The order being made at all is what I'm most concerned about. This is an important case about technology with a judge that demonstrably does not understand technology. Perfect recipe for a lose-lose situation.
First, we're probably hyperventilating about the extent to which this request was nonsensical. It could have been an oversight on the judge's part, or there could have been a rationale behind the request that simply didn't turn out to be reasonable in hindsight. We may never know, because the judge (properly) conceded the point quickly.
Second, it is not the job of a judge to "understand technology". We may not even want judges that are specifically steeped in technical knowledge. What we need them to be is fair arbiters of the law and of the ways the law allows facts to be introduced into evidence.
Surely in a case which revolves around technology like this it's reasonable to expect the judge to have some technical knowledge? The job of a judge is to interpret the law as it applies to a particular case; if they have no knowledge of the context in which the case has arisen they could very well come up with a bad/nonsense interpretation.
