Anyone have more technical detail on the software or the bugs therein?
UK court clears post office staff convicted due to ‘corrupt data’
21–30 of 291 posts
Re: UK court clears post office staff convicted due to ‘corrupt data’
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
One nitpick: Royal Mail and Post Office are two separate companies with independent boards. Royal Mail is the network and carrier, while the Post Office is the primary entry point into that network (they also offer access to a bunch of other services not related to the Royal Mail). Doesn't make your point any less valid, but wanted to call out the distinction.
Sounds like the kind of bullshit BT and OpenReach pull too. Claim to be two unrelated companies and yet one owns parts of the other and the same boards run both - all so they can pass customer problems between the two I definitely.
I'm honestly surprised anyone complains about that split - it was introduced specifically so that BT wouldn't control the entire telecom infrastructure in this country, and OpenReach was formed to provide equal access to all operators - BT being only one of them. This is an extremely good solution to what used to be a massive inequality problem previously. So no, BT and Openreach aren't split for some bullshit reason, they were ordered by the court to split in order to protect consumer rights and increase competition, goals which were overwhelmingly achieved due to that split.
And yes, the negative side is that every time something goes wrong, BT really can't fix it any faster, it's all down to OpenReach to maintain the network. But on the other hand, it always goes through OpenReach, whether you are with TalkTalk, BT or Sky, so the entity responsible for maintaing the network isn't the entity selling you broadband for home.
Re: UK court clears post office staff convicted due to ‘corrupt data’
#23The company I work for ships hundreds of packages through RM. The RM tech I've seen is a mess. Makes me wonder what it's like behind the scenes. Just one lowlight I've come across, this comment can be found in the HTML for one of their portals:
I think you're possibly confusing the Royal Mail with the Post Office, there. You're talking about the Royal Mail. This article is about the Post Office.
Re: UK court clears post office staff convicted due to ‘corrupt data’
#24This is unreal. Shitty software sending people to prison without anyone in the process considering what exactly is the likelihood of hundreds of postmasters simultaneously becoming thieves overnight.
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Re: UK court clears post office staff convicted due to ‘corrupt data’
#25This is unreal. Shitty software sending people to prison without anyone in the process considering what exactly is the likelihood of hundreds of postmasters simultaneously becoming thieves overnight.
Yeah, this is the part I'm having trouble understanding. A few people, sure. But all these postal workers committing fraud, with many insisting there must be something wrong with the software? How did this not get discovered before they were all convicted and sentenced? And according to the article, the full number may actually be something like 900 people . >Campaigners believe that as many as 900 operators, often k…
> How do you make this mistake almost 1000 times over 14 years before someone suspects the system data may not be quite right?
It's very much a case of assumed infallibility of "scientific evidence," which in this case were computer records.
It's also very much a case of UK judges greatly, greatly disregarding the process, which fully reneges on their oath.
Country's legal system can't function if you have judges who can lightheadedly throw out the process out of the window 1000 times over 14 year.
Re: UK court clears post office staff convicted due to ‘corrupt data’
#26This is unreal. Shitty software sending people to prison without anyone in the process considering what exactly is the likelihood of hundreds of postmasters simultaneously becoming thieves overnight.
>>considering what exactly is the likelihood of hundreds of postmasters simultaneously becoming thieves overnight I mean, I don't think anyone assumed they suddenly and inexplicably became thieves, just that the fancy new software finally caught people who have been scamming the post office for years. Obviously the software was completely wrong and it's criminal what happened to those people.
yes, this reasoning does make sense. but given the human cost it should only make sense if there's a significant prior: in most of these cases there was no previous evidence whatsoever, just a new system, and boom, thieves.
I think the core point here is how imbalanced this process was: postal system builds a new accounting program that shows money is missing. these people were convicted solely on the evidence that software said so, there was no burden on them to show that the money was actually missing. I mean, hard for me to grasp how is that possible. anyone can write a program that shows something. how is this sufficient proof to send people to prison? does it not need to touch some objective reality at some point?
Re: UK court clears post office staff convicted due to ‘corrupt data’
#27The company I work for ships hundreds of packages through RM. The RM tech I've seen is a mess. Makes me wonder what it's like behind the scenes. Just one lowlight I've come across, this comment can be found in the HTML for one of their portals:
I think you're possibly confusing the Royal Mail with the Post Office, there. You're talking about the Royal Mail. This article is about the Post Office.
This started in Royal Mail and was inherited by Post Office. https://corporate.postoffice.co.uk/our-media-centre#/pressre...
Re: UK court clears post office staff convicted due to ‘corrupt data’
#28Did no one ever ask where was the money? These people all had these huge short falls, why did no one go to find the cash?
That's financial crimes 101
Re: UK court clears post office staff convicted due to ‘corrupt data’
#29Also - more technical background: https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252496560/Fujitsu-bosses...
Re: UK court clears post office staff convicted due to ‘corrupt data’
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, this is the part I'm having trouble understanding. A few people, sure. But all these postal workers committing fraud, with many insisting there must be something wrong with the software? How did this not get discovered before they were all convicted and sentenced? And according to the article, the full number may actually be something like 900 people . >Campaigners believe that as many as 900 operators, often k…
> How do you make this mistake almost 1000 times over 14 years before someone suspects the system data may not be quite right? It's very much a case of assumed infallibility of "scientific evidence," which in this case were computer records. It's also very much a case of UK judges greatly, greatly disregarding the process, which fully reneges on their oath. Country's legal system can't function if you have judges who…
> It's very much a case of assumed infallibility of "scientific evidence," which in this case were computer records.
I wonder if any of the prosecuted were in Scotland?
In Scots Law there's a fundamental rule of Corroboration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corroboration_in_Scots_law
There must be two source of independent evidence for someone to be convicted of a crime. I'll be interested to see (if there's genuinely no corroborating evidence beyond the computer records) how many prosecutions went ahead north of the border.