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A missing underscore sent innocent man to prison for 18 months

arstechnica.com

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Re: A missing underscore sent innocent man to prison for 18 months

#91

Post by gruez »

AnodicElegy wrote: post #88
crazygringo wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is an atrocious article. It makes no sense as presented. The first thing the records should have shown was the full messaging history which would not have contained any of the incriminating messages. But even if the messages no longer existed, there was no actual evidence. Truly, what on earth did the defense argue? How on earth was the jury convinced he was guilty? Everything important about this story is…

For all but minor offences in Canada, you have the right to a jury trial. Here, the accused elected to be tried by a judge. Most people do.

>Most people do.

Why?

Re: A missing underscore sent innocent man to prison for 18 months

#92

Post by mvkel »

Now imagine dumping the corpus of this case into an LLM and asking it to find discrepancies. I'll bet your bollocks to a barn dance that it'd point out the extra underscore.

This is yet another example of human confirmation bias leading to terrible outcomes for other humans. Our judgment is not so virtuous.

Now the question is whether being fallible is a feature. It seems like society is interested in keeping humans in the loop FOR the possibility of mistakes; makes it feel more authentic. Meanwhile, innocent people suffer.

Re: A missing underscore sent innocent man to prison for 18 months

#93

Post by fsckboy »

protocolture wrote: post #3
silisili wrote: post #2

This is completely dystopian. Did he have the worst legal defense possible, or are Canadian laws such that an IP address is sufficient for any claimed charges to just stick?

I am betting the judge accepted all the messages as evidence, and that was enough to convict. Theres no one technical in a court room.

>Theres no one technical in a court room.

oh c'mon, if a technical person receives a piece of paper with a printed out user__name on it with the wrong number of underscores they'd just as likely make the same mistake. Rather than ban the use of paper, how about technical people ban fonts (designed by clueless font designers) that blend multiple underscores together?

Re: A missing underscore sent innocent man to prison for 18 months

#94

Post by jojobas »

anigbrowl wrote: post #90
jojobas wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, there are open wifi routers, there are WPA attacks, friends that were given wifi passwords, and a lot of other things. Convicting on IP address match should disqualify the trial judge.

Judges generally do not evaluate the quality of evidence. Unless the defense challenges, it's assumed that the prosecutions claims are founded in fact. It doesn't matter if the prosecution alleges you did six impossible things before breakfast unless the defense disputes these allegations.

A judge that has no reasonable doubt with this sort of evidence has no business being a judge.

We don't know what defense did in this trial but not picking up on the username mismatch and the assumed non-challenge of the evidence is telling as well.

Re: A missing underscore sent innocent man to prison for 18 months

#97

Post by protocolture »

fsckboy wrote: post #93
protocolture wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am betting the judge accepted all the messages as evidence, and that was enough to convict. Theres no one technical in a court room.

> Theres no one technical in a court room. oh c'mon, if a technical person receives a piece of paper with a printed out user__name on it with the wrong number of underscores they'd just as likely make the same mistake. Rather than ban the use of paper, how about technical people ban fonts (designed by clueless font designers) that blend multiple underscores together?

>oh c'mon, if a technical person receives a piece of paper with a printed out user__name on it with the wrong number of underscores they'd just as likely make the same mistake.

A technical person did make the mistake, likely a police cyber forensics type.

But there's no one technical in the court room capable of reviewing their work and identifying the fault.

Re: A missing underscore sent innocent man to prison for 18 months

#99

Post by OutOfHere »

thephyber wrote: post #22
protocolture wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am betting the judge accepted all the messages as evidence, and that was enough to convict. Theres no one technical in a court room.

The messages ARE evidence for a case. They are the proof that a crime happened. The problem is that they don't tie the defendant to the acts. The lawyers aren't supposed to be technical, but they should know their limitations and hire technical experts. But that also assumes the defendant can afford the defense, which is insanely expensive.

No, they aren't. If your account gets stolen, you'll be found guilty, but in reality you didn't do the crime. No IP address tied you to the crime, and no real evidence tying you to the crime existed.
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