UK court clears post office staff convicted due to ‘corrupt data’ • Hacker News Board

Re: UK court clears post office staff convicted due to ‘corrupt data’

#141

Post by ChrisMarshallNY » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 3:09 PM UTC

Uberphallus wrote: post #114

quercusa wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you object to CMM as a model or just the CMMI/9001 industry?

Both. It's very well geared towards maintaining a certain standard of quality and predictable project throughput in rather well defined projects, and it certainly makes the job easier in procurement, but it's totally detached from what the SWE world is outside of that. I can see the point of such models in certain areas, like military, aerospace, naval, or, to stay on topic, Horizon, where dev is outsourced, somewhat…

They had a good idea, but they applied "old world" thinking to it.

The single biggest issue with software development, is that it is incredibly dynamic.

Static solutions don't work, and CMMI is a very static solution. Sadly, a lot of quality practices are static.

Dynamic solutions are really difficult to get right, and tend to depend on a lot of hard-to-quantify variables, like the experience and talents of individuals on a team.

For example, I am quite good at designing fairly complex systems, as long as I am doing it alone. I can hold some fairly ambitious designs in my head; which allows me a great deal of flexibility. I can start with a fairly "fuzzy" architectural model (I call it my "napkin sketch"), and begin a project fairly quickly. As the project progresses, I can apply some massive structural changes, and pivot fairly easily.

However, the minute I need to communicate this plan, the whole shooting match comes to a screeching halt.

Team overhead is a really big deal, and I believe it is seldom factored into our plans, in any kind of realistic manner.

Re: UK court clears post office staff convicted due to ‘corrupt data’

#142

Post by arethuza » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 3:11 PM UTC

davidhyde wrote: post #98

Those postmasters defending charges of theft against them in the 2000s should not have had to prove that the computer system they were forced to use had bugs. In order to prosecute them in the first place, the Post Office should have had to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt and without risk of bias, that the computer system was correct. So, independent review at the very least, not testimony from parties with a veste…

Scots law is supposed to require two separate items of evidence to bring a prosecution - doesn't seem to have protected them as there are a number of cases being reviewed in Scotland as well.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-25639645

Re: UK court clears post office staff convicted due to ‘corrupt data’

#143

Post by arethuza » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 3:13 PM UTC

jjk166 wrote: post #128

lbriner wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, that sounds straight-forward but isn't: Q) Did you or any of the people you got to examine the software found any way that what the defendents said was true? A) No Q) Then you are guilty beyond reasonable doubt. I think the bigger issue here is around the power that a large organisation wields to duck and dive and use corporate tricks to manipulate how it played out. For example, the fact that so many…

No, that's still presumption of guilt. If you're going to convict someone of stealing £59,000, the very first thing you should have to show is that £59,000 actually got stolen. If there is reasonable doubt that the crime took place, no one can be guilty beyond that reasonable doubt. If the defendant claims the computer system got it wrong, it's not enough to say you are unaware of bugs, the prosecution should have to…

Not only that £59,000 was actually stolen but that the accused received the money. There was no evidence that the post masters charged ever had the money in their possession!

Re: UK court clears post office staff convicted due to ‘corrupt data’

#144

Post by LatteLazy » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 3:15 PM UTC

davidhyde wrote: post #98

Those postmasters defending charges of theft against them in the 2000s should not have had to prove that the computer system they were forced to use had bugs. In order to prosecute them in the first place, the Post Office should have had to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt and without risk of bias, that the computer system was correct. So, independent review at the very least, not testimony from parties with a veste…

While I agree more broadly, you cannot expect the Post Office to prove a negative. How would they prove conclusively that the software had no bugs at all under any circumstances? That's a pretty steep QA bill imho.

Re: UK court clears post office staff convicted due to ‘corrupt data’

#145

Post by jjk166 » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 3:16 PM UTC

PaulKeeble wrote: post #35

Software is in the walls. At some point legislators are going to come and ask the question how we stop things like this happening and if the Fujitsu's of the world don't have an answer then we can expect regulation that will likely embed practices that don't help. I don't think we take software reliability seriously enough, most of our focus is on speed of release, ever quicker cycles and it being OK to break things.…

> I don't think we take software reliability seriously enough, most of our focus is on speed of release, ever quicker cycles and it being OK to break things. This culture ruined these peoples lives.

I think people see a false dichotomy between making things quickly and making them safe. The fact is in the development of any complex thing, you're going to have bugs, and generally that's okay. But things should be designed to fail safe. Making something that throws errors when something unexpected happens is actually faster and easier than trying (and possibly failing) to handle edge cases; had Fujistu taken that simpler, easier approach then all this pain and suffering would have been avoided.

Re: UK court clears post office staff convicted due to ‘corrupt data’

#146

Post by coldcode » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 3:18 PM UTC

haunter wrote: post #46

https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252496560/Fujitsu-bosses... >For the first 10 years of Horizon’s existence, transaction and account data was stored on terminals in each branch before being uploaded to a central database via ISDN. Our source says this part of the system simply did not work. >“The cash account was a piece of software that sat on the counter NT box, asleep all day,” he said. “At the end of the day,…

Is there no legal support for challenging the source code of the product in the UK?

Re: UK court clears post office staff convicted due to ‘corrupt data’

#147

Post by LorenPechtel » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 3:20 PM UTC

kristjankalm wrote: post #16

This 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.

I suspect they didn't think they became thieves overnight, but that the new system caught existing thieves.

Re: UK court clears post office staff convicted due to ‘corrupt data’

#148

Post by throwaway823882 » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 3:20 PM UTC

LatteLazy wrote: post #144

davidhyde wrote: post #98

Those postmasters defending charges of theft against them in the 2000s should not have had to prove that the computer system they were forced to use had bugs. In order to prosecute them in the first place, the Post Office should have had to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt and without risk of bias, that the computer system was correct. So, independent review at the very least, not testimony from parties with a veste…

While I agree more broadly, you cannot expect the Post Office to prove a negative. How would they prove conclusively that the software had no bugs at all under any circumstances? That's a pretty steep QA bill imho.

This is the proof that how we write software is inherently wrong, if we allow innocent lives to be destroyed because we don't want to write it differently.

Imagine not doing inspections of new building construction because it would be costly.

Re: UK court clears post office staff convicted due to ‘corrupt data’

#149

Post by rajin444 » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 3:20 PM UTC

PaulKeeble wrote: post #35

Software is in the walls. At some point legislators are going to come and ask the question how we stop things like this happening and if the Fujitsu's of the world don't have an answer then we can expect regulation that will likely embed practices that don't help. I don't think we take software reliability seriously enough, most of our focus is on speed of release, ever quicker cycles and it being OK to break things.…

> I don't think we take software reliability seriously enough, most of our focus is on speed of release, ever quicker cycles and it being OK to break things.

This is extremely domain dependent, and should be handled as such. And in some cases it already is - look at the testing / verification space shuttle code goes through vs your friends cat video side project website.

Re: UK court clears post office staff convicted due to ‘corrupt data’

#150

Post by LatteLazy » Fri, Apr 23, 2021, 3:21 PM UTC

The Real travesty here is that people can't afford to pay for their lawyers (let alone a software expert or QA to actually look at the code or test it) , they aren't entitled to representation, so they have no option but to plead guilty.