[time-nuts] sub-minute time-precision in court-case

[Tom Van Baak]

> Nowhere does the opinion mention if the timestamps were taken on
> the same clock or if the two clocks were synchronized.

PHK,

Correct. This is an age-old problem, whether its minutes or nanoseconds. Time-stamps are inherently relative to a local oscillator's time and rate offset, and affected by frequency drift and stability levels.

A solution to this problem is for the "first responder" to take the cell phone(s) and simultaneously send a text message to himself from each phone. That could help establish a legal time difference (unless, there are variable reception or carrier-specific delays).

They could also simultaneously send cell phone photos of a handheld GPS receiver's time display. That could help establish a legal time accuracy question (unless, the cell phone or GPS receiver were in some sort of hold-over mode).

For extra credit, further photos can be sent each hour for hours or days to determine the cell phone frequency drift and stability parameters.

Then again, realize that a jury of your fellow citizens, not a jury of your "peers", will decide the question of timing. Thus to raise technical issues like syntonization vs. synchronization, or standard vs. Allan deviation, or GPS vs. UTC clocks will probably not help your case.

/tvb