in the first place, if it even can be done safely. Faceb…

A lot of people respond to this as if the fact that it would be nice if forensics worked justifies treating them as if they do. 'What do you want them to do, stop looking for fingerprints and DNA evidence?' Yes! Just like I don't want them to use 'lie detectors' or hire psychics.

Re: Accused murderer wins right to check source code of DNA testing kit

#290

Post by jariel »

hastradamus wrote: post #110

The co-founder of the company, Mark Perlin, is said to have argued against source code analysis by claiming that the program, consisting of 170,000 lines of MATLAB code, is so dense it would take eight and a half years to review at a rate of ten lines an hour. This is hilarious. As if you need to read every damn line and you can’t skip blank lines? You can skip whole files that aren’t relevant. Weak excuse

The statement is odd, at the same time, it's not outrageous for him to make in the sense that - lines of code notwithstanding - the underlying science i.e. the application of the product is the thing in question.

It's a pretty interesting case.

At least the core nature of the algorithm should be made public if we're going to use it for public inquisition.

Post reply on HN