Defendant wins breathalyzer source code

So if one of us gets a speed ticket we could request the schematics and FPGA codes of the radar gun?

Yes, I thought you might show up :)

I would look at the self calibration to begin with, if any.

What about your medical widgits, would you release your source code if asked politely?

Martin

In my starving student days I worked at a Canadian government communications calibration lab similar in function to the US FCC test lab. The head of the lab was stopped and ticketed for speeding on the way to work by a local cop with a new imported "unlicensed and not type approved" radar set.

He impounded the illegal transmitter. Gave him some bargaining points.

There have been a few Canadian cases of at least release notes and installed software revisions used in court. For a while last calibration time was quite important to the extent that local police used to re-calibrate with every issued ticket.

w..

Joerg wrote:

No joke, I did that once because I knew I wasn't speeding. Requested the cal data, was furnished some, discovered it was for the wrong vehicle. Politely requested the correct data, couldn't be produced. Made this finding exhibit in court. Judge still sided with police :-(

Nope. Only if ordered by a court of law.

OTOH the advent of big fat FPGA allows a high level of code obfuscation, to the point where even the most dedicated readers throw in the towel.

I'm not at all familiar with FPGA,( I'm Welsh/luddite++/ similar to Florida), apart from emails saying Altera is betterer than Xlinx, and vers vica, but the source code was asked for , not the hex or binary, so I assume they would need the "text" code with comments.

Martin

In court you ask for the calibration certificate first. If is over 30 days old, your off. :-)

donald

Companies selling to governments had best read the contracts carefully-- there's a lot of this sort of thing in them, and they could be called on it, as happened here.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Well, sure, but nowadays you can pour whole processor cores into an FPGA. These things have become incredibly spaceous. So the other party may have received the source code could but you could have obfuscated the details about what it actually does inside the FPGA. Because you just might have chosen to use a special hardware accelerator that executes the "Griffith Super Turbo CR Algorithm". Which dwelleth, of course, inside the FPGA and is nowhere to be found in the source code. CR stands for crypto. But of course, only you'd know ;-)

... snip ...

I don't know about Joerg, but the systems I generated in 12 odd years at Yale School of Medicine/Yale-New Haven Hospital were available to anybody who wanted them. They were reliable and accurate, and mostly written in ISO Pascal, and generally ran with all run-time checks enabled (i.e. NOT disabled).

I no longer have access to them.

I did, it was over a year old, and I didn't get off :-(

Seriously thought about an appeal but I was so swamped with work I just didn't have the time. So I paid even though I didn't do it. Justice is not always fair. My impression is that the judge always sided with the laws, nobody got off.

Makes no sense. I suspect you meant to write "you're".

If I was ordered to hand over source code, I sure as hell wouldn't be offering a version that had comments in it!!!

Actually, on this point, why would you be legally obliged to offer _source_ code? You could offer the device itself to be examined in any way the defendant pleases. If they want to reverse-engineer the code, that's their decision.

If a shoplifter is caught on video, couldn't they then ask to see the complete design documentation, including theory of operation, for the video camera???

Regards,

It could be one for the lawyers, but my interpretation of source is "what the programmer wrote in the source files", which includes the comments. Source refers to more than the code that the compiler used. If I were in that situation, I would ask for specifications, user manuals, design notes, bug reports, and all other documents that might shed light on the design, weaknesses, problems, etc.

In the case mentioned, a condition of the contract to supply the devices stipulated that the state had rights to the code and that the supplier would supply information to defendants requesting it.

Hey, you can _ask_ for anything, but it would probably be denied unless you could demonstrate a reasonable basis that getting such information might affect outcome of the case. Maybe you could convince the judge that the recording system substituted face images, but I doubt it.

I would think that it would be enough o demonstrate that the video recorder recorded clear enoug images, the radar gun measured speed accurately enough, etc. before and after the measurement in question.

Unless it was a Los Angeles celebrity murder trial, of course. :)

If ordered to do so by a court. Of course this would all have to be under NDA and controlled conditions. I expect the defendant would also have to show how he was actually going to analysis the code. You would need to show that your team could actually make sense of the source code.

If you are a SW engineer working the same or related field they would object on IP grounds so you would need to have a recognised independent team do it.

This of course will vary from country to country and depend on who produced the device. The court will have no jurisdiction over a company in another country who actually makes the imported device.

Revers engineering is not legal in many places.

I doubt it as there is no measurement or analysis taking place. Also you would have other members of staff in shot during the "arrest" who would say that is me. Thus showing the images are correct.

There is no element of measuring speed, colours or anything that needs calibration.

I would disagree with that. I would say that the machine code is what is controlling the breathalyzer and the source code is what was used to describe to the compiler what the machine code is to do. The commentary and pretty formatting and other aids to understanding do not have any bearing on the function of the breathalyzer and so there would be no justification to provide them. The court ordered the disclosure of the method of operation and uncommented and unformatted source code will achieve that.

However, deliberately removing aids to understanding could be argued to be obstructing the judge's orders.

The justification is they are aids to understanding. The other point is the defence would ask for them and if you argue, prevaricate or equivocate the defence and jury would "know" you had something to hide.

It will be highlighted by the defence. That is part of the game. Why do you think solicitors and barristers ask questions they immediately withdraw.... to set the idea in the head of the jury.

I worked in industry all my life, not in academia. There, everything is kept closely guarded with the exception of interfaces such as DICOM.

Hmm, ... "were available to anybody who wanted them" ?