This was really well written in "What color are your bits": https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23

Programmers have trouble seeing color (two identical numbers are the same bits, how can typing '1234' to unlock one phone be legal, and '1234' to unlock another phone be illegal?)

Courts care about color (intent, provenance, permission), even though that color cannot be digitally represented.

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abofh 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Indeed, but should he say his real code was one digit swap off, could you prove intent? Color matters, but you can't paint with only one

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CJefferson 9 hours ago | parent [-]

This is where 'reasonable doubt' comes in from a jury. Would I believe that someone set up a 'wipe my phone' code, something that would be catastrophic, it was one digit different, and they accidentally typed it, or would I think they were trying to wipe their phone.

Honestly, given what I know here (a full case might be different), I would believe they did it on purpose.

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sReinwald 8 hours ago | parent [-]

Framing this as whether he can convince you the mistype was accidental gets it backwards, and "would I believe X or would I think Y" is preponderance, not reasonable doubt - entirely different standard. Reasonable doubt doesn't ask which account you find more likely. It asks whether the innocent one is unreasonable.

Take the hypothetical as posed: duress code one digit off, entered while detained after being interrogated for hours, and repeatedly pressured to unlock. The government has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he knowingly triggered the wipe and did it for the purpose of impairing the seizure. Nothing about that scenario makes mistyping an unreasonable explanation unless there is more circumstantial evidence that indicates him intentionally providing the wrong PIN.

Proving that to a jury looks very hard.

	▲	yorwba 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The scenario itself is unreasonable.

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kmeisthax 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

"Color" absolutely can be represented digitally; C compilers were doing it before we even knew they were doing it. We just like getting away with shit. It's part of the hacker ethos. Probably.

	▲	TheDong 10 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Not all color can be represented digitally. Is a piece of software subject to patents? Is it export controlled? Both of those can change without the data changing at all. A new patent can be applied for and accepted, at which point all code the patent description matches is potentially encumbered (even if it was written with no knowledge of the patent or before the patent existed, yes our patent system sucks). Export controlled is also a matter of laws, not an attribute of the data itself, and laws change independent of data.
	▲	Brian_K_White 8 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		You've just merely exhibited the symptom of being blind to all the colors which cannot be represented, not proven or shown that there are none. All of a things properties are not contained in or expressed by the thing itself.