In general, defense attorneys who have used the software are not inherently opposed to it:
1. most cases are about sms text contents and timestamps. these can be externally validated from the phones themselves, other software, or from having both sides of the conversation
2. other data, like location, is less certain, needs to be validated, and there are debates about what the evidence means,
3. Cellebrite software is available to people who pay for it on both sides and their training videos encourage LEO to actually go out and validate the results they see. the constantly changing cat and mouse nature of cellphone extraction and parsing requires double checking and validation. this is the big issue. LEO generally have no tech skills and are just armchair phone extractors. they do not validate the data. that is a problem, but not the tool itself.
Criminal defense attorney, hobbyist programmer. I like keeping up on the tech, but agree about the funny takes on social issues/law/diet/etc . . . that come up here from time to time!
1. most cases are about sms text contents and timestamps. these can be externally validated from the phones themselves, other software, or from having both sides of the conversation
2. other data, like location, is less certain, needs to be validated, and there are debates about what the evidence means,
3. Cellebrite software is available to people who pay for it on both sides and their training videos encourage LEO to actually go out and validate the results they see. the constantly changing cat and mouse nature of cellphone extraction and parsing requires double checking and validation. this is the big issue. LEO generally have no tech skills and are just armchair phone extractors. they do not validate the data. that is a problem, but not the tool itself.