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The Machine Fired Me

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Re: The Machine Fired Me

#91

Post by bhtru »

crooked-v wrote: post #54
terlisimo wrote: post #18

I had a sort-of related experience with PayPal where the machine said "No." I've been using it for at least 10 years at that point. What I did was try to pay for some cheap VPS hosting in Italy. The transaction was denied. I thought there was some problem with my CC, so I immediately tried to do a $1 transaction with some other company and it went without a hitch. So I contacted PayPal support about it and the next d…

> and for security reasons we're unable to offer further details To give a little behind-the-scenes here, I worked for a bit for a web hosting company that had this as standard policy. This was because, before it was put in place, scammers would actually use coordinated campaigns of support calls with otherwise legitimate accounts in order to extract piecemeal details about how the company's fraud investigations work…

This was how Simplii and BMO (two Canadian banks) were hacked earlier this year.

> The hackers explained that they were able to breach the banks’ sub-par security by using an algorithm to generate account numbers and then posing as customers who had forgotten their passwords.

“They were giving too much permission to half-authenticated account which enabled us to grab all these information,” the email said, adding that the system “was not checking if a password was valid until the security question were input correctly.”

Source: https://www.ccn.com/hackers-demand-1-million-in-xrp-after-br...

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#92

Post by inimino »

krapp wrote: post #83
inimino wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The system did exactly what it was intended to do, it was the humans who screwed up. It was the humans who designed and who chose to deploy a system without a human in the loop, and without an override (even after a director was involved) that screwed up.

Maybe, but the humans who didn't renew his employment status knew how the system worked. They screwed up more.

They screwed up, but that happens. The point where the system takes over and even the higher-ups can't override it is where the story becomes Kafka-esque.

If you build an automation system that goes out of human control after a human error, that is a failed design.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#94

Post by vkou »

pbh101 wrote: post #85
sonnyblarney wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Financial fraud prevention gambits are complicated. It may be possible that PP thought someone else was using your account. What should happen in these scenarios is simply a validation of some kind ie payment only goes through if you click on the email your received. I used to travel to SF from Canada a lot and my bank would block my Visa even though I told them not to. In the US there's no password in Visas, i.e. no…

The US largely migrated to chip and signature in 2015. I think a large majority of credit card uses today are chip in the US because the issuers quickly sent out chip cards, most terminals got updated to use them, and swipe is rejected often if chip is available. To be clear, this is chip (and sometimes signature for large purchases) but not chip-and-pin, so the original statement of no passwords generally holds true…

> swipe is rejected often if chip is available.

It's the other way around. If you try the chip 3+ times, and it doesn't work, you can swipe the card, and the swipe transaction will work.

When the more secure method fails, it falls back to the less secure one. It's lunacy.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#95

Post by vkou »

mcbridematt wrote: post #88
jiaweihli wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard nothing but bad things about PayPal and how they often hold your own money hostage. Why don't people switch to alternatives? Are there no good ones?

Bitcoin was floated as a solution for people who were wronged by PayPal and the banks, before the speculators moved in.

Bitcoin shifts all the counterparty risk to the buyer. PayPal shifts most of the counterparty risk to the seller.

As a buyer, I don't care for that feature of Bitcoin.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#96

Post by rhacker »

It makes sense that the HR IT industry would have some of the worst software developers. It seems obvious to me at least that you can't rely on first name + last name to make a match, and if you do, you have to write code that fails if there are multiple users with such a combination, as well as falling back on soundex or double or triple metaphone as well as nickname support. Second, the screens involved in termination should display warnings if multiple employees have similar names and departments, etc...

I've been in health IT for the last 15ish years so I know a lot about patient matching (wrote at least 4 patient matching MPIs in my time at different companies).. so maybe it's just my perspective..

However, that all being said, almost all processes like this are NOT automated, but instead handled by automated emails telling people to do operations. You're basically then subject to the lowest common denominator logic of people in IT that are in charge of disabling accounts- with no regard or care about who the person is.

Anyway to the person that got fired like this - just be happy you are out of the environment - it is not for you. There are signs in life.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#97

Post by TimTheTinker »

Analemma_ wrote: post #90
TimTheTinker wrote: post #12

I doubt all business management software is this inflexible (never heard anyone complain about SAP "taking over"). Anyone have any idea which software product/service this may have been?

No way to say without the author chiming in, but it sounds like a bespoke system consisting of totally unrelated modules (payroll, security, Jira) hooked up, badly, with in-house scripts. This is the case at a large number of companies. As you say, all-in-one systems have their drawbacks, but usually at least can handle situations like this. But piles of shell scrips to make unrelated systems talk to each other often…

> But piles of shell scrips to make unrelated systems talk to each other often lack error handling and rollback.

Sounds like the same sorts of problems you'd get with an enterprise service bus (ESB). Glad those have fallen out of favor for good :)

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#98

Post by madeofpalk »

MBCook wrote: post #42
newest_user_ wrote: post #5

I read it and still don't really understand why there was no one administrating the system. Who could have stopped the system (with the appropriate emails to cover their ass). I also do not understand why a check couldn't be cut. Submit to accounts payable with an email approval?

That’s what I was thinking. If you had a contract and your manager was saying you were supposed to be working… Why not sue for the three weeks of pay that they illegitimately kept you from earning?

Because lawsuits are hard? Seeing a "why not sue" as a response is very "typical American" for outsiders.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#99

Post by crooked-v »

krapp wrote: post #56
newest_user_ wrote: post #5

I read it and still don't really understand why there was no one administrating the system. Who could have stopped the system (with the appropriate emails to cover their ass). I also do not understand why a check couldn't be cut. Submit to accounts payable with an email approval?

The system didn't need to be stopped. The employee's contract wasn't renewed, which is indistinguishable from a decision terminate him, so the system executed the termination as scheduled. The system did exactly what it was intended to do, it was the humans who screwed up. Humans who presumably understood the way the system was designed, and didn't care enough to do some due diligence. >I also do not understand why a…

> He was fired. It doesn't matter that people didn't intend for him to be, he was, it went through the system, it was a done deal. Paying people not in your employ is fraud, even under the best of intentions.

Somebody who is in your building, is doing work under your direction, and has not been told they are fired hasn't been fired. A judge in court for the lost wages would laugh you out of the room if you tried a "well but actually, the system..." argument in that situation.

Re: The Machine Fired Me

#100

Post by madeofpalk »

krapp wrote: post #69
ashelmire wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>He was fired. It doesn't matter that people didn't intend for him to be, he was, it went through the system, it was a done deal. Paying people not in your employ is fraud, even under the best of intentions. There's basically a certainty that it was a violation of his contract and company policies that made it not legally sound. A company can also pay whoever it wants for any reason.

IANAL so I might be wrong, but if they terminated his contract, I would assume they can't still legally pay him as if they hadn't. Of course, he's also well within his rights to sue over it.

He's a contractor, so can't he just submit an invoice and receive a payment? Or does 'contractor' mean something different in the US?

If he missed out on pay then it's because no one cared enough/someone didn't care enough to sort it out.

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