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The presumption that computers are working correctly

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Re: The presumption that computers are working correctly

#91

Post by bboygravity »

bboygravity wrote: post #52
zubairq wrote: post #26

After a lifetime of fixing bugs I’m often surprised that computer systems work at all. I had something similar to the failed post office system affect me personally, and everyone just rejects that the computer system could be at fault, even when presented with evidence, as it too too much work for them to try to understand.

I would add some nuiance and state that a lot of popular software is broken to the point that it's main function (the reason that the software exists) is not working. Some examples: -- The websites of various airlines (TAP, Vueling, KLM) have often had bugs in them (in the past 2 years when I used them) to the point that they don't allow you to book tickets or log-in with your account. I would say they where broken m…

To add some meta irony to my previous post: as you can see in my previous post the formatting got all mangled. The new-lines (enters) that I typed got ignored upon posting. I cannot think of any good reason for that "functionality" from a user perspective?

Also I can't edit that post anymore to fix it.

And to think that HN is an example of relatively good software that seems un-bloated, super stable, fast and seems to always work :P

Re: The presumption that computers are working correctly

#92

Post by dan-robertson »

didntcheck wrote: post #56

The last time I looked into the Post Office scandal, the impression I got was that "we just had too much faith in the IT system!" was a convenient story, but the high-ups knew full well about the problems, and full well that they were persecuting innocent people, but did it anyway to cover up their own failings. If so, people need to see substantial jail terms for this. Perverting the course of justice is no misdemea…

Do you think an increase in punishment the executives expected would have led to the problems for subpostmasters being resolved faster or slower?

Re: The presumption that computers are working correctly

#94

Post by taneq »

simonh wrote: post #79
vasco wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any sufficiently complex system operates constantly in failure mode

Which of course also applies to human cognitive processes. We’ve had millions of years of evolution to prune out problems, but in many cases the problems were papered over by a kludge that introduced other problems, which were then kludged, etc. No wonder the complex systems we build are such a mess. They’re a reflection of ourselves.

They’re not yet a reflection of ourselves, only of our thought processes. They’re flawed, as are we, but we’ve been ruthlessly battle-tested in the only arena that matters.

Re: The presumption that computers are working correctly

#95

Post by RetroTechie »

bostik wrote: post #73
bmitc wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m often surprised that computer systems work at all. I also remain contunually amazed that anything works. It boggles my mind, because I have seen how software gets built. How can it possibly all work? I think my answer to this conundrum and seeming paradox is that it doesn't all work. We have trained ourselves and been trained to accept things that aren't working as something else. And like you say, people treat…

People outsource their critical thinking all the time, but with computers the failures are more egregious. There is less recourse to correct things, and information propagating through systems can make the error more persistent. Also: people take the verdict from a computer as a given even when reality and computer disagree. I've used this story a couple of times before on HN, and if it hadn't happened to mother's co…

"Which incidentally is not entirely unlike the situation in this perversion of justice."

So true. I went through the Wikipedia article, and couldn't escape this feeling:

1) Some errors were made (faulty IT system).

2) Handling of said errors expands enormously into various reports, IT vendor denying their system is faulty, legal proceedings, criminal convictions "tainted" & overturned, etc.

To the point where original errors almost seem irrelevant within the bigger frame of subsequent events.

Imho all the mistakes were made in the processes concerning 2), and 1) is a tiny side-show at most. IT systems can fail, period. What matters is how that's handled.

Re: The presumption that computers are working correctly

#96

Post by fineIllregister »

bboygravity wrote: post #91
bboygravity wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would add some nuiance and state that a lot of popular software is broken to the point that it's main function (the reason that the software exists) is not working. Some examples: -- The websites of various airlines (TAP, Vueling, KLM) have often had bugs in them (in the past 2 years when I used them) to the point that they don't allow you to book tickets or log-in with your account. I would say they where broken m…

To add some meta irony to my previous post: as you can see in my previous post the formatting got all mangled. The new-lines (enters) that I typed got ignored upon posting. I cannot think of any good reason for that "functionality" from a user perspective? Also I can't edit that post anymore to fix it. And to think that HN is an example of relatively good software that seems un-bloated, super stable, fast and seems t…

> I cannot think of any good reason for that "functionality" from a user perspective?

Markdown ignores single return because people used it to manually wrap their plain text but HTML can wrap automatically on the fly.

Add two spaces before the return to make a line break `
`. Two returns in a row start a new paragraph `

`.

Re: The presumption that computers are working correctly

#97

Post by fanf2 »

dan-robertson wrote: post #92
didntcheck wrote: post #56

The last time I looked into the Post Office scandal, the impression I got was that "we just had too much faith in the IT system!" was a convenient story, but the high-ups knew full well about the problems, and full well that they were persecuting innocent people, but did it anyway to cover up their own failings. If so, people need to see substantial jail terms for this. Perverting the course of justice is no misdemea…

Do you think an increase in punishment the executives expected would have led to the problems for subpostmasters being resolved faster or slower?

It doesn’t matter either way, they need to be punished for the way they treated the people who were under their power.

Re: The presumption that computers are working correctly

#99

Post by actionfromafar »

dan-robertson wrote: post #92
didntcheck wrote: post #56

The last time I looked into the Post Office scandal, the impression I got was that "we just had too much faith in the IT system!" was a convenient story, but the high-ups knew full well about the problems, and full well that they were persecuting innocent people, but did it anyway to cover up their own failings. If so, people need to see substantial jail terms for this. Perverting the course of justice is no misdemea…

Do you think an increase in punishment the executives expected would have led to the problems for subpostmasters being resolved faster or slower?

Will punishment cause time-travel, you mean? Probably not.

Re: The presumption that computers are working correctly

#100

Post by _dain_ »

stevesimmons wrote: post #53

David Allen Green is a great commentator on law in the UK. During the Brexit period, he was a contributing editor to the Financial Times, with similarly insightful analyses of how Boris Johnson et al were misusing the government's legal powers. Anyway, David also posted this to his non-gated "The Law and Policy Blog" at [1]. [1] https://davidallengreen.com/2023/09/computer-says-guilty-an-... There are more comments t…

I had a visceral negative reaction to the idea that computers should be presumed to be working correctly, but I was having trouble articulating in precise words what was wrong with it. I mean, obviously we get work done with use computers every day and they seem to work alright. A commenter at that link does a good job:

>To treat the operation of an extensive software system as being a mechanical device is as gross a category error as treating an airliner as being merely a collection of nuts and bolts. In either case we can satisfy ourselves that the elementary parts are performing within specification without having gained any confidence that the complete assemblage will function properly under all conditions to which it will be reasonably exposed; indeed we won’t even be confident that we understand what it was exposed to. Even showing that it has passed a collection of tests isn’t adequate: one needs to see what unfixed issues are being registered against it and how they are being resolved (fixed? Swept under the carpet to keep the numbers below since arbitrary threshold?) The opposing side in case hinging upon accuracy of computer records should have the right to access the issue database, and absence of a well-run system or a large number of issues in it (or evidence that issues have been “scrubbed”) should be taken as a strong argument that the computer records are unreliable.

>Much could be learned by the software industry from the culture of aviation safety, where even minor incidents are followed up by detailed investigations intentionally run in a non-judgemental way and the findings distilled into public reports and recommendations. Similarly, one of the best legal developments in recent years has been the increasing tendency to publish detailed judgements.

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