Accused murderer wins right to check source code of DNA testing kit • Hacker News Board

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

#371

Post by JakeTheAndroid » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 10:30 PM UTC

jabits wrote: post #334

melq wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>making the prosecutor kind of a criminal. Never met a lawyer before huh? Jokes aside, prosecutors pushing through cases they know to be unsound isn't exactly uncommon. Many prosecutors are more concerned with their conviction rates than they are in justice, because that's what they are measured and rewarded by.

I think you are wrong and that most prosecutors want to do the right thing, like most working people

"Right" and "wrong" are dependent upon the system and how it rewards you.I would agree that most prosecutors what to serve justice for malfeasance that has been committed. That's different than whether a case is the "right" or "wrong" one to take.

If a case seems unclear, and you could spend years working on a conviction that will ultimately fall through, that hurts your ability to do justice for more readily winnable cases. You have to spend the time building a case, do all the paperwork, go to trial, etc. That's opportunity cost. So spending that on a case you have 10% chance of winning just isn't a good use of time. Add that to the fact that conviction rate is a metric used to quantify skill, you're rewarded for serving justice successfully. And that then dictates how much money you can get which can help fund enforcing justice.

I believe you're looking at the moral right/wrong, and I don't believe that is the same right/wrong being discussed in terms of how lawyers often choose cases. At the end of the day, lawyers need work and they get that mostly through word of mouth and reputation. You don't really get either of those when you lose cases.

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

#372

Post by PurpleFoxy » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 10:34 PM UTC

kenjackson wrote: post #336

edgyquant wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is this persons life we’re talking about. No amount of time is too much and it isn’t hurting anyone to let him do a code review.

No. You give a reasonable amount of time. What if he asked for 100 years?

We should flip the responsibility. How does the company providing the software prove it is not flawed.

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

#373

Post by sdenton4 » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 10:36 PM UTC

boyesm wrote: post #329

radu_floricica wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet somehow whenever you take a closer look at mislabeled product prices, the average is always in favor of the store. And that's far from the only industry. Complex tools are the product of many thousands of individual decisions taken by humans, humans aware of who's the paying client.

> And yet somehow whenever you take a closer look at mislabeled product prices, the average is always in favor of the store. What is this based on?

I had a 'fun' experience along these lines with health insurance and medical bills a couple years ago. I can confirm that in our case at least, /every/ error we found was not in our favor, and took usually about an hour on the phone to get fixed.

The somewhat-less-malicious interpretation is that the companies have a strong incentive to detect + fix errors that cost them money. Meanwhile, consumers are a) non-centralized, uncoordinated, and often unaware of errors, and b) have no way to fix systemic issues that impact them. And the companies therefore have no /real/ incentive to fix systemic problems. It is literally more profitable to fix the bills of the few people who complain, as they still make money on the remainder who don't notice the errors in the first place.

(on edit; exactly what the other comment one subthread over said. :P )

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

#374

Post by jedberg » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 10:37 PM UTC

bargl wrote: post #357

meowface wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These cases also often come up with drug and alcohol detection tests, and as John Oliver points out in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1f2iawp0y5Y , software used to select jurors. All of these companies claim that their source code is valuable intellectual property and that disclosing it can hurt their business. Even if this were true, when you're providing something that can be a significant factor in someone being…

Without jumping on the conspiracy bandwagon, I'd also like to see this applied to voting software. I know it's a hot topic, and I'm honestly not trying to get political. Software that is critical to our fundamental human rights, and is being used by our government should be open source, or at least audited by a group of people who sign Non-competes/NDA and can't go work for competitors, or with some other mechanism t…

The beauty of voting software is that you don't have to verify the code if you hold the vote correctly. If the software provides a voter verifiable paper trail, the voter can verify their vote before turning it in.

The county can then verify the software by manually counting a random selection of paper votes to see if they match the software. If they do, then the software is correct, otherwise it is not. You then have a full by-hand recount and tell the vendor to fix their software.

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

#375

Post by hluska » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 10:37 PM UTC

klyrs wrote: post #328

lwigo wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A rural small town judge probably doesn't have the best insight into that, just that Corporal Bubba said he calibrated it so it must've been right. I know, this is exceedingly cynical.

Your "Corporal Bubba" isn't just cynical, it leans heavily upon a harmful stereotype that folks in small towns are uneducated simpletons. Stop the polarization, please

Sadly, when you consider the available evidence, Corporal Bubba isn’t too far from the truth. I say that as someone whose Dad is a retired police officer and who spent most of his youth in a very small town with sub-1200 people.

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

#376

Post by acct776 » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 10:38 PM UTC

bargl wrote: post #357

meowface wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These cases also often come up with drug and alcohol detection tests, and as John Oliver points out in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1f2iawp0y5Y , software used to select jurors. All of these companies claim that their source code is valuable intellectual property and that disclosing it can hurt their business. Even if this were true, when you're providing something that can be a significant factor in someone being…

Without jumping on the conspiracy bandwagon, I'd also like to see this applied to voting software. I know it's a hot topic, and I'm honestly not trying to get political. Software that is critical to our fundamental human rights, and is being used by our government should be open source, or at least audited by a group of people who sign Non-competes/NDA and can't go work for competitors, or with some other mechanism t…

It shouldn't be considered conspiracy theory that, technically speaking, many things in our nation are an insecure joke, including our system of voting.

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

#377

Post by WaitWaitWha » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 10:40 PM UTC

anomaloustho wrote: post #295

WaitWaitWha wrote: post #288

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…

> Any tools used are can be requested to be examined, including software. Out of curiosity, if this is a common occurrence that is willfully obeyed by all vendors and parties involved. Could you shed some light on why this vendor is resisting?

No, it is not common but does happen. There are several cases on drug testing, DNA, bite mark, and software that comes to mind. Scientifically well established processes, tools, etc. are rarely called up.

Bite mark was a big deal in the industry because it turns out, it is not so unique and the methodologies developed were weak.

My personal opinion why the are resisting? They are resisting because they are bottom dwellers. Forensicators whom I associate with, tool vendors, and I understand that we have to share knowledge. I dare say, we are the most open source scientific knowledge industry.

This is not because of some altruistic reason, but because tomorrow they can be called on to explain.

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

#378

Post by unishark » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 10:42 PM UTC

phire wrote: post #93

> 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. First, the defence doesn't necessarily have to evaluate all 170,000 lines. They just need to find one buggy line which could potentially overturn the result.…

A lot of bashing over a vague third-hand quote without a source.

In the very next paragraph they say:

> The company offered the defense access under tightly controlled conditions outlined in a non-disclosure agreement, which included accepting a $1m liability fine in the event code details leaked. But the defense team objected to the conditions, which they argued would hinder their evaluation and would deter any expert witness from participating.

So it's a concern about IP protection for them.

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

#379

Post by WaitWaitWha » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 10:45 PM UTC

WaitWaitWha wrote: post #288

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…

There are several comments regarding that if one cannot pay for an opposing forensic investigation, then forensics is a black box.

Either you are moving the goal post, or I am to donnish.

Let's agree that it is scientifically not a black box, but some may not be able to pay for such service.

There were suggestions of nationalizing, centralizing or governing forensics and just have one, unbiased working for the courts.

This diametrically opposed to the problem pointed out by many where prosecutors will use specific labs because they return more positives. If the prosecution and the forensicator work for the same employers, how is that prevent further erosion of this problem?

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

#380

Post by gowld » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 10:49 PM UTC

inetknght wrote: post #352

Aachen wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it would take 8.5 yrs to review, it's probably god awful, and should never ever ever be used to convict someone of such a crime. It's not like you review all scientific evidence and re-do the experiments that lead up to the discovery of in the first place. Validating all that would also take years and much of it can be established as generally accepted by all parties. Similarly, there will be some trust involved…

> It's not like you review all scientific evidence and re-do the experiments that lead up to the discovery of in the first place. Actually, it is . That's how science works and that's how convictions often get overturned. > Validating all that would also take years Are you suggesting that unvalidated data is being used to prosecute crimes? > and much of it can be established as generally accepted by all parties. The…

> Are you suggesting that unvalidated data is being used to prosecute crimes?

Yes. Pseudoscience is the bread and butter of criminal forensics.