
Federal Judge Unseals New York Crime Lab’s Software for Analyzing DNA Evidence - kensai
https://www.propublica.org/article/federal-judge-unseals-new-york-crime-labs-software-for-analyzing-dna-evidence
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Alex3917
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15518364](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15518364)

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coldcode
Reading the expert opinion it appears that FST did not use (or that there was
no evidence given for one) a source code repository, thus it is impossible to
identify how the source code changed behavior between the original analysis
and that done with the given source code. I wonder if they did this to avoid
keeping a change log useful in discovery.

~~~
slaymaker1907
That's kind of like discovering that a building's blueprints consist of some
doodles on a napkin.

If I were the plaintiff, I would argue that not using a VCS completely removes
all credibility of that software and company.

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cratermoon
Source on github: [https://github.com/propublica/nyc-dna-
software](https://github.com/propublica/nyc-dna-software)

I wonder if the username/password listed here is still in production:
[https://github.com/propublica/nyc-dna-
software/blob/master/F...](https://github.com/propublica/nyc-dna-
software/blob/master/FST.Web/FST_Production_Service/Connection.txt)

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NotSammyHagar
This should be a good reminder that the only way we can have safe and just
criminal courts is that the evidence, techniques and technology used by
experts and prosecution are public and reviewable. Whether it's the software
that a dui measuring blood alchohol system uses, how they analyze your dna, it
all needs to be public so we can measure things. I keep reading cases about
how poor people get accussed of a crime and the "evidence" against them can't
be understood or defended against because it's coming from unassailable
experts with mystical skills.

A recent example I read about is the police trained to detect people high on
drugs, where there is no real evidence behind the training and many known
cases of false accusation, [http://reason.com/blog/2017/05/12/georgia-pd-our-
drug-recogn...](http://reason.com/blog/2017/05/12/georgia-pd-our-drug-
recognition-experts). Most of us fortunate to work in the technology world
have money and access to lawyers who can defend against such accusations, but
poor people don't have that.

I am not a cop but I know it must be incredibly hard to be one, and
frustrating to see people get off of on technicalities. But poor l.e.
practices must be prevented so we can have trust in the system.

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rudedogg
I wouldn't bet my life or anyone elses on this code being correct
[https://github.com/propublica/nyc-dna-
software/blob/master/F...](https://github.com/propublica/nyc-dna-
software/blob/master/FST.Common/Comparison.cs)

