[gamblor956]

Unless the article left something out, the only possible evidence they had was the wrong username.

It did. The evidence against him were the messages sent to the girl and the unusual username. It's not like it was John_Smith. It was fairly unique.

They couldn't even find evidence that this person used Kik at the time of the crime.

The lack of digital evidence is not proof of innocence. It's not proof of anything either way.

the wrong username

It's very likely the extra underscore was simply glossed over, the way a double space is glossed over. Lawyers aren't generally known for their grasp of computer technology. The lawyer probably saw this a hundred times, thought it was a typo on the subpoena, and didn't put two-and-two together to realize that it was material. After all, the employee at the website could have made the same error but in reverse; assuming that the double underscore was a typo. It's not on the judge, as the judge doesn't go through every piece of evidence checking all the typos; they take the evidence at face value and evaluate its probative value.

[oersted]

It’s not an unusual username, it is actually quite unoriginal, there are probably thousands of users with variations of the same name.

It is the name of the headline magic ability in Skyrim, which is probably among the top ten most popular videogames of the last 25 years.

[ButlerianJihad]

Since the introduction of the Skyrim game in 2011, UrbanDictionary has also indicated that the specific phrase is a term for fellatio. Just sayin'

[account42]

UrbanDictionary has a lot of terms that are maybe used by one friend group who thought it would be funny to add it to the site.

[dzhiurgis]

Wonder if there are expert witnesses in videogame niche. I have no idea what you are talking about.

[oersted]

I understand that certain segments of the population have remained completely disassociated from videogames, and that's fine, but that doesn't make it a niche or an expert topic.

Games make significantly more money than movies and TV now. More than 65M people bought Skyrim, and many more millions would recognise Fus-Ro-Dah just from spending time on the Internet anywhere near to gaming circles.

The defendant could have told their lawyer and it would have been trivial to research and demonstrate. Not sure what went wrong there.

[dzhiurgis]

> Games make significantly more money than movies and TV now

Don't wanna accuse you of anything, but why would you assume thats an important metric for HN populace. I assume most people here don't own a TV to begin with (personal projection obvs).

[account42]

In $current_year you can watch movies and TV shows without owning a TV.

[dafelst]

It's a proxy for reach, which is what GP is talking about.

[bryanrasmussen]

I have not idea either, other than I understand it is a common text from a really popular video game. Why wouldn't variations of that be a really common username?

[DoctorOetker]

oh no please no, not videogame experts in court...

just be sane and force any Cyber attribution link in testimony to present in standardized form (with reference to find explanation) Damerau-Lehvenstein edit distance histogram, cumulative distribution, etc.

So that all parties (defendant & lawyers, plaintif & lawyers, judge or if applicable also jury) can trivially read and interpret the data:

On this platform we also have 4 users exactly 1 edit away, 15 users exactly 2 edits away,... On this platform we thus also have 4 other users 1 or fewer edits away, 19 users 2 or fewer edits away, ...

And I assure you Klayme or whomever would have read this part of the testimony over and over, and pushing his lawyers towards the right questions, that is if they allow themselves to work in the interest of their client, which usually they refuse to do, and just submit straw-man arguments intentionally because everybody wants to go home or have shorter workdays so prosecution and defense lawyers just pre-judge how the cookie should be crumbled, and then nobody has to read anything...

[imtringued]

If you knew anything about the Skyrim community you would know that it is one of the most generic names possible on the level of John_Smith, possibly even more generic.

It is kind of like naming yourself after a meme or "lol".

[xigoi]

> The lack of digital evidence is not proof of innocence.

A claim made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

[jibal]

> It was fairly unique.

Wrong.

And in any case, if they had looked at the message history of the account name that they used to track him down and that was entered into evidence at the trial, they would not have found any criminal messages.

> The lack of digital evidence is not proof of innocence.

Misplaced burden of proof.

> Lawyers aren't generally known for their grasp of computer technology.

Good lawyers are known for mastering the relevant details of a wide range of subjects.