An Example of Forensic Science at Its Worst: US v. Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair
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Re: An Example of Forensic Science at Its Worst: US v. Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair
#2The author states they were shocked at how Sinclair seemed to get off easy, with just a slap on the wrist. I'm not sure why that's shocking.
It's been painfully obvious for more than a decade that there exists a certain class of people in the US who are above the law, e.g. James Clapper.
Re: An Example of Forensic Science at Its Worst: US v. Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair
#3The author states they were shocked at how Sinclair seemed to get off easy, with just a slap on the wrist. I'm not sure why that's shocking. It's been painfully obvious for more than a decade that there exists a certain class of people in the US who are above the law, e.g. James Clapper.
Well, it looked like the powers-that-be wanted to make an example out of him. So I could see it be surprising that he got a slap on the wrist after having those "guns" pointed at him.
Re: An Example of Forensic Science at Its Worst: US v. Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair
#4I wonder if anyone has ever been wrongfully convicted because of poor forensic software. Those programmers are incredibly unethical people.
I'm familiar with the food-on-the-table argument, but wow, possibly getting innocent people locked up just because you don't know what you're doing is something. It can't feel good to receive the double whammy of knowing you're incompetent and that you're incompetent enough to ruin lives.
Would I do it? I don't know. Through good fortune, I've never been, as a programmer, in the situation where I worried about losing my job and being unable to find one. So maybe those of us who feel we would never do something like this (work on critical health software while ignorant, or on forensic software while clueless) just don't know that it is easy when your livelihood is threatened. Still really unethical, though.
Re: An Example of Forensic Science at Its Worst: US v. Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair
#5Ironically, the amount of pressure from the top involved in this (and related) cases caused several prosecutions of sexual misconduct in the military to be dismissed. You read that right. There's a doctrine called "unlawful command influence" where, if the posture of the Commander on Chief on down suggests that there is a "right verdict" independent of the facts, then the military courts should dismiss cases rather than having military officers be, essentially, ordered to convict.
A certain US president who is a Constitutional law scholar has run into this at least three times and professes to be really surprised every time it happens.
see generally: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/14/us/obama-remark-is-complic...
Re: An Example of Forensic Science at Its Worst: US v. Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair
#6A sad read on many levels.
"I investigated a little. As it turns out, this particular manufacturer first copies the iOS file system onto the Windows partition that their software is running on, and then pulls the timestamp information off of the copy of the data."
"Irresponsible, to say the least. But this is the quality of the forensics software assisting our government and military. Poorly written, over-priced assumptionware."
Also, the OP's professional frustration is endearing -- typical woes of an expert who "knows and cares", observing snakeoil barons become rich on bullshit :-)
Re: An Example of Forensic Science at Its Worst: US v. Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair
#7I wonder if anyone has ever been wrongfully convicted because of poor forensic software. Those programmers are incredibly unethical people. I'm familiar with the food-on-the-table argument, but wow, possibly getting innocent people locked up just because you don't know what you're doing is something. It can't feel good to receive the double whammy of knowing you're incompetent and that you're incompetent enough to ru…
I used to work in pressure equipment control software.
Quite literally, the software malfunctioning (ignoring physical safety mechanisms which should prevent it) could literally cause an explosion that would destroy the lab, send the equipment rocketing in to the air if not properly bolted in to concrete, and would kill anyone that happened to be in the area when it happened. The pressure differential of the shockwave was enough to seriously injure you with sudden compression and was strong enough to tare limbs off. Even with physical failsafes, that only reduced the damage to a sudden jet of highly pressurized, unbreathable air, which was dangerous in its own ways.
I would have quit that job (even if it meant going back to painting houses or tutoring high school kids or serving coffee) if it had for a moment required that I not take every opportunity to make sure the software was as safe and predictable as it needed to be. This included consulting with staff from Boeing on good engineering practices for mission critical safety gear, using languages outside of the most popular ones (ie, not using popular ones and instead using languages with good tooling for safety and reliability), etc.
I don't think it's acceptable we hold people who make forensic software to a different standard than those who make airplanes or industrial safety systems - they're ruining lives just the same.
> I wonder if anyone has ever been wrongfully convicted because of poor forensic software.
Not only this, they've been convicted by digital expert witnesses just being lazy in their analysis and only looking at the surface level.
One of my favorite digital forensic instructors from my time in college had almost helped send a guy to prison for child pornography by half-assing his analysis before he decided that he was going to do the very best job he could even if he hated the guys guts, took a second look at the evidence before submitting his report, and discovered that it was likely a coworker who had looked up the child porn on the accused guy's work computer.
Re: An Example of Forensic Science at Its Worst: US v. Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair
#8I wonder if anyone has ever been wrongfully convicted because of poor forensic software. Those programmers are incredibly unethical people. I'm familiar with the food-on-the-table argument, but wow, possibly getting innocent people locked up just because you don't know what you're doing is something. It can't feel good to receive the double whammy of knowing you're incompetent and that you're incompetent enough to ru…
My sources say: yes.
There exists software which is designed to confuse them and convincingly plant evidence; and while that software is imperfect, they are powerless against that.
Re: An Example of Forensic Science at Its Worst: US v. Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair
#9An Example of Pathetically Self-Aggrandizing Twaddle, Nearly at Its Worst.
Re: An Example of Forensic Science at Its Worst: US v. Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair
#10"...This, and many other types of artifacts are often either completely overlooked by numerous commercially sold, expensive-as-hell tools, or in the case of at least one tool – seemingly made up data. All of these came into play in this case and would later play a role in its outcome..."
So -- prosecutors and investigators don't understand the tools they use to search phones, judges give them wide leeway in reporting such "evidence", AND some commercial tools make up data to return?
Does this not deeply concern anybody in any of the branches of the government? I hope I'm not being alarmist, but that statement, if true, seems to me to be incredibly damming of the entire criminal justice system. It's like saying the prosecutors determine who's guilty simply by selecting them for trial. The rest of the work is simply acquiring and configuring the appropriate "tools" (Note that it doesn't say they do this on purpose. I guess that's something.)