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

theguardian.com

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

#241

Post by jjk166 »

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.

They don't need to prove that their software has no bugs, but they do need to prove that what their software claims is true.

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

#242

Post by ClumsyPilot »

temporama1 wrote: post #238
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…

Any independent review would inevitably be done by the same type of "expert" that wrote the software in the first place. No doubt it's some sprawling, insane Java monstrosity Manhattan project or suchlike. "Yeah - 10,000 classes - completely fine and not crazy at all."

Surely that contradicts the meaning of independant

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

#243

Post by deepspace »

giantg2 wrote: post #226
_vertigo wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really not about the bugs. The bugs were unfortunate, but bugs happen. The problem is taking the word of the system at face value and not investigating further even when dozens of people's livelihood and freedom are hanging in the balance. 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 ex…

"The problem is taking the word of the system at face value and not investigating further even when dozens of people's livelihood and freedom are hanging in the balance." We do the same thing with breathalyzers in most of the US. No independent people allowed to inspect the system for bugs.

The breathalyser issue is immensely frustrating. In the few cases where the software has been allowed to be examined, they found egregious bugs. Not to mention that the one-size-fits-all measurement model is inaccurate for people outside a very narrow metabolic range.

The trouble is that if you speak up about it, people ask: "why are you defending drunk drivers?" It's like innocent until proven guilty flies out the window.

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

#244

Post by deepspace »

avs733 wrote: post #221
quacked wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source for that? I'd believe it immediately, but I'd like to be able to spread it around.

I remember reading a fairly in depth article that I cannot find...but some sources I'm able to ID at the moment that discuss the issue: https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2009/05/11/breathalyzer-source... https://lawreader.com/?p=12801 https://www.tradesecretslaw.com/2008/02/articles/practice-pr... https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/05/buggy-breathalyz...

The most comprehensive article I have been able to find is this one: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/03/business/drunk-driving-br... (needs login).

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

#245

Post by kosievdmerwe »

michaelt wrote: post #162
Rexxar wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the sentiment but the example taken for software in this xkcd is wrong. There is a fundamental problem of trust when using software for voting systems that is not linked to the reliability of software but to the nature of voting systems and the properties we want.

Well, there are two problems and which is the fundamental one depends on your prior assumptions. Some would say it's impossible to build a secure electronic voting system, even if your supplier and their employees were completely trustworthy because between physical tampering, state-level adversaries, the state of the art in software development and the impossibility of proving a negative, such security has never bee…

Yeah, electronic voting is essentially like having a person in the voting booth that you have to tell your vote and trust that they will tally it correctly. [1]

It doesn't matter whether voting machines are actually secure, they probably mostly are right now, but whether a layperson can have faith in the system.

Paper voting is very secure if you involve people from opposing parties in the process and attacks are not very scalable. Most people can think of and understand mitigations for certain kinds of attacks. And if paper voting is too expensive for your country, you have bigger issues. [2]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkH2r-sNjQs

[2] That said, I don't see how secure electronic voting can possibly be cheaper than paper voting. For voting machines to be secure, you have to manufacture them in a very audited manner, with little to no foreign sourcing of parts, you can't leave the machines unattended for long periods of time (aka, reusing them between elections is probably a no-go) and you have to build them in manner that is secure against voters tampering with them in their private booth.

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

#247

Post by matheusmoreira »

deepspace wrote: post #243
giantg2 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The problem is taking the word of the system at face value and not investigating further even when dozens of people's livelihood and freedom are hanging in the balance." We do the same thing with breathalyzers in most of the US. No independent people allowed to inspect the system for bugs.

The breathalyser issue is immensely frustrating. In the few cases where the software has been allowed to be examined, they found egregious bugs. Not to mention that the one-size-fits-all measurement model is inaccurate for people outside a very narrow metabolic range. The trouble is that if you speak up about it, people ask: "why are you defending drunk drivers?" It's like innocent until proven guilty flies out the w…

All sorts of police field tests have significant rates of false positives. People actually get arrested on the basis of such "evidence" all the time. The justice and law enforcement systems essentially operate on the notion that these things are "good enough".

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

#248

Post by matthewheath »

arethuza wrote: post #143
jjk166 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

> Not only that £59,000 was actually stolen but that the accused received the money.

Can only speak for English and Welsh law, but this isn't accurate. Theft is prosecuted under the Theft Act 1968 and does not require the accused to actually receive the goods or money stolen. All the accused need do to "appropriate" property is assume the rights of the owner e.g, if the accused had access to someone's bank account and they sent money to a third-party, that's still theft because they assumed the rights of the owner (to transfer the money) even though the money didn't go to the accused themselves.

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

#249

Post by khc »

toyg wrote: post #233
Roonerelli wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really great work by Private Eye. They did all the investigation and broke the story. None of the big news outlets were on it at all

On internal UK news, there is nothing as good as Private Eye. Every two weeks they publish more “hard” material than newspapers do in a month. I’m a subscriber, the value for money is simply ridiculously good.

Is there something equivalent for the US that people recommend?

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

#250

Post by wizzwizz4 »

andi999 wrote: post #201
jonplackett wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, whoever was in charge of that is candidate #1 to open their chequebook!

I do not think this is how this works.

It would be preferable to the way it works, though.
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