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On average, you need 100 people to find two among them with one common fingerprint. Now calculate how many you need to find one among them that has a common fin
by ovi256 15y ago
On average, you need 100 people to find two among them with one common fingerprint. Now calculate how many you need to find one among them that has a common fingerprint with a given person, i.e. you.
- SoftwareMaven 15y agoBut if you know the lab has a one in ten chance of screwing up the processing of my print, how can I trust the one in a large number of a match. The screw up may cause a one in five chance of matching with anybody. Error rates are hugely important yet completely ignored in court.
- rbanffy 15y agoAs long as the original evidence is preserved, you can always collect material again and re-run the test.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- anigbrowl 15y agoError rates are hugely important yet completely ignored in court. Not actually true. This is not to say that courts get it right all the time, but it's not particularly newsworthy when they do. Attacking the chain of custody and alleging contamination or false positives are standard techniques in challenging forensic testimony, both biological and digital. The cases where the forensic evidence is legitimately challenged and those challenges are ignored or overruled are often dramatic and newsworthy, but the rate of miscarriages of justice is falling because courts today are much more aware of these issues than the courts of (say) 20 years ago. Unfortunately news reporting of trials and appeals is so utterly awful that people tend to assume the exceptional is the norm. I'm not saying that it isn't a problem, just that the courts are more cognizant of the issue than more people appreciate.
- daniel-cussen 15y ago"A technician in the NYPD's forensics lab has been suspended for allegedly falsifying drug-test results, throwing into question "maybe thousands" of criminal cases -- and prompting a panicked meeting yesterday between cops and the city district attorneys." http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/queens/lab_tech_wQIOPAcKYnI2rP1lQMEDqL http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/queens/lab_tech_wQIOPAcKY...
- anigbrowl 15y agoWhat's your point? If courts were not aware of such things, there wouldn't be the potential for a large number of convictions to be overturned, would there?
- daniel-cussen 15y agoI was giving a good example.
- anigbrowl 15y agoAh, I see. It was hard to tell without any comment of your own on the grandparent.