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Comment by wonkaWonka | Hacker News Reader

The real problem here is that the legal system, under which many sophisticated laws are prosecuted, is under the stewardship of a lot of common, everyday people of middling intellect.

So, yeah, browsing history possesses all the legal integrity of pocket litter and fast food receipts, and who's to say which information on a typical consumer-class hard drive constitutes a forgery contaminated by trojans and rootkits, versus what is actual legitimate forensic evidence, but that doesn't stop zealous prosecutors and judges from placing this sort of evidence in front of bored, apathetic juries, serving jury duty, because their name came up on the list after getting a traffic ticket.

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> who's to say which information on a typical consumer-class hard drive constitutes a forgery contaminated by trojans and rootkits

If only we had some sort of system where two legal experts argued this in front of a neutral third party, possibly calling in technical experts as needed. If only.

If only that didn't require expertise, both on the part of the defendant and the defense team, who both probably struggle at keeping their e-mail clients properly configured.

You do understand that it's quite the common perception, outside the technical field, that computer evidence is nigh-infallible, nearly on the level of DNA evidence. So much that, once brought into context, it's pretty much believed as iron-clad evidence by non-technical people.

Unlike so much other relatively new law, this satisfies mens rea, "the guilty mind" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea) so I can't say I have problems with it. Heck, it echoes a favorite Proverb, the start of 28:

The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion.

If I were to realize a (now very much ex-)friend had just maimed and murdered a bunch of people, my first thought would not be to dispose of evidence.

I delete my browser history often enough, but each instance is not evidence that I believe I've committed any crime.

Do browsers actually log when you delete history? Is there any record or log beyond traces on the filesystem?

I don't think so, but an empty history, or a history consisting solely of access over the past few days, might be taken as evidence that it was wiped.

So what? I might delete it just for my own convenience. (BTW, it's irrelevant if somebody does so, but if you are curious: I actually do. The reason is it is much simpler to search for something in the cache/history when it's small.) There's no reason whatsoever to think that I'm hiding something. I mean, if I was an investigator, I surely would pay attention to that, but I cannot (or shouldn't be able to) treat absence of evidence as evidence of "hiding something". No evidence is no evidence and nothing more.

> my first thought would not be to dispose of evidence.

Which is exactly why I might delete my browsing history as I occasionally do without realizing that I was disposing of "evidence".

Were it my first thought, I suspect my second thought would be "that's a terrible idea" - and my third to buy another computer, lest my daily, innocuous, use of it be cast as any form of evidence tampering.

I guess if you have no fear of recrimination or are a sociopath you can be confident in your righteousness? Sounds about right. The great thing is that people with your attitude get caught up in stings just the same as those who have mens rea. Police don't look at evidence and think "here's a guy/gal with nothing to hide", they think "here is someone we can charge".

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