aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Disclose the code!

We should fight for this in every way we can:

Lawyers for 150 Floridians accused of drunk driving have asked a court to order the disclosure of the source code for software running in the breathalyzer machines used by police to analyze their blood alcohol level, according to a Tom Sanders story on vunet.

The defendants say they have the right to examine the machines that accused them, and that a meaningful examination requires access to the machines’ software. Prosecutors say the code is a trade secret.

Felton makes clear that disclosure is only to plaintiff’s attorneys, so the issue is “not about open source, but about ensuring fairness for the accused.”

He answers those who say the manuals have enough of that information by observing that “knowing how the maker says a machine works is a poor substitute for knowing how it actually works.”

I’m with him.

Another area that needs a critical spotlight shined on it is computer forensics, some of which just doesn’t ring true to me.