A group of more than 150 defendants accused of driving under the influence of alcohol are asking a judge to give them the source code of the device that police used to prove their guilt.
The more I think about this, the more it makes sense. A computer does a calculation and tells me I'm guilty (of being drunk). But who says that the computer is right? As long as computer programmes have bugs, there is a chance that they will cause me to get wrongly convicted.
The DUI case is real, and will come before panel of Florida judges this Friday.
But surely the state of Florida has certified these Intoxilyzer 5000 machines?
Yes, back in 1993 they have. The manufacturer, CMI (with the great URL for the website: Alcoholtest.com has since made changes to both the hardware and the software.
In once case the company even shipped the device with a bug and had to recall it. The bug was rather obvious: it takes two breath samples. If the results of those aren't within the same range, it will tell the officer to take a third sample. But in this case the application was challenging correct samples and didn't challenge incorrect ones. So don't say that the machine can't have bugs. It gets even more fun. Theoretically a judge could force CMI to open the application's source code, but this is highly unlikely. The company, which refuses to discuss the case, instead claims that the software code for the 25-year-old device is a trade secret. Never mind that the actually application is less than 24 kilobytes in size (yes, kB) and still runs on a z80 processors that were introduced in 1976.
It seems that there are plenty of reasons for the defendants that justify taking a closer look at the course code for this device. And if pervious rulings are any guideline, they have a pretty good chance that their request will be honoured.
While the ancient technology being used gives you a feeling of the 'state of the art factor' of these trade secrets, it also indicates that this case will only have a limited impact acting as a presedent.
But just for the sake of it,, let's think what other applications have closed source codes and could cause harm to individuals?.? Oh wait, I'll make this one easy: which application doesn't?
Speed detection lasers, credit card transaction software, software with utility companies that calculates you monthly phone and gas bill would just be a few examples. Wonder how far we can take this.
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