Slashdot Mirror
Breathalyzer Source Code Ruling Upheld
dfn_deux writes "In a follow up to a 2005 story where Florida judge Doug Henderson ruled that breathalyzer evidence in more than 100 drunk driving cases would be inadmissible as evidence at trial, the Second District Court of Appeal and Circuit Court has ruled on Tuesday to uphold the 2005 ruling requiring the manufacturer of the Intoxilyzer 5000, Kentucky-based CMI Inc, to release source code for their breathalyzer equipment to be examined by witnesses for the defense of those standing trial with breathalyzer test result being used as evidence against them. '"The defendant's right to a fair trial outweighed the manufacturer's claim of a trade secret," Henderson said Tuesday. In response to the ruling defense attorney, Mark Lipinski, who represents seven defendants challenging the source codes, said the state likely will be forced to reduce charges — or drop the cases entirely.' ... What this really means is that outside corporations cannot sell equipment to the state of Florida and expect to hide the workings of their machine by saying they are trade secret. It means the state has to give full disclosure concerning important and critical aspects of the case."
Finally
Guess there are some judges out there that understand justice.
So now you can't sell technology to the state of Florida without challenging every competitor to reverse engineer it (and obscure the reverse engineering) and sell their own version everywhere else. Great!
Someone is going to figure out how to file a defense involving the release of Microsoft Windows, I just know it.
Bearded Dragon
The courts got it right, this time. Yeah, sure, the whole argument is a no-brainer for anyone who thinks about it for more than 30 seconds, but the jurists weighing similar cases re. voting machine source-code seem to be struggling with it nonetheless.
Now if only 49 other states would follow suit.
So all guesses to the likelyhood of this holding up aside...
What will this mean for companies like Diebold? Can we expect them to pull out of Florida altogether while this decision is in effect?
There's a joke here about the importance of open-source breathalyzers vs. voting machines but I'm too full of outrage fatigue to make an effort at it.
As pesky as the Bill of Rights can be to swift justice and severe vengeance, I do remember something about the the accused having a right to face their accuser. If the Intoxilyzer uses buggy firmware that results in inaccurate readings, then the accused has every right to question it. The company that makes the Intoxilyzer must be held responsible for its actions as well. Someday, somewhere, some company will step up and say, "Yes, we knew our product was faulty. But we have shareholders who will sell our stock in a heartbeat if we miss our mark in any quarter."
Holding both the accuser and the accused responsible for their actions is what helps create a society based on the rule of law. Otherwise, we'd be a police state. As a practicing trial attorney I *much* prefer the former.
=Smidge=
Is it just my observation, or is eldavojohn an idiot?
I know the "related stories" says this too, but just to get the ball rolling:
What this really means is that outside corporations cannot sell equipment to the state of Florida and expect to hide the workings of their machine by saying they are trade secret. It means the state has to give full disclosure concerning important and critical aspects of the case."
So, will this mean voting machine source code will have to be disclosed?
Personally, I'm most surprised that:
a) Governments don't require source code disclosure, at least for purposes of review, when they ask for bids or shop for equipment/software,
b) It's so hard for them to find someone willing to meet a).
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
I am *so* looking forward to grepping all the comments out of the source that talk about how they implemented the breathalyzer software at a drinking party.
The thing I like about open source is that everyone can make the software better. Why a company wouldn't want to produce source code, is beyond me. I think they fear that they will be viewed as incompetent when several mistakes are found in their code, or that sneaky randomizer function call rears its ugly head.
In all seriousness, companies would do well to realize that open source increases revenues by enabling a larger FREE workforce to do your work for you. Put aside your griefs with secrecy, unless of course your code doesn't work, or you stole large chunks of the code, and fear the legal ramifications.
I'd hate to be in their position, either way.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Wouldn't that be a shame if releasing their code, allowed a defense expert to find flaws in it and they then had to write better code?
I have never been in this situation (where is the wood) but I have to wonder: If an officer administers a breath test and it is positive (above legal limit) why don't they get a quick blood sample for lab analysis? But then again, given this ruling, could the defense then ask for the source-code for the laboratory equipment used to test the blood?
Conservative, mod down for violating
No. It means a bunch of drunk drivers will be on the streets free to run whoever they want over. Even if the prosecutors move to blood test, the defendants will require a medical doctor or lab technician to testify as to the nature of the exam and how the test works, and perhaps the manufacturer of the reagents used in the tests have to verify that they are what they are. Tons of money have to be spent by the DA's office, which means higher taxes. Meanwhile, prosecution of drunk driving will go down, and more drunk drivers will be on the streets.
Everyone wins!
But ask yourself: if a judge dismissed exculpatory DNA evidence because the defense didn't procure a geneticist/scientist to testify on the stand, what would you say?
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
I will bet money on one of three outcomes:
1. Breathalyzers cease to be used.
2. The source code will be released and showed to have MAJOR flaws or an algorithm that is not scientific at all.
3. The source code will be suddenly patched and every system will be required to be updated. The "new" source code will be released. Prosecution rates plummet, for some "unknown" reason.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
As much as I like hearing about cases of stickin' it to Da Man, I don't know that we should necessarily celebrate this decision quite so much...
All software contains bugs. The defense will find some, and even if they only affect accuracy at the 7th decimal point, the case will get thrown out by a jury based on reasonable doubt. And this doesn't apply just to the current case, but to nearly any legal case using machine-generated evidence. The court allows DNA evidence? How about the firmware in the sequencing machine? Drug test came back positive? Let's see how Agilent's HPLC code rounds in integration.
Now, in some cases (*cough* Diebold *cough*) we may have a valid gripe against a closed-source implementation. But in most cases... Not to make this a case of "for the children", but do you want drunks behind the wheel? Screw the children (calm down, Mr. Jackson, I didn't mean it like that), I don't want to DIAF because someone can't stop at two beers.
I'm surprised that the company couldn't find a way around it. There are many tests admissible as evidence in court that don't have source code. They have to be proved accurate or in generally accepted by the scientific community.
Couldn't it have been proved accurate by using the Breathalyzer along with a blood test in X different situations with Y different people. If the company didn't already do that then it should be thrown out as evidence.
Also, why is a brethelyzer needed as evidence. Any test like that could be faulty. If someone fails a brethelyzer, why not bring them in for a blood test.
If you're pulled over and suspected of DUI, then don't take the damn test
In many states, refusal to take a breathalyzer test is legally presumed an admission of guilt. You'll have a much harder time reversing a conviction based on a refusal to take the test (to wit: voluntary admission of guilt without evidence thereof) than challenging the accuracy of the instruments used.
Good luck with that.
(BTW: the whole "release the source code" thing is more a rasing-the-stakes legal tactic than a legitimate questioning of the equipment involved. Are you REALLY ready to expend considerable resources to find vindicating flaws in a commercial product? You have to convince the prosecutor you will do it, and succeed, before he'll drop charges in favor of keeping that revenue path flowing.)
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Prosecutors must now decide whether to take the cases to trial without that evidence or reduce or dismiss the DUI charges.
The source code is not going to be released, the cases will likely be dropped. I live in Sarasota - I don't particularly like the idea of so many people that should be prosecuted for DUIs to be out on the road endangering my wife and myself. This is not justice, it is a get out of jail free technicality.
Don't even need all 49. Consider the California Emissions standard. Many companies produce ONLY Cali rated cars because it's cheaper than adjusting their assembly line and shipping procedures to make custom cars only for California.
Looking around on the internet, I only see something like 3 professional grade breathalyzers. At this moment, any company looking to do business in Florida has to disclose their source code*. If two companies don't, that leaves the remaining one with a monopoly in Florida - *ChaChing*.
They might do this in Florida, but what if you get three or four other states passing the same rules? The pressure mounts.
I'm all in favor of this measure. I'm strongly against DUI, but that's countered by my even stronger desire for accuracy and accountability in government, especially criminal matters. Of course, I'm also for NOT counting it as a DUI unless you're actually, driving. Sleeping in the backseat of a dead-cold car in the bar's parking lot with the keys in your jacket isn't DUI.
*Well, they don't strictly have to, but Florida departments would be idiots to buy machines from companies that won't, as they're inadmissable as evidence.
I don't read AC A human right
they'd do the same with voting machines....
Then again, code is too complex. Those electronic voting machines should never be used in the first place. The process should be simple to understand by ANYBODY who would cast a vote.
If I am ever stopped, I'll ask for a Breathalyzer test, over a roadside sobriety test, any day of the week. I would much rather have a carefully designed, well calibrated machine prove in seconds that I'm sober, than give a cop the opportunity to make a subjective judgment about me.
To me, this looks like a case of a bunch of guys who got nailed over the limit, who are attacking the one plank of evidence against them. OK, so it may not be 100% accurate, it may only be 96% accurate, or 90% accurate, but that means if you were convicted with a BAC over .09, you were STILL over .08 regardless. I bet a lot of these people are convinced they were less lubed up than they actually were.
www.myspace.com/an_anti_hero
This is america, so i'll use my freedom of speech, Fuck all these people, these criminals, these murders, stupid israel, stupid america, america is collapsing around us, oh god, oh shit, we're so fucking done for and doomed its pathetic oh god help us oahhha shit were doomed
One wonders what CMI has to hide. The software shouldn't be that complicated. The thing uses a Z80, after all. It's not like they have Windows CE in there. Yet CMI has accepted over $2 million in fines rather than disclose the source code.
Somebody should buy one, read out the ROM, and disassemble the code.
What this really means is that outside corporations cannot sell equipment to the state of Florida and expect to hide the workings of their machine by saying they are trade secret
No, what it means is that corporations that sell equipment THAT PRODUCE EVIDENCE TO BE USED IN CRIMINAL CASES can't hide behind trade secret laws. It's a very narrow set of circumstances. If the machine isn't used to produce criminal evidence, it isn't affected. Things like radar guns and red light cameras could be affected by this ruling. General consumer products are not.
The breathalyzer is effectively acting as a witness against the defendant in a DUI case. The defendant has a CONSTITUTIONALLY GUARANTEED right to cross-examine witnesses and challenge their credibility and accuracy. In the case of a machine, this can include subjecting the machine's design to scrutiny by a defense expert.
Seems pretty open & shut to me: if they don't disclose the engineering data necessary to validate the accuracy of the machine, then the evidence produced by the machine is inadmissible.
Since DUI is based on specific blood alcohol levels, they would have to drop those charges and settle for something where they could get a conviction based solely on the arresting officer's eyewitness testimony (EG reckless driving or other specific moving violations).
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
I agree. After all, polygraph tests aren't admissible, either.
I have a bad feeling about this...
Dear Slashdot
My name is Mike and I am serving the first week of a 10 year sentence in Federal Prison for severe SEC violations. I am very scared and I didn't know what else to do. I guess I have 5 good minutes to type this cry out for help until Tyrone and the crew come for me and give me what they call "Mandatory Showertime". I mean I have been exposed to more male cock in the first 3 days here than I have ever cared to know in my first 30 years of life. I guess it was some sort of sick joke that they gave me a big black cell mate named Tyrese who also part of Tyrones crew. As such he has first dibs on me or as he says "first dick in me". The nigger has beaten me senseless the first day here as he seems to get a real kick out of it and has repeatedly raped me and that's not even the worst of it. I never knew a man could cum 7 times in a row and with that I hadn't been able to get any sleep in the past day or so. The first time I met Tyrone was at our first shower time. Tyrese had "persuaded" me to go into the shower room and that's when I met the whole crew. There must have been 19 prison niggers in there and when the guards pulled out, thats when I was given a gangraping that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. Could you imagine 19 giant black cocks repeatedly ass raping and mouth fucking you? I think not, and don't think these guys went in one at a time. I swear it must have been 3 in my ass and 2 in my mouth at one point. I was in tears hearing Tyrone laughing at me saying "This be your life now cracka, you our bitch now". I still have the sharpie mark on my ass that says "Tyrone's ho". Uh oh it looks like it's mandatory shower time again. I think I am going to hang myself when Tyrese is out raping another white prisoner. Thanks for listening.
If you did a comparison of the BAC/breathalyzer under different scenarios, you'd find the breathalyzer gave a lot of false positive. Burp and the results will be wrong. Gargle with mouthwash and the results will be wrong. vomit and the results will be wrong.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
What I want to know is why CMI has been allowed to be in contempt of court for so long. There have been past court orders demanding the source code, which they have ignored without consequences. They should have been raided by Federal agents with search warrants empowering them to execute the earlier court orders.
People are convicted of DUI in Florida without blood tests. My father got nailed by a faulty reading, saying he was double the legal limit with only a beer and a half in his system over a 5 hour period.
The breathalyzer results are enough for a conviction in almost all instances.
Learn something new.
Nice to see my home state in a story that doesn't involve politicians or voters being retarded.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Breathalyzers in active use for prosecutions are actually calibrated and tested all of the time with known samples. If the test is more than %5 off, the machine is taken off duty.
If only this was decided back in 1995. In Canada. Manitoba, Canada specifically...
Ah well, learned my lesson. It was almost legal back then. Better a fine and loss of a license for 3 months over hurting or killing someone.
Trolling is a art,
some people have posted that is it reasonable for someone to be able to audit the source code looking for flaws?
Depending on the language, it would be trivial to use tools like lint, pmd, and findbugs to do some static analysis of the source code. ANY code base that wasn't built with those tools is likely to find a zillion bounds problems, swallwed exceptions, resource allocation problems, and other common boneheaded mistakes. A good developer could apply those tools in less than a day.
they might not find a particular 'smoking gun' problem, but if they find a *bunch* of problems, that would be enough to imply substandard quality and be a factor in the judgement of the case.
If I were a commercial company that built such tools, I would be seeking out this defendant for a chance to use them. Bound to be a huge publicity coup.
So any device that produces forensic data for the state of Florida is going to be open to this kind of thing? Does this mean in the future it would be best for the state to prequalify these items? This could be a black mark that will keep some of the top forensic equipment producers from dealing with Florida in the near future.
Not that they sell shoddy goods but who would want to have to do this? They'll essentially be forced to prove their products worth without any compensation. I don't know how cut throat the business is but this could eat into profits in a bad way if this becomes a national trend.
Maybe this is a new business that can be put in place, a developer's shop of precertification of forensics equipment. You could probably name your price to show up at trials to certify the data's integrity as an expert witness.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
s/machines/matches
My blog
Talk about a sudden outbreak of common sense. I mean, gee, maybe a functioning system of justice is more important than turning a profit?
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
If you're using a breathalyzer as definitive proof of intoxication, it's not good enough to "prove" the accuracy by demonstrating concurrence with blood tests... especially since breathe and blood tests taken simultaneously have been shown to not agree 100%.
As soon as you have 1% failure, it means that the evidence cannot be considered definitive proof... what is to say any particular defendant wasn't the 1-in-a-100 where the breathalyzer was inaccurate?
IANAL, etc, but it seems to me that concurrence with blood tests would have to be 100%, which it's not.
Because blood tests are intrusive? I don't want to live in a society where I can be forced to submit to a blood test just because some potentially-rigged machine says I'm under the influence. I say it's potentially rigged because we can't see the source, which is what this is all about.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I would love to see this expand beyond Florida and beyond criminal cases. Truly, before evidence presented by "device" can be verified and trusted and accurate, defense and plaintiffs need to know everything about evidence presented by either side. "Because the machine said so" should never be admissible in court or in cases of other public government activities... not EVER. And this goes for VOTING MACHINES as well.
If anyone has experience with:
- embedded systems
- sensors required for a breathalyzer
- breathalyzer supplies
- low cost manufacturing
and is interested in working on the foundation of an open source breathalyzer, please contact me by email.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
i hope he got jail time for wasting 1/2 of his beer
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Simply put, this is another example of the lawyers polluting their own land. There are stats used to test and validate the devices meet specifications without need of the source code, but apparently the tests and references themselves are now called into question. This is pissing in the same chair that you sit in for the lawyers. This will come back to haunt them.
All content in this message is copyright (c) 2008. All rights reserved. RIAA is prohibited here.
To me, the source code for the breathalyzer machines would be quite useless. You'd have to not only be able to understand the code but understand the chemistry behind it, and I doubt many lawyers can do both. What are they going to do with the source code? Try to find a programming error that overestimates BAC? Good luck with that. The summary claims that the charges against the defendants will likely be lowered, but why? Why, just because the source code is being released, are they suddenly having the charges reduced? Is this really fair?
All this does is force a company to do something it doesn't want to do for people who don't even particularly want them to do it anyway; those lawyers just want their clients to get off scot-free.
This is the important point, The breathalyser is a measuring device, the software is only a relatively small part of the total systm. I suspect it is just a legal red herring.
What is important is the overall details of the calibration and qualification procedures used to check the device. (Probably an ANSI standard or similar)
Much as we'd all like software to be open source, the legal desire to pick through the code, find an irrelevant bug or questionable programming practice, and get some drunk back on the road is not a cause we should be fighting.
if a judge dismissed exculpatory DNA evidence because the defense didn't procure a geneticist/scientist to testify
What you describe is not at all like the situation at hand. The question is: What if the prosecution wouldn't say how they matched the DNA, saying that was a secret.
What's to stop them from taking a sample of your DNA, putting it in a black box, and declaring that the device has fond you guilty beyond a reasonable doubt? You can't look at the box, how can you defend yourself from what they say it says?
You can't take the sky from me...
In PA, in addition to being an admission, it also triggers the charges to be based on the assumption of being in the "highest BAC" category.
Due to driving being considered a privilege in our culture*, by getting a driver's license you automatically waive certain rights. The right to have a lawyer present, with the obvious purpose of getting your body to reduce your BAC to 0 before administering a blood/breathalyzer test, is one of those waived rights.
Alternatively and to the same end: police - having detained you for reasonable suspicion per "Terry stop" rules - are granted the power to search for and acquire evidence ASAP. In this case, the evidence is your BAC. Subsequent to acquring the evidence - you breathing into the breathalyzer - you may then have your lawyer argue that the instrumentation used in prosecution was faulty. The reasonable acquisition of evidence is well-established in criminal law.
The OP's issue regards challenging the interpretation of evidence, not the acquisition thereof. For multiple reasons, you can't inhibit police from acquiring your BAC if they can articulate a reason why they think you were DWI.
* - surely our Founding Fathers would have included "right to vehicular travel" in the Bill Of Rights if they had any inkling such an obvious natural right would be infringed so much as it is.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
No test of this nature is 100% accurate. But you don't need it to be. An accuracy of 99% doesn't mean that 1% of the time it says you are drunk. In this case, it means that the detected value is with in 1% of the actual.
No single point of evidence is used to convict. Before you would be forced to take a blood test (which is more accurate than a breathalyzer so would be more prone to vindicate you than falsely accuse you) you would have to be:
1) pulled over by a cop (speeding of swerving)
2) who would then have to suspect you of being intoxicated
3) you would then have to fail a breathalyzer
And if you suspect the breathalyzer is rigged, then you should keep your own on you to provide counter evidence and a video camera in your car to show the court you were not acting suspiciously.
We don't want drunks behind the wheel. That's why we need to see the source code to the breathalyzer. It could also be that drunk drivers are getting off the hook because the machine malfunctions and indicates a lower BAC than actual. Software bugs work both ways.
I, for one, am not comfortable trusting something like a DUI conviction to a few dollars of electronics. If the device cannot be independently verified to work correctly, then it shouldn't be used for legal matters. A DUI conviction can ruin a person's life, and is not something to be taken lightly.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Can't wait until configuration files for Red Light camera settings get examined...
I wonder how long until someone demands the source code for the cop's radar detector. There's gotta be at least a little bit of assembly code in those.
You see here Judge, that the company is using the improper register d0 when they should have pushed d9 onto the stack and did a bshd9 2 (bitshift register d9) to multiply the input radar signal level by 2.
If you want to argue that you have some fancy scientific test that shows you're not guilty, then yeah, you'll need an expert witness to back it up. Paying for such witnesses has always been a burden on the defense.
As for the other arguments, absolutely. If Dexter's gonna argue that the blood splatter evidence points to me as the killer, then I want Dexter to be able to explain from first principles why this is so.
I certainly don't want to hear Dexter respond that his blood tests are porprietary and not to be questioned...
"Tons of money have to be spent by the DA's office, which means higher taxes."
Surely you're not arguing it's just more cost-effective to throw more people in jail?! We should gladly pay whatever amount of money is needed to ensure justice is done. We've bought justice at the price of blood in this country. Surely you're not arguing we should toss it out because we don't wanna pay the lab and witness fees...
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
Citation?
I agree that the software will tell part of the story on whether or not the device is accurate, but I'd be interested in examining the hardware too. It is easy to imagine that varying conditions (temp, humidity, altitude, exhaust, smoker lung, etc) could alter the operation of the hardware even before the software comes into play. How have these variables been neutralized? Casting doubt on the device would be easy.
Casting doubt is what the defense is interested in, but what the public should really be interested in is the test data (from an independent third party). Have they conducted appropriate tests across sufficient body types and environmental conditions? Lets see the results.
Regardless of the merits of the case, am I the only who thinks that this is just a ploy from some people who want a "get out of jail free" card to avoid a conviction and penalites that they rightfully deserved? I mean, you were drunk, you drove, you got caught. Live with it. Reminds of an ex-colleague who tried to get out of a parking ticket because the "5" of his license plate on the hand-written ticket could have been confused for a "6" (i.e. "how can I know this ticket if for my car, you honor"). Shut up and pay. If I were a judge, I would take these people in for perjury and contempt.
"What this really means is that outside corporations cannot sell equipment to the state of Florida and expect to hide the workings of their machine by saying they are trade secret."
I wonder what this will mean to people contesting electronic voting machine ballot totals in future elections.
I fully support the idea that some of this stuff should be open source - but i wonder if this will actually increase court costs in the long run - anyone who chooses to fight any of this based on the source code would ultimately need expert witnesses to testify on the source code - this would end up costing both sides of the court (defense and prosecution) extra dollars everytime someone thinks the code is "part of the problem"
If there is a problem with it - open source of course would get more eyes on it - but then you could also get 100 different ideas from 100 different programmers on how it could be done differently. That could open a real can of worms trial wise.
This is kind of bogus, from a scientific point of view. There is no reason for anyone to need to see the source code for the device in order to determine if the device is accurate. This can be determined by black box testing of the device.
Drunk drivers got convicted before there were breathalyzers. They still get convicted when the breath tests are excluded: my wife was on a jury which did just that.
The only change here is that people can't get convicted on the say-so of a black box. Which isn't even a change, because the legal system has always insisted on quality control for evidence.
A black box machine for convicting people makes as little sense as a black box voting machine.
>No one is legally drunk after one drink unless you are drinking something crazy. Even a 100 lbs woman will only be .06 after one drink. See here.
My nerd license requires me to nitpick absolute statements even if the nitpick is almost never relevant, preferably by mentioning some obscure corner case.
Therefore, I point out that the limit in Iceland is .05, which means that a woman at .06 would in fact be legally drunk.
You now have a new useless fact to clutter your mind.
There are many factors that could alter the reading on a breathalyser. Our bodies get rid of alcohol in many different ways and at varying rates. Some people will naturally blow higher ratings than others. In Australia, after a breathalyzer is used to detect potential drunk drivers, the driver is taken into a "booze bus" or the nearest police station where a blood sample is taken and tested to give the true result. The breathalyzer result should NEVER used in court.
For any device used by the police the manufacturer should have to prove that the device has a failure rate of zero. If the device gives any false positives then how can it be trusted, somebody is going to be convicted who shouldn't have been. Has anybody heard of the story of a speed gun measuring a wall traveling at 40MPH?
0.81 BAC according to the breathalyzer and w/o a slick attorney you were going to be convicted.
A 0.810 reading would easily bring reasonable doubt: if the accused was alive at the time, the device was malfunctioning. A 0.081 reading, on the other hand, might need a little more creative defense. One of the best I've found is that the law talks about "blood alcohol", not "breath alcohol". In many states, license suspension happens only if the accused declines both a breath test and a blood test, so ask for the blood test.
So a different reading in one case out of a hundred means the entire mechanism is invalid?
How different? Did it measure 0% alcohol when the person was so pickled they were practically inflammable? Or vice versa?
Thought not. You're talking shite.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
What happens when they look at the source code and find no problems?
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Forcing a company to disclose how a device operates does not automatically open source the code. Even if you had the source code, you couldn't use it otherwise you would face conviction. Just because a judge orders the source to be disseminated doesn't allow everyone to use it. It is still propriatary technology and is likely protected by patients. I don't see them GPL'ing the source for the product, or licensing it for use in any way. So great, you know how someone built the breathalizer, and have seen the source, but now because you were part of the team evaluating the source for it, you'll never be able to work on one yourself because it will forever be scrutinized for containing competitors ideas.
I can't help but imagine which part of a breathlizer software could be a "trade secret"
<trade secret>
/* #attention if this code falls in the wrong hands, we are doomed! */
reset_sensor();
turn_green_light_on()
/* wait for sensor to make the reading */
sleep(2);
turn_green_light_off();
sensor_reading = get_alcoolhol_sensor_value();
beep();
drunken_value = sensor_reading * CALIBRATION_CONSTANT;
display(drunken_value);
if (drunken_value > 0.5)
{ turn_Red_light_on();
beep_insanely();
}
else
{beep();
flash_green_light();
}
</trade secret>
Hah. I hope they have a patent on that, so they can be able to defend their valuable IP assets!!
-><- no
1. Print out enough blank pages to form a square on the floor large enough for all of the dancers to gather around.
2. Specific body parts are named, and these are then sequentially put into the ring, taken out of the ring, and finally wiggled around maniacally inside the ring.
3. After this is done one raises one's hands up to the side of the head, wiggles them, and turns around in place until the next sequence begins, with a new named body part.
It's very much like the Hokey Pokey, only with a square!
Disclaimer:#'s 2 and 3 were plagiarized verbatim from the above wiki link.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
My physics teacher got pulled over after having two scotches. He fails the breathalyzer and asks for a blood test. An hour later he is under the legal limit. The lesson: if you know you are close always stall and then demand a blood test.
Only a guilty company would have something to hide--if they were innocent/righteous, they'd consent to being searched, wouldn't they?
At least, that's what the police keep telling me.
The amount of ignorance here is simply **astounding**. The breath alcohol measurement instrument is not a witness. The instrument is a thoroughly tested and vetted measurement device. Do you have the right to subpoena the source code to the radar gun that busted you? Do you have the right so subpoena the source code to the gas chromatograph that shows you were doping? If a MRI system from Siemens shows a bullet within a corpse used as evidence in your murder case, can you subpoena Siemens for their source code? These sorts of challenges are called FRIVOLOUS FISHING EXPIDITIONS. The testimony of hired guns spewing weak opinion as fact about programming metholodgies, interrupt driven event handlers, and whatever other techno babble they can come up with is typically meaningless, prejudicial to jurors and more often than not amounts to made up versions reality. If the program that performs this analysis runs under Mac OS 10, do you have the right to subpoena the source code for the Apple Operating system go before a jury and make claims that an alleged security flaw you found render the breath result invalid? Hogwash. A chemical reaction within a fuel cell produces a voltage. Integrate the voltage over time produced by a fuel cell converting a sample of ethanol to electricity and the integrand is proportional to the volume of ethanol that existed in the fixed sample. The relationship between blood alcohol content and breath alcohol content is based upon the scientific method. The linearity of the measurement device is by design and the result CAN be affected by temperature, pressure, smoke, certain interferants, radio frequency interference, etc., etc. etc. That's why the device, its testing procedures and environment are carefully set up, monitored and documented, its calibration regularly checked and the instrument gets the hell tested out of it across a huge range of conditions to prove its immunity within acceptable operating conditions. Expert testimony can fill in details of the methodologies, technologies and algorithms implemented. But if the instrument is a "witness" then the defense's right to have the source code for the measurement instrument is as strong as their right to know the synaptic bond strengths of every neuron within the brain of the officer that witnessed and testified that the defendant drove into oncoming traffic. There is no such right.
Don't quote me on this but I have been led to beleive that in my country (NZL) breathalysers are not admissable in court anyway. They have been shown to be unreliable -measuring breath in itself, the machine, the software- and are only used as a method of seeing who is worth bloodtesting. I was lead to believe that you can only be convicted on the strength of a blood test that shows your blood alcohol is outside of legal limits. This is why the cops in NZ actually have big busses at breathtesting checkpoints with blood test equipment in them, so they can do it straight away and don't have to let you sober up for the half hour ride to the station.
Despite these stringent rules for proof we manage to convict large numbers of drunk drivers. This verdict is obviously just in this particular legal question but I think another important question is "should a failed breathtest be grounds for conviction at all?"
Why does everyone distrust police equipment?
One time I had a gig in L.A. and was staying in Pasadena.
I did Tequila shots in L.A. all night and had to find my way back to Pasadena at 3 a.m. and was getting lost. I drifted through a stop sign and got pulled over.
I slipped a folded $100 bill with my license when he asked for it. My breathalyzer blew 0.00 that night.
Then he told me to go get some coffee at a convenience store, and gave me directions to my hotel.
I'm a satanic clam.
You're evidently not familiar with the American motto: give'm a fair trial, then string'em up!
I would have to counter your argument with the assumption that any closed source system is of a much higher risk of bugs and malformed logical analysis and therefore these convictions are screwed, no matter which way you look at it.
Next time, release a breathalyzer with open source code that has the rubber stamp of the OSS community, and you'll be far better off.
Continue to do so, and we're convicting DWI people instead of people who used some mouthwash before driving into work.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.