Legal reliability in large-scale distributed systems

Author

Sommer, Peter

Author_Institution

Comput. Security Res. Centre, London Sch. of Econ. & Political Sci., UK

fYear

1998

fDate

20-23 Oct 1998

Firstpage

416

Lastpage

421

Abstract

The “legal reliability” of an information system is the extent to which it is able to produce robust evidence upon which legal proceedings can be based. As such it is an essential feature of all information systems operating in the commercial and social domain. The legal test of reliability is not scientific proof or extent of assessment of quality of engineering but compliance with admissibility rules and demonstration of weight of evidence before a court. The gap between regular computer industry methods of achieving reliability and the approaches of the courts is explained. Adjustment in system development methodologies to encompass “legal reliability” are discussed. Finally it is suggested that “legal reliability” provides a new and useful determinant in the information security agenda

Keywords

information systems; legislation; security of data; admissibility rule compliance; commercial domain; courts; evidence weight; information security; large-scale distributed systems; legal proceedings; legal reliability; robust evidence; social domain; system development methodologies; Computer industry; Computer security; Information security; Information systems; Large-scale systems; Law enforcement; Legal factors; Reliability engineering; Robustness; Testing;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Reliable Distributed Systems, 1998. Proceedings. Seventeenth IEEE Symposium on

Conference_Location

West Lafayette, IN

ISSN

1060-9857

Print_ISBN

0-8186-9218-9

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/RELDIS.1998.740534

Filename

740534