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People’s freedom jeopardised by new software adopted by California’s courts

bbc.co.uk

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Re: People’s freedom jeopardised by new software adopted by California’s courts

#41

Post by 0xdeadbeefbabe »

CodeMage wrote: post #35
tener wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't put the blame on the developers. Too frequently they are put under huge pressure and cannot say "no" to their managers. There are people which are responsible for delivery, testing and they are paid way more than the average developer. Unlike in engineering, with software you can - and indeed should - test it before deployment in thousands of ways. Finally there is also a receiving party that should ensure they…

I would amend that to "don't put the blame solely on the developers". I've seen way too many developers whose mentality is "ship it, it seems good enough, we'll fix any bugs as we go".

Even bringing developers (or anyone really) into it is like blaming the prisoners for having a dilemma. It's the nature of software that it does not fit inside one person's head, and this leads to problems.

Re: People’s freedom jeopardised by new software adopted by California’s courts

#42

Post by JadeNB »

jdietrich wrote: post #26
noir_lord wrote: post #19

Software is currently in a strange place legislatively, in the 18th century Civil Engineering exploded (sometimes literally) and the number of disasters went up in radically (for an interesting case https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay_Bridge_disaster ), over time professional standards bodies grew alongside the maturing industry to both ensure that people working in the industry where adequately trained and adequately…

We need formal codes of practice, we need good institutions, but we also need a cultural change. We no longer have the luxury of saying "oh, it's just a CRUD app, it doesn't matter if things go wrong". Software has become too important, it has become too deeply intertwined in our daily lives. Errors and leaks from trivial little apps can have life-changing consequences for users. If your software handles personally i…

> If your software handles personally identifying data, there's a non-zero chance that you could ruin someone's life through negligence.

And, at the scale you're discussing, if there is a non-zero chance that this will happen in any given instance, then there is a near-100% chance that it will happen in some instance.

Re: People’s freedom jeopardised by new software adopted by California’s courts

#43

Post by heartbreak »

djsumdog wrote: post #34
pjungwir wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already have a taste of these rules and regulations, for example HIPAA, PCI, and FIPS-140. I'm not saying I disagree with you, but keep in mind that those are all considered quite burdensome, and it's hard to see how that could be different. Also FIPS-140 is a good example of a standard that names specific technologies and so is doomed to lag behind the state of the art. Just be careful what you wish for! But as y…

There are also terrible project management standards like CMMI, which a lot of agencies try to adopt to get government grants. Standards that were designed to increase quality by clearly defining the work, ended up doing neither. The trouble with comparing it to Civil Engineering is you have a bridge. The bridge has plans and you can have other engineers and physicists look at it, do the maths, and figure out if it i…

> But even then, we see things get through as there are talks at hackcons at hacking things like cars, airplanes and biomedical devices.

Food for thought: imagine open-air discussions with proofs of concept of "cracking" critical infrastructure like bridges and dams.

Re: People’s freedom jeopardised by new software adopted by California’s courts

#45

Post by pmontra »

noir_lord wrote: post #19

Software is currently in a strange place legislatively, in the 18th century Civil Engineering exploded (sometimes literally) and the number of disasters went up in radically (for an interesting case https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay_Bridge_disaster ), over time professional standards bodies grew alongside the maturing industry to both ensure that people working in the industry where adequately trained and adequately…

There are cases where this approach would be very welcome. However it probably won't solve the problem of "a cumbersome user interface was causing the time taken to update a record to jump from around one minute to as much as 30 minutes per entry." That's bad design with maybe the collaboration of the customer who didn't understand the problem or pushed/spent enough to fix it. Not different from building a bridge too narrow to make two cars pass at the same time: perfectly safe but not functional enough. Engineer's fault, customer's fault, both? In the case of this software who's going to be sued, the developer or the customer? The customer by the people in jail and maybe the developer by the customer?

However, let's also try to compare the complexity of that software system with the complexity of a bridge. What would be more complex, that Tay Bridge or California's Odyssey? I bet on the latter and I assume that it would cost much more money and time to properly build and test software systems. It's almost only manpower, compared to concrete, steel and wood, but the costs could go up by one order of magnitude compared to what they are now.

If this approach gets mandated it would be a big slow down for every industry needing custom software. It also means we'll only need 1/10th of customers to keep our shops open, the 10% with more money. Goodbye to the small ones.

There will be the equivalent of a construction site manager, but good luck with the bugs that become apparent or are introduced after years of changes to the first accepted delivery of the project. Bridges are much more static than software.

Re: People’s freedom jeopardised by new software adopted by California’s courts

#46

Post by forgotpwtomain »

I don't see why people in the comments are blaming tech company (Tyler Technologies) for this. There was certainly someone over-seeing procurement and specifications for the government and it was their job to make sure that the product which was procured and delivered was functional and ready to roll-out. This person and their department should be held responsible.

Re: People’s freedom jeopardised by new software adopted by California’s courts

#47

Post by mseebach »

tener wrote: post #40
CodeMage wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would amend that to "don't put the blame solely on the developers". I've seen way too many developers whose mentality is "ship it, it seems good enough, we'll fix any bugs as we go".

If the company culture is supporting this attitude, then sure - you will have developers saying that. But it isn't the developers that create that culture. This is something the management is responsible for.

Exactly. This is why bosses make the big bucks. Developers are just code-machines and they will perform poorly or well entirely dependent on their external environment and culture created by their management.

(Oh, it's a one way thing, you say? Bosses are to blame for failure, but devs get credit for successes? Head I win, tails you lose?)

Re: People’s freedom jeopardised by new software adopted by California’s courts

#48

Post by [deleted] »

danso wrote: post #22

> The software, created by Texas-based Tyler Technologies, costs about $5m (£4m) and is set to gradually replace a decades-old e-filing system that looks like something a hacker would use in a Hollywood movie. > Tyler Technologies acknowledged in a statement that the upgrade process had been “challenging” - but said poor training was to blame for bad inputting of data and integration with third-party applications tha…

[deleted]

Re: People’s freedom jeopardised by new software adopted by California’s courts

#50

Post by JumpCrisscross »

If you care about the welfare of your fellow Californians, consider sending a letter to your U.S. Congressperson, your California State Assemblyperson and Senator [1]. Attach this article as an exhibit. Copy your county court.

Then, and this is very important, set a reminder out one week and call each of those people, confirming they received the letter and understand your concerns.

If this is too much, either accept you don't care about the issue (that's fine) or, if you do, that you may have wrong attitudes about how citizen influence works in a democracy.

[1] http://findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov

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