3 ms·

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 c

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.

gowld 6y ago
There is no legitimate need for IP protection against destroying innocent lives.
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  “If the criminals know how our system works, they can work around it!” is probably what they’re thinking. i.e. security through obscurity.
- contingencies 6y ago
  Indeed. In fact, if there were a globally agreeable case for open science and open source, to which all governments could contribute, DNA analysis for criminal attribution would have to be it, no? A side benefit would be that sending evidence to numerous international labs would greatly frustrate attempts at domestic law enforcement / lab corruption.
breischl 6y ago
Maybe, or maybe that's just the smokescreen they put up to prevent anyone looking at it. I notice that they didn't say "here's the results of our last independency audit and verification of correctness", which I think would be a fantastic counter-argument... if they had one.
michaelmrose 6y ago
Arguably the public analysis of the correctness of their methods ought to be done once in a fashion that is usable by all former and subsequent defendants. This is supported by their own claims that such an analysis will be extremely onerous. If its a multi million dollar affair like they claim its virtually impossible that every defendant will be able to fund such an affair. In fact in the case that a disastrous flaw is found it may be advantageous to simply drop the case and hope that past and future defendants wont be able to each afford to press the point.
himinlomax 6y ago
> So it's a concern about IP protection for them. For that kind of product, source code is not actually that valuable in itself; it's the standards compliance, reliability and trustworthiness. Most charitable explanation is that the vendor is clueless about what their value really is, least charitable is that they know exactly how fucked up their code is.

gowld 6y ago

There is no legitimate need for IP protection against destroying innocent lives.

colejohnson66 6y ago
“If the criminals know how our system works, they can work around it!” is probably what they’re thinking. i.e. security through obscurity.
contingencies 6y ago
Indeed. In fact, if there were a globally agreeable case for open science and open source, to which all governments could contribute, DNA analysis for criminal attribution would have to be it, no? A side benefit would be that sending evidence to numerous international labs would greatly frustrate attempts at domestic law enforcement / lab corruption.

breischl 6y ago

Maybe, or maybe that's just the smokescreen they put up to prevent anyone looking at it. I notice that they didn't say "here's the results of our last independency audit and verification of correctness", which I think would be a fantastic counter-argument... if they had one.

michaelmrose 6y ago

Arguably the public analysis of the correctness of their methods ought to be done once in a fashion that is usable by all former and subsequent defendants. This is supported by their own claims that such an analysis will be extremely onerous. If its a multi million dollar affair like they claim its virtually impossible that every defendant will be able to fund such an affair. In fact in the case that a disastrous flaw is found it may be advantageous to simply drop the case and hope that past and future defendants wont be able to each afford to press the point.

himinlomax 6y ago

> So it's a concern about IP protection for them. For that kind of product, source code is not actually that valuable in itself; it's the standards compliance, reliability and trustworthiness. Most charitable explanation is that the vendor is clueless about what their value really is, least charitable is that they know exactly how fucked up their code is.