Judge Rules Defense Can Get DUI Machine Source Code 270
pfleming alerts us to developments in Arizona on a subject we have frequently discussed (e.g. FL, MN, NJ): efforts in DUI cases to obtain source code to devices that analyze blood alcohol levels. On Friday a Pima County Superior Court judge ruled that the software that powers the Intoxilyzer 8000 must be revealed to defense lawyers. "Defense attorneys representing more than 20 people arrested on felony DUI charges agreed to consolidate their cases into one and to argue it before [Judge] Bernini ... The source codes are crucial because the Intoxilyzer 8000 sometimes gives 'weird' or inexplicable results ... Six other states have been battling CMI [maker of the Intoxilyzer] over the source code — Minnesota, Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Tennessee and New Jersey... CMI has currently racked up over $1.2 million in fines in a civil contempt order for not disclosing the source code in Florida."
Why not prosecute? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They probably lost the source code and are too ashamed to tell anyone.
no (Score:5, Funny)
The problem is the source code looks something like this:
if ($suspect == black) {
print ".12";
}
elsif ($suspect == hispanic) {
print ".14";
}
elsif ($suspect == irish) {
print "ERROR";
}
Re:no (Score:5, Funny)
I'm Irish, you insensitive clod!
Seriously, though, people make a big fuss if you make fun of just about any ethnic group other than the Irish. But you can say all you want about the Irish and get away with it. Racists!
Re:no (Score:5, Funny)
you are absolutely correct, it's improper to make fun of any ethnic group, except of course the damn French.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
But have you ever heard anyone stand up for the English? How many movies have you seen where the evil genius villain has an English accent? The world must think England is a country of Evil Geniuses and Super Spies. Oh, and drunk
Re:no (Score:5, Insightful)
Where did you get that idea? I take it you've never read the "Truly Tasteless Joke" book series?
Ethnic jokes are told all the time....it is just that if you have a group of people, they might look over to make sure no one of said ethnicity is around to hear the joke, but, that is the extent of it. Look, all of us have funny attributes and general behaviors. You just can't have too thin a skin, and need to have a sense of humour. And let's face it....these behaviors and traits didn't come out of the blue......many of them are based on real observable things in life.
Relax a little, and learn to laugh at yourself a little.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Why not prosecute? (Score:5, Informative)
It doesn't require a prosecution. If the judge gets irritated enough regarding their civil contempt, he can jail them summarily until they comply. I think, however, that judges are often reluctant to do this.
I should imagine that there is a long list of well established procedures for handling contempt. While I think it's well within a judge's power to jail almost indefinitely for contempt until the contempt is remedied, I suspect that there are rules of jurisprudence that govern them otherwise to some degree.
The contempt charges can continue indefinitely by the way. They will have to reveal their code eventually or go bankrupt, and this still won't get them out of contempt. IOW, it's only a matter of time before they reveal, and they are being immensely stupid.
There is this story (urban legend?) that Larry Flint of Hustler fame was fined $10K per day for contempt once. He sent the fine in pennies. In response, the Judge said he liked pennies and would gladly accept $50K a day paid in pennies.
One should not baldly thwart the judge. Makes you wonder who their lawyers are.
C//
Re:Why not prosecute? (Score:5, Interesting)
Hmm - they don't seem to hesitate much when the issue is a news reporter refusing to testify about sources. It seems like this kind of discretion is reserved for corrupt C-level officers...
Re:Why not prosecute? (Score:4, Insightful)
If a bug is revealed in their code there is likely to be a class action lawsuit against them on behalf of everyone that was ever convicted of driving while intoxicated on account of their device. The costs associated with a single conviction far exceed the cost of one of these machines. The company would go bankrupt if that were to happen.
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Who said his pennies were rejected? The judge demanded more, for showing his contempt for the court unnecessarily and tying up the court's resources. They literally had to deal with a million pennies per day. Yes, the court made their problem worse, but Flynt was then in a position where he had to find 50 million pennies every day or go to jail.
Now, whether the myth is true or not is a question for Grant Imahara.
Re:Why not prosecute? (Score:4, Informative)
While private organizations can actually refuse to accept any current demoniation (pennies included, though it's usually $100 bills), government organizations (like the courts) cannot. If they refuse to accept the pennies which would be legal tender the debt to the government would be cancelled.
Re: (Score:3)
As another poster pointed out, the tender was not refused. It was, however, increased for showing deliberate disrespect to the court. Or so the story goes.
C//
I disagree. (Score:5, Insightful)
At some point, the suspects were caught, and the state needed to collect evidence of their BAC. Unfortunately, the state, instead of using a device that could provide accurate, verifiable evidence, used a device that, due to the lack of source code, could not provide verifiable evidence. Since the evidence is not verifiable, then the evidence is not admissible. Next time, the state should buy and use breathalyzers that produce admissible evidence.
While their action is despicable, the breathalyzer vendor didn't agree to provide their source code as part of the purchase, and shouldn't be forced to do so after the fact because the state didn't buy a device suitable for the task.
It's a bit like if I went to the state and offered to sell them a breathalyzer, and delivered a bicube blood alcohol measurement device, which is used by giving the two cubes to the suspect, having them throw the cubes on the ground, and then counting the number of dots that are showing on the top faces of the cubes. The state should know my breathalyzer isn't going to produce admissible evidence and shouldn't buy it and try and use the results in court.
Just like voting machines, states need to learn to stop spending millions of dollars on technology that doesn't work.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sorry, but if a company is making it impossible for DUI prosecutions to be done fairly, the company officers should be sitting in jail whilst we wait to find out if they can get the source code together or not.
Or maybe, better yet, if a breathalyser's results can't be used in court, that company should lose a lot of business.
Having a working product (esp. one that "works" for a particular purpose) is usually a pretty strong selling point.
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Civil servants, to use more charitable language, could hire engineers to inspect this code, thus providing another job for an engineer while at the same time striving to protect civil liberties.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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No, see, you want someone NOT hired by any governmental body so it has a chance of being less bias and corrupt.
The judge should appoint someone not involved any way in the case to inspect the code.
If the judge appoints someone to inspect the code, then the government (via the judiciary) has hired someone (the engineer). Your request is paradoxical.
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I don't know what criminal charges could be brought, but I think there are probably grounds for either slander or libel suits by the people the company has accused.
I don't think (I, too, am not a lawyer) that libel or slander would play because the company, per se, is not accusing them. The police are. Also,
"interference with the performance of an officer in performance of his duties"
I don't think they're technically interfering with the officer. If a patrol car doesn't start when they're about to pull out after a speeder, would you say Ford is interfering? (Or Dodge if they use Intrepids).
Idiotic (Score:5, Insightful)
In court documents, Deputy Pima County Attorney Robin Schwartz said the defense attorneys' requests "bear all the hallmarks of a fishing expedition." Common sense shows that people rely on software and source-code information for everyday matters, Schwartz argued. One just looks at the results to know if something works or not. Schwartz used electricity as an example. "No one . . . needs to see a schematic of wiring to know that when he flips the switch on the wall, the light will come on," Schwartz said.
Um, that assumes that you are comparing the result with a known value. The point of a breathalyzer is to determine an unknown value.
Unless of course this attorney is saying that they already know the accused are drunk, in which case the breathalyzer is redundant.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed, it's like seeing that the light is switching on and off and from that concluding that it is a person doing the switching. I'd want to see the electrical schematics to be sure that it is indeed wired to the light switch correctly.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Um, that assumes that you are comparing the result with a known value. The point of a breathalyzer is to determine an unknown value.
Unless of course this attorney is saying that they already know the accused are drunk, in which case the breathalyzer is redundant.
INAL, but I was convicted of a DWI.
The known value is an reference alcohol unit pre-applied prior to each test as a calibration, to establish that the machine is accurate. The unit is equivalent to a reading obtained in medical studies show to prove the average person intoxicated. This calibration is noted on your Breathalyzer card, along with your results (usually 2, spaced an hour apart, with different reference units), which will be noted on the complaint, and included in the arrest report.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The known value is an reference alcohol unit pre-applied prior to each test as a calibration, to establish that the machine is accurate. The unit is equivalent to a reading obtained in medical studies show to prove the average person intoxicated. This calibration is noted on your Breathalyzer card, along with your results (usually 2, spaced an hour apart, with different reference units), which will be noted on the complaint, and included in the arrest report.
Good to know, but still doesn't really address the issue. Here's why.
When my father was still practicing, he had a digital scale that was miscalibrated. Up to about 60 lbs, it would give fairly accurate values (maybe within 1/2 lb), but above that, it became increasingly inaccurate, consistently underweighing. Thus, even if you had weighed two reference weights of 30 and 60 lbs, you would have thought that the scale was properly calibrated.
Secondly, if the unit is designed to show that the average person is
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
"INAL, but I was convicted of a DWI."
I am a computer programmer, and rest assured that the manner in which the machine handles the calibration test doesn't necessarily indicate how it handles the breath test. Both tests likely have different entry points to the core functions which do the measurements, meaning that there is more than one way for the machine to screw up. There is also no way to be sure that the machine is using the same code to do the measurements. For all we know, the calibration code an
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That has a good chance of missing the occasional "once a week" glitch in the firmware.
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echo round(rand(1,40)/100."%"; (Score:2, Funny)
Weird numbers? What weird numbers...?
Re:echo round(rand(1,40)/100."%"; (Score:5, Funny)
Clearly you have had no experience in the Lisp.
Sixth Ammedment (Score:5, Informative)
the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him; [cornell.edu]
In this case the withess is a machine, he has the constitutional right to know how that machine works
Re:Sixth Ammedment (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Convicted of a DWI.
What I found most intellectually troubling is that, in AZ (among toughest DUI laws in the country), the violations schedule awards the most "points" for potential crimes - actions that are crimes because of their potential to cause harm, property damage or death. The next "rung" down on the "ladder" includes crimes that result in harm, property damage or death.
I know I was wrong, and I no longer drink at all. Drunk driving is a serious problem, that should be addressed.
However, the way i
Re:Sixth Ammedment (Score:5, Insightful)
If the police officer relies on the reading from the device, then it is not really the police officer's judgment being presented, but just a re-iteration of what he read. Is the police officer able to testify about the accuracy of the device? Is the police officer able to testify about whether a device driver that reads values from an ADC register is doing so with the correct clock synchronization to ensure that does skew the time differential meaning of the results?
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Legally, witnesses must be people; machines and animals don't count.
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What about bloodhounds?
Re:Sixth Ammedment (Score:4, Interesting)
If the witness in my case is a human, do I have a constitutional right to know how the human works?
Re:Sixth Ammedment (Score:4, Informative)
Well, there's one solution to all this ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Furthermore, the people responsible for the decision to market the Intoxilyzer should be held accountable for the device's failures, especially if they sold it knowing that the design was defective. Sure, it costs more money to properly certify a design, and to implement effective quality controls. Still, if auto manufacturers have to suffer multi-million-dollar lawsuits over tiny flaws in vehicle design, these guys should hardly get off scot-free.
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rule that all programming used for government functions be open source, unless there's an overriding reason for it to be closed.
That would never fly, on the simple basis that every government department would have to replace every IT system they own - and some people with an awful lot of money are still very attached to the idea of closed source.
However, I can't think of any good reason why "open source" should not be applied to equipment used for justice purposes (eg. speed cameras, breathalysers) and mean "open to the government and, where applicable, to defence lawyers for use by expert witnesses" rather than "available to anyone
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However, in situations where an individuals life and liberty are at risk
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All in all, I'm not sure sure that such source code shouldn't be truly "open". I know what you're saying, and it's logical enough. However, being available to defense lawyers and such leaves too much room for a serious defect to simply be swept under the rug by an out-of-court settlement. Consequently, people involved in similar cases would not be able to benefit from discovery.
IANAL, but my understanding regarding criminal cases (and bear in mind that I'm not American either, so I may be way off here) there's no such thing as an out-of-court settlement.
There's "dropping the charges because we've just discovered that our evidence is nonexistent", and there's "pleading guilty (to either the original charge or a lesser charge)", both of which substantially reduce the amount of time spent in court.
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This is the equivalent of an out of court settlement. If a defendant pleads guilty in exchange for a lesser penalty, it's usually not done in open court. Then again, the judge is usually not obligated to honor the agreement between the prostitution and the defense.
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"Then again, the judge is usually not obligated to honor the agreement between the prostitution and the defense."
You are correct, but I think you might have wanted to type prosecution instead of prostitution. Using prosecution, you would still be correct IMHO.
Typical /.er, always thinking of blackjack and hookers! Awwhh, forget the blackjack. :-)
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But since court records are public, wouldn't any source code entered as an exhibit in a courtroom automatically become a matter of public record?
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you can follow the following procedure:
1. check breath with the apparatus
2a. if result is positive i.e. alco in blood confirm with blood test.
2b. if result is negative but officers administering the test think that this is incorrect one can order additional blood test.
In any case double check if test results are doubtful as it seems to be the case here.
There are civilized countries around where this is common practice - after positive test you are brought to a hospital where a blood test is done.
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I see where you're coming from, but I'm not sure I completely agree.
If the defence can produce to the court some evidence to suggest that the device may not be reliable, for example, indications that on some past occasions it has given false readings, or that the reading presented is within the device's margin of error of the relevant legal level of blood alcohol, then I do think that is a reasonable basis for further investigation. A court might consider that reasonable grounds for compelling the controlle
A few points.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:A few points.... (Score:4, Interesting)
This should then result in police departments returning these defective devices for a refund, and further lawsuits as a result. I wonder if they care more about their IP than selling a product. What we need to do is get the word out to all police departments and prosecutors that they face serious hurdles keeping real offenders off the streets if they use this company's products. Let these company executives choose between being able to prove the accuracy of the device in court (if it is so) or going out of business from lack of sales in all 50 states.
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Like the states have done with all of the defective electronic voting machines the Diebold and others have unloaded on the American public? I think it's safer to consider it money flushed.
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The problem is that unless the sensor is some kind of one-of-a-kind item unique to the company, what their entire product consists of is a sensor, a microprocessor and the code to interpret the readings from the sensor properly.
Once the source code gets out into the world - and of course it will be leaked somewhere on the Internet - they no longer have anything at all. No product. Why? Because their product can then be replicated for 1/10th the price in China. I'd say that protecting the source code is
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It's not exactly hard, i'm sure chinese companies are already manufacturing such devices...
If the chinese ones are more open and verifiable, and cheaper to boot, you would be a complete fool to buy the inferior and more expensive american version.
Cares more about their IP (Score:2)
And this is a surprise to you? They are selling a product, not safety.
I would also imagine that if a major bug is found, they might have to refund all the purchases to date, and go under.
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The result? Hundreds of DUIs being thrown out in Minnesota alone. Nice to see that the company cares more about their IP than the safety of our roads.
Law enforcement will soon come to grips with the fact that it cannot get a conviction with CMI. Law enforcement will then buy other equipment or use some other sobriety test.
At that point, CMI will be able to sell DUI products only in states that have already ruled that the source need not be turned over. Eventually, they will go out of business or cave.
timely as the Saturday headlines... (Score:2)
CMI and Minnesota have reached an agreement to make the source code availiable. there is not much else in the snoozepaper article, buried inside the local section today.
frankly, I would expect some enterprising attorney to require a "normal" sample showing correct calibration for his cases, and see whether the state goes to blood tests for prosecutions.
it is an option for either law enforcement or the suspect to take a blood alcohol test in MN. it's a hospital trip, and that's going to wreck the cop's nig
The hospital trip won't just piss the cops off... (Score:2)
It just might provide enough time for a DUI suspect to sober up enough to pass the test.
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... as opposed to the defense attorneys who will do their jobs?
Fixed that for you.
Re:A few points.... (Score:4, Interesting)
A defense attorney who will do "anything" to get his client off is not doing his job and should be disbarred. A defense attorney who will do "anything within the bounds of the law and legal ethics" to represent the "best interest" of his client is doing his job.
Sometimes the right thing for your client is not getting away with it.
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If the device can't be proven to be accurate, then it's no different than an expert witness who testified against the defendant later refusing to disclose his credentials that would, in theory, show him to be an expert in the field. Courts do throw out such testimonies, and sometimes even declare mistrials (if the judge feels the fraudulent testimony cannot be ignored by the jury). And such "experts" don't get used, anymore (if not actually jailed for contempt).
Of course defense attorneys try to get their
Re:A few points.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Getting their clients liable for huge amounts of fines is hardly the outcome a lawyer would aim for... Any lawyer would probably recommend they turn over the code so as to comply with the court order.
Why is it so important to them not to turn over the code? They must have something big to hide, because handing over the code to the court so the defense can examine it is hardly a huge burden... Not like they're being compelled to release it to the general public.
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I would have thought that the court(s) would rule that the prosecution had to provide the court (and the defense) with the source code (and schematics, device testing procedures, ...) in order to use the results of the test as evidence.
That "..." is the killer. Where do you stop? Do they have to provide records of the quality control at the factory where the transistors were produced? The microcode on every chip in the unit? Academic papers justifying the models used in the measurement?
I have nothing against the defence having access to any relevant material that could make a case that there is reasonable doubt about their client's guilt. But there has to be some credible possibility of establishing such doubt before you go to this level,
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The components have established tests to ensure they are not defective and haven't been tampered with, especially if they are off the shelf components which are also used in other devices. Since they are components, intended for third parties to use to construct larger devices, their function and interfaces will be well known and documented.
The software is presumably bespoke, and is an unknown quantity, it could also potentially be used to hide backdoors. It is not intended to be sold as a separate componen
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The police should really have demanded verifiability before they agreed to purchase such devices...
If this vendor won't provide source code to the police for review, then there are plenty of companies who will. A contract to supply the police will be lucrative, and should be on the police's terms, not the other way round.
Source code is irrelevant (Score:2, Interesting)
The real way to determine if the Intoxilyzer is accurate is to do repeated lab tests using known concentrations of alcohol in air. This would take both software and hardware into account.
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An error that can happen in C code might be that register address is not given the "volatile" attribute, and is therefore not actually read in all cases where the code would seem to be doing so. A function intended to read the register might be doing a loop reading the register until some other condition becomes true. In most cases that condition is true immediately, but in rare cases that condition is delayed. So the function only read the register once and merely assumed it re-read it all the remaining
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Your assumptions that the manufacturer of the tester wants a fair test is unverified.
I'm not saying that this is the case, but what if the manufacturer, who is selling to law enforcement, wants to build a tester that will err on the side of too many positives? For example, what if the auditing the source revealed that the tester takes 5 reading
Keep this idiot away from any kind of electricity (Score:5, Insightful)
Schwartz used electricity as an example.
"No one . . . needs to see a schematic of wiring to know that when he flips the switch on the wall, the light will come on," Schwartz said.
And what would this guy do if he finds that sometimes the light doesn't come on? Or the light goes off on its own? Or comes on by itself? Or flickers and buzzes? An electrician would need to know the wiring involved. A diagram or schematic would be used, if available, or else he would have to trace the wires (reverse engineering).
And this analogy doesn't even apply to a measurement device. What if he uses a volt meter that says the voltage is 120 volts ... does he assume that because the meter deflected that it's reading is correct? It could be a 240 volt circuit that has each wire only 120 volts relative to ground.
Any device that cannot be independently verified as operating correctly at all times should not have any of its results submitted in court for any purpose other than to argue that the device is defective in a case against the manufacturer.
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That's how things are wired in the USA for 240 volt circuits. The transformer secondary is tapped at the midpoint and grounded at that tap. All 3 wires are supplied to the building. 120 volt circuits can be wired between the midpoint neutral and either of the other wires. 240 volt circuits can be wired between the 2 non-neutral wires. While AC is, of course, alternating polarity in time, at any one instant, one of those wires is positive while the other is negative relative to the neutral. So the volt
From the company's product literature... (Score:2)
This comes straight from the product's PDF made available on the manufacturers website.
Under "Features and Options", "REAL-TIME CLOCK: accurate to ±10 minutes per year."
Now, although I'm pretty sure that time measurements aren't required for analysis, I have to wonder the accuracy rate is like for it's intended purpose.
That argument aside, unless the clocks are well-maintained this sort of time drift could really skew the evidence in a case where time was critical. A poorly maintained machine co
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The clock drift is not likely to be that high between two measurements. And if it is, well it won't be 10 minutes for a year. It'd be much better expressed in milliseconds per minute. I think the real-time clock in this case is likely used for printouts, such as the device might do to save the police officer having to write down, instead he just has to initial it as being correct to what's displayed on the device.
The Only Possible Reason (Score:2)
Oh, and it's written in Visual Basic 4.
A more likely reason (Score:2)
Actually I can think of a better reason why they don't want the source code made public. Earlier in this discussion it was claimed that they never submitted it for a patent or copyright. The reason for this might be because they are infringing on a patent.
In NYC The Police Screw You (Score:5, Interesting)
And I know Pima county well enough to know not to rely on what their attorneys say as the final word on anything.
Homologation? (Score:2)
How did they getthis thing past homologation in the first place?
"Not a trade secret" (Score:3, Insightful)
While I agree that government should not use "expert testimony" that can't be reproduced, I don't buy the following logic (from the story, haven't read the opinion yet):
So: if it's not patented and not under copyright then it's not a trade secret? Usually a company gets a choice: copyright/patent (publish but get protection) or trade secret (can't publish). No patent or copyright holds in favour of trade secret protection.
The real ruling should be that while the company should be free to keep the workings of their device secret, the government should not be allowed to rely on evidence produced via devices whose inner workings are secret.
Overdue ruling of common sense (Score:5, Interesting)
I work in the State of Florida as a police officer, and I arrest and charge people with DUI on a regular basis.
In my opinion, this ruling was exactly on the money, and far too long in coming. If a company refuses to disclose evidence, the State should immediately stop using their product to obtain evidence.
As a certified expert witness, I am able to testify to the impairment of a subject without the need of a breath analysis to verify. About 20-30% of the cases I testify in have no breath results because the defendant refuses to provide a breath sample. We only forcefully obtain samples (of blood, not breath) when a traffic homicide is involved.
If the evidence is faulty, I *need* to know. I can only uphold my oath of office if I can testify in good faith that I am using proper methods of obtaining evidence. If this company is witholding vital information, they should not be allowed to sell their product to law enforcement.
Star Trek (Score:3, Interesting)
His lawyers defense was that every man had the right to face his accuser, and that included the computers.
Captain Kirk was innocent. The computer records were falsified.
The DUI makers should watch this episode.
Screw the source code... how is it tested? (Score:5, Insightful)
The bottom line is that, particularly in an embedded device working with sensors, many problems will simply not be apparent from the source code, no matter how good you are. The only way to know that this device gives good data is to give it the same sort of rigorous testing we give (for example) new drugs and electronics that go into airplanes and military hardware.
I would want to see this device subjected to adverse environments, radio interference, being operated on the side of the road, etc. etc., and still reliably producing results that closely correlated with those produced by reference tests (i.e. blood alcohol tests). If this sort of testing is done for each and every revision of the device's firmware then the company is right, source code is irrelevant. This isn't like a voting machine... it has a discrete, limited number of inputs, no operating system, and a small memory pool--the only way to tamper with it would be to alter the firmware, and that can be checked with a simple checksum. And if this sort of testing isn't being done, then these devices are worthless and shouldn't be used to send someone to jail, because anyone who knows anything about programming knows that any project of any complexity will have bugs, and this sort of testing is the only way to catch them.
So... does anyone know how these devices are tested? How rigorous is the testing? Is it serious, covering all conditions, and all revisions no matter how minor, or is it the usual "get the bad guys, screw civil liberties" sort of half-assed stuff that we've come to expect from American law enforcement?
I have no sympathy for drunk drivers... but I don't want anyone sent to jail on evidence that even MIGHT be false.
Re:cheers! (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't about OpenSource.
It's about making sure that the device providing so-called scientific evidence for use at trial is producing evidence properly and -accurately-.
I'm surprised it isn't already on the books that source code for devices such as this be disclosed for that purpose already.
Re:cheers! (Score:4, Interesting)
Then there needs to be a way to prove that the source code provided matches the binary code being executed. But if they can't provide the source code, then there's no reason at all to believe that it's honest.
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When the source code is compiled in the exact same manner that the binary the hash value should be the same for the compiled code as the binary used in the machine. Hash Function [wikipedia.org]
Is there a legitimate interest? (Score:5, Insightful)
The software should be available to those who have a legitimate interest. The source code for ANY machine being used to gather evidence should be available to the defense. The judge in such a case should get to decide if the defense needs to see the source code. If closed source software is leaked to the public, then some sort of sanction would be appropriate.
This raises the issue of software on election machines... The entire voting public has a legitimate interest about haw their votes are counted. The only way around this is that the software running should be publicly available. It doesn't have to be open source as far as copyrights are concerned, just the public should have the right to examine the source code.
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However, unlike the Intoxilyzer 5000, it isn't patented, so defense experts can't obtain the diagrams and source codes needed to figure out exactly how it works, Nesci said.
I think they're using this as the reason to keep the code secret.
Re:cheers! (Score:5, Informative)
That being said, in Florida, even if you are below the legal limit, you can still be charged with driving while impaired if it can be shown that your driving was impaired.
One of my closest friends is a Criminal Defense Attorney and he tells everyone he knows, "Don't drink a drop and drive". Also, you are within your legal rights in all fifty states to request a blood test instead of the breath test. You will be booked, but the results will be indisputable in court. So if you're sure you only drank one beer it will be dead on.
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To add on to the above post, in Florida, portable breath test unit results (breath tests in the field) are not admissible in court. They can be used for certain administrative violations, but not for criminal charges.
In order to be administered a breath, blood, and/or urine test, you must already be under arrest in Florida. The officer has already administered field sobriety exercises and determined that the subject is impaired by drugs and/or alcohol. The tests at booking or elsewhere are after the fact
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That is fine. IF the driver was driving in an erratic manner they are unsafe. However ANY driver should be able to face their accuser and if the accuser is an electronic device they shouldn't have to tolerate "poof then magic occurs" This is to protect the innocent from an abusive state. Most cops are honest great people but anyone that does not think there is rogue and corrupt governments is gullible.
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well I was making a joke. sorry if you didn't get it :-)
Re:cheers! (Score:5, Informative)
Even in such a simple case there are many things it should be testing. Is the A/D output sane? Does it take 3 quick samples while someone is blowing and average them or just take it once (which could be wrong for some reason)? According to the article, it doesn't look like it does. It calibrates the wind sensor, but doesn't check that the calibration is sane. It doesn't report errors unless they happen 32 times in a row. It disables the watchdog timer. It disables the interrupt for illegal instructions. It doesn't meet any coding standards. It contains code with things like "this is temporary for now" in it. There is an obvious reason why they didn't want the code released.
This was a partial summary of another breathalyzer source code that was opened up in another case. This has nothing to do with open source this has to do with software that is half-ass'd but determines if someone has to go through years of court hearings, meetings, suspended license, and a whole waste of money because some company rushed their software engineer to write code that may be giving wrong results all together.
This code should be open to public discrimination, there would be no trade secrets if the law protects the code from someone else using it after its been opened to public discrimination because every company would have to disclose their software.
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Sorry, in today's world there are two sorts of companies: those with IP and a product and those with a product.
The first sort exist in the US and Europe. The second sort are in China, Singapore, Indonesia, etc. Taiwan and Japan are sort of a mix.
Once you let the IP out, the second sort of company can easily eliminate the first sort from the market. They can make the product cheaper, faster and more efficiently and they have zero R & D costs. Sure, you can use all sorts of things like patents and copy
Re:An assembly language? How would anyone understa (Score:2)
You don't have to explain assembly language to a jury; you get an expert witness to testify.
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You don't have to explain assembly language to a jury; you get an expert witness to testify.
I'd be more concerned that if there were serious flaws (and there may be), you couldn't find an expert witness that's good enough to find them.
Courts deal with this kind of thing a lot (Score:3, Insightful)
They just have an expert witness examine the code. It would be someone with experience in the kind of assembly code involved, and experience developing firmware for measurement devices like this. It is the testimony of the expert, not the source code itself, that would be presented to the jury. Just because you can't grok assembly code doesn't mean no one can. Obviously someone had to write the stuff.
Sadly, it may be the case that this manufacturer hired someone like you to develop it, and it was their
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When my Windows box blue-screens and I lose an hour's work I say a few choice words, press the reset button, and get on with life. When an evidence-collection device malfunctions and a person's life is trashed as a result
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And who would pay for all those tests? My tax dollars? And who is going to guarantee that my blood & urine sample won't be used for other purposes like central DNA databases in some 3-letter agency's basement.
The problem with DUI is not the problem, it's the punishment. In some countries in Europe, you get pulled over driving drunk, you get the option of having a blood test done on-site by a certified doctor, your sample remain anonymous and get discarded right after the test. Or you can opt to simply w