>please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize. (@dang)
On topic, I like this quote from the first page of the opinion:
>A “hash” or “hash value” is “(usually) a short string of characters generated from a much larger string of data (say, an electronic image) using an algorithm—and calculated in a way that makes it highly unlikely another set of data will produce the same value.” United States v. Ackerman, 831 F.3d 1292, 1294 (10th Cir. 2016) (Gorsuch, J.).
It's amusing to me that they use a supreme court case as a reference for what a hash is rather than eg. a textbook. It makes sense when you consider how the court system works but it is amusing nonetheless that the courts have their own body of CS literature.
Maybe someone could publish a "CS for Judges" book that teaches as much CS as possible using only court decisions. That could actually have a real use case when you think of it. (As other commenters pointed out, the hashing definition given here could use a bit more qualification, and should at least differentiate between neural hashes and traditional ones like MD5, especially as it relates to the likeliness that "another set of data will produce the same value." Perhaps that could be an author's note in my "CS for Judges" book.)
> Maybe someone could publish a "CS for Judges" book
At last, a form of civic participation which seems both helpful and exciting to me.
That said, I am worried that lot of necessary content may not be easy to introduce with hard precedent, and direct advice or dicta might somehow (?) not be permitted in a case since it's not adversarial... A new career as a professional expert witness--even on computer topics--sounds rather dreary.
What's so weird about this? CS literature is not legally binding in any way. Of course a judge would rather quote a previous ruling by fellow judge than a textbook, Wikipedia, or similar sources.
From what I understand, a judge is free to decide matters of fact on his own, which could include from a textbook. Also, it is not clear that matters of fact decided by the Supreme Court are binding to lower courts. Additionally, facts and even meanings of words themselves can change, which makes previous findings of fact no longer applicable. That's actually true in this case as well. "Hash" as used in the context of images generally meant something like an MD5 hash (which itself is now more prone to collisions than before). The "hash" in the Google case appears to be a perceptual hash, which I don't think was as commonly used until recently (I could be wrong here). So whatever findings of fact were made by the Supereme Court about how reliable a hash is is not necessarily relevant to begin with. Looking at this specific case, here is the full quote from United States v. Ackerman:
>How does AOL's screening system work? It relies on hash value matching. A hash value is (usually) a short string of characters generated from a much larger string of data (say, an electronic image) using an algorithm—and calculated in a way that makes it highly unlikely another set of data will produce the same value. Some consider a hash value as a sort of digital fingerprint. See Richard P. Salgado, Fourth Amendment Search and the Power of the Hash, 119 Harv. L. Rev. F. 38, 38-40 (2005). AOL's automated filter works by identifying the hash values of images attached to emails sent through its mail servers.[0]
I don't have access to this issue of Harvard Law Review but looking at the first page, it says:
>Hash algorithms are used to confirm that when a copy of data is made, the original is unaltered and the copy is identical, bit-for-bit.[1]
This is clearly referring to a cryptographic hash like MD5, not a perceptual hash/neural hash as in Google. So the actual source here is not necessarily dealing with the same matters of fact as the source of the quote here (although there could be valid comparisons between them).
All this said, judges feel more confident in citing a Supreme Court case than a textbook because 1. it is easier to understand for them 2. the matter of fact is then already tied to a legal matter, instead of the judge having to make that leap himself and also 3. judges are more likely to read relevant case law to begin with since they will read it to find precedent in matters of law – which are binding to lower courts. This is why a "CS for Judges" could be a useful reference book.
Lastly, I should have looked a bit more closely at the quoted case. This is actually not a supreme court case at all. Gorsuch was nominated in 2017 and this case is from 2016.
On topic, I like this quote from the first page of the opinion:
>A “hash” or “hash value” is “(usually) a short string of characters generated from a much larger string of data (say, an electronic image) using an algorithm—and calculated in a way that makes it highly unlikely another set of data will produce the same value.” United States v. Ackerman, 831 F.3d 1292, 1294 (10th Cir. 2016) (Gorsuch, J.).
It's amusing to me that they use a supreme court case as a reference for what a hash is rather than eg. a textbook. It makes sense when you consider how the court system works but it is amusing nonetheless that the courts have their own body of CS literature.
Maybe someone could publish a "CS for Judges" book that teaches as much CS as possible using only court decisions. That could actually have a real use case when you think of it. (As other commenters pointed out, the hashing definition given here could use a bit more qualification, and should at least differentiate between neural hashes and traditional ones like MD5, especially as it relates to the likeliness that "another set of data will produce the same value." Perhaps that could be an author's note in my "CS for Judges" book.)