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The presumption that computers are working correctly

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Re: The presumption that computers are working correctly

#21

Post by [deleted] »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #9
phire wrote: post #7

As a programmer, it's my experience that the computer itself usually works correctly. It's almost never a hardware bug. But software.... software gets things wrong all the time and the computer hardware just blindly does what the software told it to.

It does happen to Hardware. Here are two older examples: “The Intel Pentium series of CPUs had two well-known bugs discovered after it was brought to market, the FDIV bug affecting floating point division which resulted in a recall in 1994, and the F00F bug discovered in 1997 which causes the processor to stop operating until rebooted.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_bug

[deleted]

Re: The presumption that computers are working correctly

#22

Post by Terr_ »

qingcharles wrote: post #13
jfoutz wrote: post #8

How does that work? I'm not a lawyer. I'm a lazy programmer. So, does the defense get to subpoena the logs, and depose a programmer to explain why some random request returned a 502? Does the defense get, like, red team access? Although I'm a lazy programmer, I do think a lot about failure modes. If my freedom is on the line, I can probably think up a few (orders of magnitude) test cases. Happy to provide a shell scr…

In the US at least it is hard to bring source code into the trial, even though you technically have a right. I remember one case where the FBI installed malware via a browser exploit on thousands of computers to get their IPs and one defendant tried to get the source code but the government managed to keep it secret.

That sounds like one of the "Playpen" cases, for which the EFF has a writeup on the hacking tool. [0]

Perhaps also relevant would be United States v. Lafon Ellis [1], where the defendant sought access to the source-code of a DNA fuzzy-matching service.

[0] https://www.eff.org/pages/playpen-cases-frequently-asked-que...

[1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/02/federal-court-agrees-p...

Re: The presumption that computers are working correctly

#24

Post by whoknowsidont »

phire wrote: post #7

As a programmer, it's my experience that the computer itself usually works correctly. It's almost never a hardware bug. But software.... software gets things wrong all the time and the computer hardware just blindly does what the software told it to.

>it's my experience that the computer itself usually works correctly.

Oh you sweet summer child. Hardware has so many little "quirks' or hacks to make it work correctly and it often doesn't! It's often expected that really low-level, "touching the metal" software makes up for these little bumps that happen quite often.

Re: The presumption that computers are working correctly

#25

Post by thesalsabear »

While this is a question of what the court should presume, should we ask what does a software developer presume or doesn’t:

A software developer would presume proper working of software if it is being used widely. I would presume JavaSDK or pandas library to be working properly, inspite of the fact that pandas that 3.5K bugs file on GitHub issues. But if I am thinking about integration a less known library or using a less known software I am less confident about its working.

Re: The presumption that computers are working correctly

#26

Post by zubairq »

After a lifetime of fixing bugs I’m often surprised that computer systems work at all. I had something similar to the failed post office system affect me personally, and everyone just rejects that the computer system could be at fault, even when presented with evidence, as it too too much work for them to try to understand.

Re: The presumption that computers are working correctly

#28

Post by Guvante »

jfoutz wrote: post #8

How does that work? I'm not a lawyer. I'm a lazy programmer. So, does the defense get to subpoena the logs, and depose a programmer to explain why some random request returned a 502? Does the defense get, like, red team access? Although I'm a lazy programmer, I do think a lot about failure modes. If my freedom is on the line, I can probably think up a few (orders of magnitude) test cases. Happy to provide a shell scr…

There already exists rules for certainty in law. After all just because you were seen by fourteen witnesses found with the murder weapon and admitted to the crime doesn't mean you are 100% guilty.

It could have been your identical twin doing those things as a silly example.

That doesn't mean the prosecution loses.

The goal is to meet that certainty which is by definition below 100% but high enough that society accepts it.

Re: The presumption that computers are working correctly

#29

Post by k0k0 »

phire wrote: post #7

As a programmer, it's my experience that the computer itself usually works correctly. It's almost never a hardware bug. But software.... software gets things wrong all the time and the computer hardware just blindly does what the software told it to.

Your experience is quite limited. Too limited to have a meaningful opinion on this subject frankly.

Re: The presumption that computers are working correctly

#30

Post by rambambram »

k0k0 wrote: post #29
phire wrote: post #7

As a programmer, it's my experience that the computer itself usually works correctly. It's almost never a hardware bug. But software.... software gets things wrong all the time and the computer hardware just blindly does what the software told it to.

Your experience is quite limited. Too limited to have a meaningful opinion on this subject frankly.

Enlighten us then.
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