I'm not sure what you're quoting, Todd, and I'd love to know, but according to Kerr pg. 2, last complete paragraph at the bottom of the page: "However, the fact that a computer, rather than a human being, has created the record alters the evidentiary issues that the computer-generated records present. See, eg. 2 J. Strong, McCormick on Evidence 294, at 286 (4th ed. 1992). The evidentiary issue is no longer whether a human's out of court statement was truthful and accurate (a question of hearsay), but instead whether the computer program that generated the record was functioning properly (a question of authenticity). --> followed by more legal citations So in most cases, if we're talking about purely machine- generated logs, where there's no evidence of tampering, the data is >not< considered hearsay and can be admitted as evidence into court. It is also worth pointing out, as a reader did off-line this morning, that paper, chemical tests, and all sorts of other forensic results can also be tampered with, and have their reliability questioned. So I remain unclear on whether or not computer logs are intrinsicly any more unreliable than other types of forensic data. Yours in multiple negatives -- tbird On Tue, 18 Dec 2001, todd glassey wrote: > ThunderGal - Tina > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Tina Bird" <tbird@precision-guesswork.com> > To: "Bill Spernow" <bill.spernowat_private> > Cc: "'jamie rishaw'" <jrishawat_private>; "'Log Analysis Mailing List'" > <loganalysisat_private> > Sent: Monday, December 17, 2001 8:32 AM > Subject: RE: [logs] Data for Court > > > > Logs do >not< fall under the hearsay exception unless they > > contain data manually entered by a human. According to the > > Justice Department report I quoted, hearsay is specifically > > designed as information provided by a person, not information > > automatically generated by a machine -- so different rules > > apply. > > "Hear-say is any evidence that cannot be directly substantiated by first > hand testimony." I.e. evidence that one "potentially not credible source" > would enter into the record. Up until now it has been tradtionally human > generated or rendered but... > > As to why Computer Testimony is Hear-Say - Computers have exactly this same > problem especially with Ethernet interconnects. The problem is that the > Courts do not know how to audit these systems and becuase of that are making > all sorts of funny decisions at the lower offices of the court that are > being refuted at appeal. > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: loganalysis-unsubscribeat_private For additional commands, e-mail: loganalysis-helpat_private
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Dec 18 2001 - 16:51:49 PST