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’

#281

Post by SideburnsOfDoom » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 12:28 PM UTC

Another article on the same

https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/23/22399721/uk-post-office-s...

As a software person, I would like to read a more detailed post-mortem on the issue from a code, engineering and project management point of view: e.g. who built this software, when, with what process, with what safeguards, and how did they fail? Was it in-house or outsourced, and if so, to who? Did it run on-premises? What checksums, what backups? What lessons, if any, did they learn and what can we learn?

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

#282

Post by wutbrodo » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 3:45 PM UTC

mcguire wrote: post #256

wutbrodo wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I think there's a lot of room for writing software better, including expanded source access for public systems and formal verification when critical. But the failure in this case isn't technical, it's legal. It's rational to decide that occasional bugs in a mail…

As long as none of the blame goes to the programmers, we're all good.

Sure, or some of us aren't so simple-minded that we only see things through the lens of the identity groups we belong to.

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

#283

Post by SideburnsOfDoom » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 4:18 PM UTC

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #281

Another article on the same https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/23/22399721/uk-post-office-s... As a software person, I would like to read a more detailed post-mortem on the issue from a code, engineering and project management point of view: e.g. who built this software, when, with what process, with what safeguards, and how did they fail? Was it in-house or outsourced, and if so, to who? Did it run on-premises? What ch…

In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think that a forensic post-mortem with lessons learned and changes made should not be optional: After an air disaster, it would be mandatory .And this really was a software equivalent of a plane crash.

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

#284

Post by larksimian » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 4:22 PM UTC

lbriner wrote: post #118

haunter wrote: post #43

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…

Our animal brain doesn't perceive this situation as what it was due to the layers of obfuscation: a gang of vicious criminals kidnapped innocent people for months or years at a time, repeatedly, for decades, covered it up, robbed those people, ruined them financially, separated parents from children. Oh but they used perjury and fraud to get the state to do it for them. The mafia wouldn't even have the balls to do something like this. That is what actually happened, though of course, obscured behind layers of legalese and obfuscated responsibility it is difficult to get the emotional response it deserves to trigger.

The individuals need to be held accountable and do jail time. "Just doing my job" is literally not an excuse for breaking the law!

Everyone who knowingly covered this up at least committed fraud and/or perjury, or were accessories to fraud or encouraged or even financially remunerated people to perjure themselves(lower level people getting promoted for lying in court).

Their perjury led the government(in the name of us, UK citizens) into immorally, if not illegally, depriving other citizens of their liberty and money. If the legal framework to punish this as fraud does not exist, create it. If someone knowingly and with premeditation lies to the government and gets other people in trouble, they should get back that trouble sufficiently ramped up to act as deterrent. 10x 100x the fine, fine as percentage of lifetime net-worth whatever. If people knowingly and REPEATEDLY get people thrown into jail, all those people should be doing the amount of jail time they fraudulently inflicted on innocents. If the problem is the organized plausible deniability nature of the crime, I'm sure there's some racketeering or organized crime laws that are applicable. This whole thing literally became an organized crime organisation.

The CEO(s) at the time are the chief persons responsible.

If there are no consequences for harm, more harm will be caused. By not punishing wrong-doers and shortcut takers you ensure that more wrong-doers and shortcut takers will rise to positions of power, because they are able to outcompete ethical players.

White collar crime is literally destroying modern western society, if not in fact(though I believe in fact as well) then at least by ruining popular perception of our (necessary for a society to function) elites. We need to clean house.

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

#285

Post by pas » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 5:35 PM UTC

andrekandre wrote: post #271

pas wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quick and dirty way is to somehow tie their power/privileges/financial-situation to that of those who they have power over. (And make it stick for many years.) There's a big missing culture of fixing problems in corporations. Which of course must start with acknowledging the problem. Which of course means that people reporting problems shouldn't face negative consequences. Which means that the current cultural ga…

one thing that ive noticed/realized is that perhaps associating hierarchy with division of labor/responsibility is perhaps an anti-pattern... what if the ceo was responsible, but was working under the managers "for them" what if managers worked at the same level as thier team whos role is to make the team productive and support them (or even the team could fire thier manager) etc etc i wonder if disassociating those…

Hm. My experience is that most of the time as responsibility is diffused in big organizations people are motivated to just stay quiet, weather the storm, don't rock the boat. And the typical "matrix management"-like organization structure (where everyone has many different managers, eg. there's a project manager, there's a technical manager (let's say engineering manager), there's a [human] resource manager, there's a team lead [a non-commissioned manager]) exacerbates this.

> even the team could fire their manager

This would likely help a lot with the Peter Pans who ended up promoted to managers but are terrible at managing.

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

#286

Post by easytiger » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 5:48 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…

Fully agree with this, it is incomprehensible to me that these convictions required basically the say so of a government owned entity to convict people in private prosecutions (not done by the CPS)

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

#287

Post by simonh » Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 10:41 PM UTC

lupire wrote: post #218

simonh wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over several years and 20,000 post office branches it's not a huge percentage. I suppose they assumed the new system was revealing corruption that had gone unnoticed under the previous system. That's in no way an excuse or justification for the knowing, deliberate suppression of evidence that went on here.

What job has 3.5% rate of criminal prosecutions, with 0 eyewitness evidence?

It wasn’t all in one year.

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

#288

Post by damau » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 1:26 AM UTC

_vertigo wrote: post #203

jonplackett wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

This is the majority reaction.

Computer says no = okay it’s your fault.

It’s the equivalent of ‘works on my local’ so get lost you deal with it.

Computers may be binary but the people who make them aren’t.

This failing of understanding and with the advent of easy ML will only add to the problem.

Askimov’s multivac would end the human race before it helped it.

Applications are starting to get to the point of dogma for many of us at a certain level.

Still love the film ‘Idiocracy’ becoming more and more prescient.

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

#289

Post by SZJX » Sun, Apr 25, 2021, 8:05 AM UTC

lbriner wrote: post #118

haunter wrote: post #43

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…

I don't think the idea is to hold the "corporate" accountable. If it's true that the senior management at that time decided to cover up the failure and ruined the lives of hundreds of people, and knew full well that they were doing, they should be punished, even though they might no longer be working in the company. Simple as that.

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

#290

Post by rkangel » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 1:24 PM UTC

matheusmoreira wrote: post #272

giantg2 wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've just recently had a trooper make 4 "mistakes" in court and in official reports. One of which I believe was an outright lie. The system doesn't care. If this were any other witness they would be discredited, but because they are law enforcement, they get a free pass. The agencies won't even handle the complaints correctly or file this information as Guglio data for when future cases request it (if found to be unr…

> The reason they state is to uphold the integrity of, and the public trust in, the system. Here's another dangerous idea: the justice system has false positive rates. A judgement is a test with two possible results: innocent or guilty. Every test has false positives and false negativies. For every judge, there is a chance they'll condemn the innocent or absolve the guilty. How likely is it? We'll never know.

The logic behind "innocent until proven guilty" is that one false positive is worse than ten false negatives. The principle is that freedom is such a basic right that removing it unjustly is a crime in itself.