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RIAA's 'Expert' Witness Testimony Now Online
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The online community now has an opportunity to see the fruits of its labor. Back in December, the Slashdot ('What Questions Would You Ask an RIAA Expert?') and Groklaw ('Another Lawyer Would Like to Pick Your Brain, Please') communities were asked for their input on possible questions to pose to the RIAA's 'expert'. Dr. Doug Jacobson of Iowa State University, was scheduled to be deposed in February in UMG v. Lindor, for the first time in any RIAA case. Ms. Lindor's lawyers were flooded with about 1400 responses. The deposition of Dr. Jacobson went forward on February 23, 2007, and the transcript is now available online (pdf) (ascii). Ray Beckerman, one of Ms. Lindor's attorneys, had this comment: 'We are deeply grateful to the community for reviewing our request, for giving us thoughts and ideas, and for reviewing other readers' responses. Now I ask the tech community to review this all-important transcript, and bear witness to the shoddy investigation and junk science upon which the RIAA has based its litigation war against the people. The computer scientists among you will be astounded that the RIAA has been permitted to burden our court system with cases based upon such arrant and careless nonsense.'"
I saw something in the transcript that I wanted to point out before anyone else here criticizes Jacobson on it:
Q. By what body are you certified as an engineer?
A. By no professional society.
Q. No professional society? Is there any organization that has certified you as an engineer?
A. No.
Q. Are you part of any peer regulatory body?
A. I don't quite understand what you mean by --
Q. Are you part of any body the members of which are peer-regulated?
A. Can you give me an example of what you are --
Q. A lawyer, an architect, an accountant. I thought an engineer had to be certified by a peer-regulated body.
A. To be called a professional engineer they do.
Q. So are you not a professional engineer?
A. I do not have a PE license.
Based on his Jacobson's research page. It looks like Jacob's, a professor "on the faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering", is a computer engineer. Given that, the above statement is totally understandable As a computer engineer myself, I can say that it is *EXTREMELY* rare for a computer engineer to be a licensed PE. (Not a single computer engineering professor in my University is). PE's are common in engineering professions where somebody needs to sign off on the final product - civil engineering especially, and mechanical engineering to a lesser extent.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Not to mention that he maintains he can trace the IP address back to a specific ISP account and computer (emphasis mine). Unless he's a Peeping Tom with a web-cam in the defendant's house, the RIAA should be demanding their money back from him.
Oh, and then there's the place where he maintains that at the time the computer was imaged many months afterwards, that there was no wireless router in use at that time Media Sentry "discovered" this "infringer". Is there a log that keeps records of every IP address you've ever connected with?
And I have to laugh at how he refers to "registered" computers. I thought he was talking about gun registration, or some such thing. I've never heard of my own computer being "registered" to anything. Is this another invented RIAA term, like "Media Distribution System"? Has anyone else ever referred to KaZaA, or any other P2P program, as an MDS? Ray, you can't be letting the RIAA frame the terms of the debate to ignorant Judges.
And don't miss the parts where he says he didn't actually document any of his findings because there was nothing to find, however, you should go through your own copy of the disc to verify my Registry findings that no wireless router was in place. He's supposed to be the expert, and he wants the defense to replicate his findings in the Registry??? Are there any registry experts here? Probably a few, but not many. But he assures us it's there.
Biggest thing is that he says that no KaZaA was present, nor any infringing music files. The only way the RIAA can respond is you sent us the wrong hard drive. No question that the person in question might have actually been innocent. RIAA -- You Bastards!
Glad to know that we helped, Ray! Keep fighting the good fight!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I think many of his students will be appalled at the actual contents of his testimony.
For example, he teaches a course in "Information Warfare", the entire thrust of which is that the internet is dangerous and insecure in the extreme. He teaches students all about the infinite numbers of vulnerabilities.
Then he testifies that he forms an opinion in 45 minutes based upon some printouts from an investigator who pulled down some screenshots from the internet.... with no verification whatsoever.
And that he's give about 200 such opinions. And so far, 200 out of 200 concluded, without reservation, that there was indeed copyright infringement.
What kind of grade would he issue to a student who handed in work like that?
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
To me it's crystal clear that they observed someone's Kazaa traffic, but when they snatched the HDD it was some other computer. The reason for that is not some outlandish NAT or Kazaa hack, but simply an IP address confusion (either a true collision, or a wrong DHCP log at Verizon - not that they care.)
IANAL, but I understand that there are standards for admissibility of scientific evidence, and the questions quoted below (and several that follow) cover them. The most recent ruling is called "Daubert."
Whatever this witness has to say based on his methods is useless because the methods have not been generally accepted and/or there are no peer reviews or tests of the methods' accuracy/reliability and no known level of accuracy/reliability.
Q. Has your method of determining from
the MediaSentry materials whether a particular
computer has been used for uploading or downloading
copyrighted works been tested by any testing body?
A. Not that I have submitted.
Q. Do you know anyone else that is using
your method, other than you?
A. Not that I'm aware of.
Q. Has your method of determining
through the MediaSentry materials whether a
particular computer has been used for uploading or
downloading copyrighted works been subjected to any
form of peer review?
A. Not that I'm aware of.
Q. Has your method of determining from
the MediaSentry materials whether a computer has
been used for uploading or downloading copyrighted
works been published?
A. No.
Q. Is there a known rate of error for
your method?
A. No.
Q. Is there a potential rate of error?
MR. GABRIEL: Object to the form.
A. I guess there is always a potential
of an error.
Q. Do you know of a rate of error?
A. To my process, no.
Q. Are there any standards and controls
over what you have done?
A. No.
Q. Have your methods been generally
accepted in the scientific community?
A. The process has not been vetted
through the scientific community.
This entire case hinges on screenshots, mystery analysis software "encase", a questionable expert, and an IP address obtained from an ISP. The evidence in this case doesn't even make it to the standard of "hearsay" not to mention the fact that the plaintiff lawyer appears to be highly inexperienced with Turets syndrome and keeps blurting "Objection to form."
I suspect that if one were to dig deeper into the so-called evidence, one would learn that information obtained from Verizon is prone to error, and that the procedures for generating the screenshots from KaZaa are based on assumptions which are prone to error and probably performed by monkeys. I want to read the deposition from the "dude/monkey" who took the screenshots, please post that one next.
If I were the lawyer for the defendant, I would already be filing my motion for dismissal "with prejudice" with the award of reasonable lawyer fees for having brought a case without any evidence.
Are there any standards for evidence? Is a printout obtained via supoena really a standard for evidence? If so, I can prove anything you like and as a bonus, I even have a professional certification.