Software and methods supporting legal proceedings

Software-based tools are often used to collect evidence for court proceedings. Some are well-tested and commercially available. Others are not. Over the last fifteen years, tens of thousands of lawsuits claiming copyright infringement using BitTorrent networks have been brought by media companies. The software-based tools used to report copyright infringement are not commercially available, not qualified by third parties, yet promoted as forensic tools. Explained is how wrongfully accused users are harmed; how Daubert [6] addresses admissibility of evidence; how BitTorrent seeders share infringing movies in pieces with peers; how such BitTorrent monitoring software collects pieces of movies from IP addresses; and why IP addresses do not distinguish infringers from non-infringers. The tools collect only a few pieces of movies from targeted IP addresses, while no pieces are collected from seeders holding infringing copies. The methods speculate about infringement rather than definitively collecting complete playable copies for validation. The software does not overcome critical failure modes including abandonment, pieceunavailability, space-depletion, and choking. Explained is how repeatability and reproducibility testing, completeness, playability, transaction validation, and audio-visual matching yield verifiably reliable software and infringement reporting for acceptance in software engineering and forensics communities. Using unreliable software for forensics purposes is malpractice.

Kal Toth

Kal Toth has authored several conference and journal papers on digital identity and published four US patents in this field. He is currently refining a proof-of-concept prototype for self-sovereign digital identity. He also provides technical expertise to law offices defending individuals claimed to have used BitTorrent to infringe digital media copyrights. Kal has technical and management experience working for Hughes Aircraft, Datalink Systems Corp., the CGI Group Inc., the Software Productivity Centre (BC), Intellitech Canada (Ottawa), and various Canadian federal departments including Defence, Transport, Revenue, External Affairs, and Communications Canada, and the Canadian Communications Security Establishment.  He is former Executive Director of the Oregon Master of Software Engineering (OMSE) program, and Associate professor delivering a range of software engineering and project management courses to working professionals in Oregon and several Canadian universities. He obtained his Ph.D. in computer systems and electrical engineering from Carleton University (Ottawa) and is a registered professional engineer with a software engineering designation in British Columbia.

Don't miss Kal's other PNSQC 2024 contribution, a technical paper, and presentation titled 'Agent-Based Digital Identity Architecture', featured in the AI and Emerging Technologies track.