201–210 of 291 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's far worse than just having bugs - they knew there were bugs and covered it up even when they knew what impact it was having. That's the bit I find genuinely shocking.
Well, whoever was in charge of that is candidate #1 to open their chequebook!
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…
These people need to be paid massive compensation for having their lives ruined, paid for by whoever did such a bad job on this system.
Oh, and also the bit about spending 2 decades covering everything up and trying to clamp down on the investigation rather than admitting you got it wrong, once again at the expense the subpostmasters..
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,…
I think a lot of "normal" people like the idea of holding corporates accountable but how would that actually work? The CEO blames one of their directors; the Director blames the supplier; the supplier blames the requirements documentation; the Business Analysts blame the culture for creating confusing and conflicting requirements. Yes, you can hold the organisation accountable but then the people who worked there bac…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed that you cannot expect the Post Office to prove a negative but, if they cannot prove a negative, they should not be able to use their computer system as evidence of theft and fraud. Especially if this is the only evidence they have.
So government software, technically cybernetic software, should be proven to be correct. Will automatic theorem proovers be able to accommodate this?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're comparing apples to oranges. "Ambulance chasers" (a terrible slur that looks down on weak victims pursuing justice), offer their services in a competitive market. If they charge too much, again, that should be determined by having a separate pool for fees separate from damages, and be a dispute between the perpetrator and the lawyer, not the victim and the lawyer. The cost of the legal work is uncorrelated to…
Then why not give them 99.9% of the take if they are such big heroes? Because for the lawyers to get all the money each time harm happens means they more from harm to people than the people themselves benefit, this is a perverse incentive to keep the system exactly as it is for people who often become our lawmakers. This also applies to 80/20 splits.
Presumably to put someone in prison for being a money thief, one would need to prove where that money went... Were all these people accused of theft with not a single record of the yachts they bought with all the money they supposedly stole? I would assume most of these people would be able to turn over a complete financial record of their lives (ie. I was paid £x, I paid taxes of £y, and here is a bank statement sho…
Post Offices handle a large amount of cash, much more than any other business of their size. Many of the sub-post offices in question would be paying out pensions and welfare benefits in cash to a large proportion of local customers. If someone was stealing from the post office, they could easily do so in cash.
The first bizarre part to me about this fiasco is that accounting, as a discipline, is one that is designed to catch errors. Put it another way: it assumes errors will occur. This is why in shops, for example, you'll have manual stocktaking (ie let's verify what's in the store is what the computer thinks is in the store) and in any business you'll have reconciliation processes to find and remedy errors. This highligh…
> electronic voting should be outlawed Nationally regulated, sure. Verified with a physical copy (or a different system), sure. But banned altogether? You might as well ban everything in the world that is digital , as none of them are fool-proof. Voting isn't even that important. The wrong guy gets picked, what happens? Same bullshit as if the right guy got picked. If your choices are "Hitler" or "Jesus", then your s…
If voting is unimportant, why do you care about racist requirements for physical ID cards? Perhaps there might be some sort of connexion between the two!
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.
If their system were up to date, written in a safe language, has unit tests and an independant review said it was solid, then it is just one acceptable piece of evidence.
What i dont get is - where was the money? Supposedly hundreds of people stoke huge amount of money, and none of them had it in a bank, bought a new car, or showed any signs of suddenly becoming wealthier. Where did the judge think the money go to, they ate it? How was this not suspicious?
BBC radio 4 did a thing about this, even when the post office knew they kept going throwing people in prison. It's so depressing. What's also depressing is that people trusted this software. How did the defence teams never question it properly the first time. I mean if it's a ledger, prove it works.
Post office employee can’t afford a lawyer that would do any extra work
Earn enough so you can afford your rights... and appeals court where that actually matters :)