Is This Expert Testimony?
I have been following the trial of Mark Jensen. Jensen is charged with the murder of his wife, Julie, by poisoning with ethylene glycol or by suffocation. One of the State’s witnesses has changed his cause of death from the former to the latter.
A news report detailing testimony from a computer expert on 7 February, 2008, got my attention. Martin Koch testified for the State and demonstrated how he knew that Jensen was searching for ethylene glycol.
According to the article, Koch claimed that if a link changed color on mouse over (or hover) that meant the link was followed by a user. That is incorrect.
First be aware, that there is no requirement that anything change color. The color change and state attributes are up to the web designer. These can usually be altered by the browser if someone has created a special cascading style sheet (CSS) for the user machine and browser.
There are generally accepted standards that are used to program the link colors. Many designers adhere to these.
A link is blue, unless the mouse pointer hovers over the link, or the link is clicked. The mouse over or the hover can change color or perhaps underline the link. When the mouse leaves the link, it returns to blue. Not all designs use this feature, but keep the blue color.
A followed link will usually take a different color as a hint to the user. This can be violet, a lighter shade of blue, et‑cetera. The followed link can be underlined if desired. However, I have visited web sites that only use the hover attribute.
According to Koch, the hover attribute was proof that the link was followed. That, of course, is false. If anything would show a followed link, it is the state change after the link is clicked.
With my websites, The hover is green and the followed is red. I looked at Yahoo and noted no change in link appearance on hover or followed. With Google, there was no change on hover but, the color changed to violet on followed.
Koch also demonstrated that it took eight steps to delete the internet history. I deleted mine with two clicks. And, the followed link colors returned to their not followed state. Further, if one sets their history size to zero or time to one day, then the history will clear itself with no intervention.
Also, browsers can dump private data at the end of a session.
Koch testified that he knew that the history on the computer from the Jensen home had been cleared at least four times. On my machine, there is no log of when I dump the history or even cookies.
I use a Macintosh running OS 10.4x and my experience is much different than what the expert witness testified to.
If the links showed signs of followed then that means someone clicked them within the time period set for history in preferences or number of days set in preferences, then the conclusion is valid that someone followed the links. However, a change in the mouse over or hover is not evidence of a followed link.
by Brian McCorkle
in category Criminal Justice,Seeking Perspective
