[jojobas]

A judge that has no reasonable doubt with this sort of evidence has no business being a judge.

We don't know what defense did in this trial but not picking up on the username mismatch and the assumed non-challenge of the evidence is telling as well.

[anigbrowl]

In an adversarial system (which the US and Canada and UK are), the judge is not supposed to challenge evidence unless it's glaringly, obviously adrift from reality. That's the job of the defense lawyer. In civil law systems the roles of the judge and prosecutor are combined and responsility for bad decisions is distributed differently.

[DoctorOetker]

a simple law could mandate that attribution chains presented as evidence (by either party) MUST recursively include a header reminding everyone about this law (so that ALL defendant, plaintif, their lawyers and the judge & jury if applicable), the law being for example:

1) the username must be introduced as " the <N>-character user name <username> at the <M>-character online platform <platform> ..." along with a cryptographic hash of the concatenation, of user name, service name, ... so that any alteration is easily noticed.

2) a histogram of usernames binned by Damerau-Levenstein edit distance, along with a tabular cumulative count so that everyone can comfortably read off how many other but similar user names this platform has less than 1 edit away, less than 2 edits away, less than 3 edits away etc...

3) the law should introduce a bet between law enforcement and corporations: upon being requested for the other half of a forensic link (say an IP address, or an email address, ...), it must demand the exact number of characters, it must provide a list or at least a cumulative count of user names less than N edits away. if they are ever caught violating user privacy they owe money to the state, the individual, ... even if law enforcement demanded out of band cooperation. The corporation should financially feel the risk of prosecution / police making invalid requests, so they have an incentive to technologically think ahead of the police and their sloppy work.

> In an adversarial system (which the US and Canada and UK are), the judge is not supposed to challenge evidence unless it's glaringly, obviously adrift from reality.

So regardless of common law vs civil law systems, one could devise laws such that this type of errors could be made glaringly clear to anyone involved, by law.

It's not like the first time humanity is confronted with misattribution. If a phenomenon has a word, its typically been happening for a long time. If the laws haven't been adjusted to learn from mistakes, it's not because they don't want to learn, but because they want to not learn.

[jojobas]

The prosecution must still present evidence that proves guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

"Something something IP address" sort of evidence that the article describes doesn't seem to cut it.

[anigbrowl]

Indeed, but it's up to the defense to articulate what the basis of that doubt is. If you read jury instructions, they typically tell the jurors to only base their decision on the information presented in the courtroom and to set aside their own intuitions, prior life experience etc.

Now this isn't universal; I've seen judges that encourage the jury to ask questions in open court (by submitting as notes to the judge who reads them out), for example. But that's very unusual. Judges who make a habit of questioning submitted evidence are likely to have their rulings challenged far more often and be accused of bias, even if they are superb jurists. And high status in the legal world goes to appellate judges whose rulings set legal precedent. Trial judges do get cool points for calling out bad lawyering and writing spicy opinions but this can also be a career anchor.

We are encouraged by civics classes and media to believe in courts as truth-finding institutions, but the reality is that most of the time they are engaged in argument-scoring. Even to the extent that they do pursue truth via the appellate process, it doesn't happen in a timely fashion. There's saying that the wheels of justice grind slowly, but they grind exceeding fine, which goes back to the Roman empire: so you're looking at an institution that is historically so confident in its process that it has become divorced from any sense of urgency in its application.

[jojobas]

It's not even about asking questions, the judge is allowed just listen to the prosecution case and acquit without requesting any elaboration, or even challenge by the defense, isn't he? The prosecution didn't meet "no reasonable doubt" even before the defense started.

[anigbrowl]

It's not my fault that the legal system does not work the way you wish it did. Maybe stop arguing with me and write earnest letters to the Supreme Court instead.

[voakbasda]

Is that the standard for evidence in Canada?

[irishcoffee]

I am curious if you’ve ever met a judge. Every single one I’ve known was a giant, arrogant, jackass. They aren’t actually (generally) interested in being good at their job, they just like the idea.