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To expand: It was discussed extensively in the Rittenhouse court case today that the prosecution provided the defense with a much lower quality of a particular

by dave78 5y ago

To expand: It was discussed extensively in the Rittenhouse court case today that the prosecution provided the defense with a much lower quality of a particular video file (one that was also possibly cropped) than what the prosecution possessed. The prosecution contends this was an accident and the transcoding occurred when they AirDropped it from one phone to another and then emailed it from their personal Gmail account. Internet sleuths then spotted Handbrake on the prosecutor's laptop as he was preparing to show one of the videos. Those same sleuths are now speculating that the prosecutors deliberately transcoded/cropped the video that they provided to the defense, as Handbrake could possibly be used for that purpose.

slg 5y ago
HN isn't the right place to discuss most of the aspects of this case, but I will just say that there have been multiple tech stories that have come out of that trial that highlight how antiquated our legal system can be in terms of understanding technology and the repercussions from that ignorance are troubling.
- adamrezich 5y ago
  watching the proceedings of this trial, I've been blown away at how lax the standards are for digital evidence submission and presentation. from some friends in law I've talked to this seems pretty darn common. how is there not some kind of startup centered around this specific use case?
  - dave78 5y ago
    There's plenty of products for digital evidence management, especially now that bodycams on police officers are so common. But it would seem that many courts have not caught up on this yet.
- dave78 5y ago
  It's a big problem with this case. The judge has admitted that he basically knows nothing about technology, and the lawyers clearly don't know a lot either. The prosecution in particular has made several blatantly false statements about how interpolation works when resizing images, but it's impossible to know if that's due to ignorance or malice. The bigger problem is the judge just accepts these statements without any expert to confirm them. It really feels like there should be a tech expert on standby (one provided by the court, not the prosecution or defense, so generally a neutral party, like other court staff should be). What really shocked me was the carelessness in handling critical digital evidence in such an important trial - lots of discussion of Airdropping, emailing, Dropboxing, etc. You'd think critical video evidence would be controlled and only played back in an appropriately-vetted player without any software scaling (or at least only with known scaling) on approved devices. Checksums would be checked to ensure videos were unmodified, etc. Instead, they're using random laptops, Windows Media Player at times, VLC at others, personal phones, 4K TVs that apparently the defense brought in, etc. And none of the lawyers in that courtroom understand that every single one of those can and will affect the way the video is presented.
  - jpindar 5y ago
    >The judge has admitted that he basically knows nothing about technology, and the lawyers clearly don't know a lot either. Neither do some 'expert' witnesses.
FpUser 5y ago
>"The prosecution contends this was an accident and the transcoding occurred when they AirDropped it from one phone to another and then emailed it from their personal Gmail account." And I have bridge to sell. It is tampering with the evidence. If prosecution was ever criminally charged for their misdeeds and fucking up person's lives as the result they would straighten out in no time. Meanwhile they keep abusing their position with no recourse.

by dave78 5y ago

slg 5y ago

HN isn't the right place to discuss most of the aspects of this case, but I will just say that there have been multiple tech stories that have come out of that trial that highlight how antiquated our legal system can be in terms of understanding technology and the repercussions from that ignorance are troubling.

adamrezich 5y ago
watching the proceedings of this trial, I've been blown away at how lax the standards are for digital evidence submission and presentation. from some friends in law I've talked to this seems pretty darn common. how is there not some kind of startup centered around this specific use case?
- dave78 5y ago
  There's plenty of products for digital evidence management, especially now that bodycams on police officers are so common. But it would seem that many courts have not caught up on this yet.
dave78 5y ago
It's a big problem with this case. The judge has admitted that he basically knows nothing about technology, and the lawyers clearly don't know a lot either. The prosecution in particular has made several blatantly false statements about how interpolation works when resizing images, but it's impossible to know if that's due to ignorance or malice. The bigger problem is the judge just accepts these statements without any expert to confirm them. It really feels like there should be a tech expert on standby (one provided by the court, not the prosecution or defense, so generally a neutral party, like other court staff should be). What really shocked me was the carelessness in handling critical digital evidence in such an important trial - lots of discussion of Airdropping, emailing, Dropboxing, etc. You'd think critical video evidence would be controlled and only played back in an appropriately-vetted player without any software scaling (or at least only with known scaling) on approved devices. Checksums would be checked to ensure videos were unmodified, etc. Instead, they're using random laptops, Windows Media Player at times, VLC at others, personal phones, 4K TVs that apparently the defense brought in, etc. And none of the lawyers in that courtroom understand that every single one of those can and will affect the way the video is presented.
- jpindar 5y ago
  >The judge has admitted that he basically knows nothing about technology, and the lawyers clearly don't know a lot either. Neither do some 'expert' witnesses.

FpUser 5y ago

>"The prosecution contends this was an accident and the transcoding occurred when they AirDropped it from one phone to another and then emailed it from their personal Gmail account." And I have bridge to sell. It is tampering with the evidence. If prosecution was ever criminally charged for their misdeeds and fucking up person's lives as the result they would straighten out in no time. Meanwhile they keep abusing their position with no recourse.