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Fujitsu bugs that sent innocent people to prison were known "from the start"

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Re: Fujitsu bugs that sent innocent people to prison were known "from the start"

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Christian, I have learned to be in my guard when business partners tell me about their Christianity. Or any other way of signaling their self-proported ethics.

In Matthew 6 Jesus forbids praying in public, like the hypocrites did, and instead commands Christains to pray where only the "father" can see them. Overt displays of piety by Christians are the original meaning of the word "hypocrisy", they claim to be Christian but display their supposed piety for public reward in direct contradiction to Jesus's command.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+6%3A5-8...

He did not forbid anything there. He simply said not to pray publicly to try to earn points since God would not fall for it.

In Matthew 10:27, he advises people to tell everyone everything he has told them:

https://biblehub.com/matthew/10-27.htm

To be fair, I imagine trying to earn points is not the same thing in his eyes as telling others what he taught them.

To speak more generally and not about you in specific, it would be nice if people interpreting religious texts on the internet would at least take a college class on them like I did. It enables you to avoid some of the more common pitfalls, although it is still possible to make mistakes. I took the time to consult an actual theologian on a number of things when I was younger, which was even more useful than the college class.

That said, even trained theologians will make mistakes on these things. My favorite example is the “vinegar” offered to Jesus on the cross. It was actually a drink called posca, which is basically water sanitized by vinegar with herbs optionally added for additional flavor. When the story was written in Greek, the convention at the time was to call that drink vinegar and everyone understood that drinking vinegar meant drinking water that had a few % vinegar and possible herbs added, yet now many years later when almost nobody does that anymore, most people misunderstand what it means. Even trained theologians will misunderstand that because they are not familiar with ancient Mediterranean dietary habits. They imagine the solider that offered the vinegar as being cruel, when in fact, he was the sole nice guy among the Romans there. It would not be surprising if during Roman persecution of Christians, the act had been used as an example of not all Romans being bad, yet today if you hear about it, it is incorrectly used to demonstrate the cruelty of the Romans.

Interestingly, despite Latin having the word posca, the Latin translation did not properly translate this. The translator had been a huge fan of Greek so much that he used Latin incorrectly in a number of places to mimic Greek grammar and word definitions. He used the word for “and” as a word for also instead of the proper Latin word “quoque”, because the Greek word καὶ could mean either “and” or “also”, and no Latin word meant both at once. Given that he did that, it is no surprise that he also wrote vinegar and expected everyone to apply the Greek interpretation. Then translations of the Latin translation into other languages followed where the translators had no clue that vinegar had been written in place of posca due to an ancient convention. By the time translations were done from the original Greek, Greek had adopted posca as a loanword from Latin and almost nobody remembered the original convention, so the English translations continue to say vinegar despite English never using the word vinegar to refer to vinegar-sanitized water (with optional herbs).

There is a video by a youtube historian that talks about posca in detail and mentions the biblical account:

https://youtu.be/2nBVsW0LtQI

There are other YouTube videos on this, but that is the one where I first learned about this. Also, to make this tangent useful to anyone who has read it to the end, I find that posca actually enhances the flavors in modern Italian food. Note that I used apple vinegar when making my own, which is not the same vinegar people in the ancient Mediterranean likely used, but it was close enough for my purposes. Also, for a laugh, imagine this. In 2000 years, it is possible that people will think making children drink soda was a form of punishment. That is about as close to what children consider soda to be today as most discussion of religious texts on the internet is to what those texts actually say.

Re: Fujitsu bugs that sent innocent people to prison were known "from the start"

#202
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The coverup is worse than the crime" is a terrible effect. But it can happen from: * smaller-fry butt-covering (e.g., lower-level function trying to cover their own butt, putting larger org at risk of much higher cost to the org); * arrogance (e.g., individual/org thinks they are in the right and justified in escalating countermeasures); * bully-like confidence (e.g., individual/org thinks they are powerful enough t…

There seemed to be a culture in Fujitsu where incompetent and judgemental people were allowed to rule the roost. The best example of this is the testimony of one Peter Sewell, who never met one of the victims but who, in an email, called him a “nasty chap” and that he was out to “rubbish the FJ name”. You can see how he realises the enormity of his stupidity in testimony and tries to half heartedly defend himself (un…

His testimony is infuriating. Every question answered quickfire and monosyllabicly, trying to shut it down. Exactly the mindset that led to this giant fubar in the first place.

Re: Fujitsu bugs that sent innocent people to prison were known "from the start"

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lawyer paid by the private party fills the role of the government prosecutor, but the case is heard by the same judge and jury who would hear it in a state prosecution. Until the 1980s this was how almost all criminal prosecutions worked in England, though by the end the "private prosecutor" was usually a police officer.

So a company with money and a good lawyer could really just essentially have you thrown in jail? Seems really not good.

Yes, because often they are in control of all the evidence and/or can create evidence.

In the 90s, I caught the technical head of a certain very large telecoms firm logging private IRC chats and then blackmailing the users, some of whom were gay and not out. When I made it clear I knew what was going on and that it needed to stop this person went on to fake logs of me hacking into said firm and sent them to the dean of the university where I was studying and there was a serious attempt to have me expelled and talk of criminal charges. I was only saved by the heads of the computing department who vouched for my good character and independently proved that the logs were fake.

Re: Fujitsu bugs that sent innocent people to prison were known "from the start"

#204
post #95

I've attempted to compile the HN threads on this. Can anybody find other significant ones? (It's interesting that there was one submission, with one comment, in 2012, and seemingly nothing for the next 7 years...) Fujitsu CEO Deposition – Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39059302 - Jan 2024 (1 comment) Fixing Horizon bugs would have been too costly, Post Office inquiry told - http…

Take a vacation one of these days, Dan. I think you might have earned it.

Re: Fujitsu bugs that sent innocent people to prison were known "from the start"

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This issue has been public knowledge for years. How is this possible!?

The contract to be an SPM makes you liable for all losses, no matter how they are caused , which includes blatant faults of the accounting/ePOS software. It's the ultimate case of moral hazard. Why fix the broken software if it's only some other sucker who's on the hook for it?

I taught in a private school for a while. In England and Wales the law says that your employment “contract” is simply the verbal, written, or implied agreement to work there and the document enumerating the details — the written statement of employment particulars which is basically the thing you or I would call “the contract” — doesn’t have to be supplied until up to two months after you’ve started work.

My employment particulars came the day of the two month deadline. They included a clause that said that the school had the final say on any claim brought by a pupil or their family against me for loss or damage and that any compensation would automatically be deducted from my salary. Unsurprisingly, I did not agree to this clause and did not sign the document! The school also refused to negotiate and I worked there for two years in a kind of contract limbo.

I’ve gone back to being a SWE now. I was lucky to not be beholden to one industry like my fellow teachers were. I can completely see how a sub-postmaster, without a fallback career, can get cornered into accepting some ludicrously unfair terms.

Re: Fujitsu bugs that sent innocent people to prison were known "from the start"

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear it’s the Post Office that’s accused of editing Fujitsu’s statements.

But it was Fujitsu staff acting as witnesses in trials.

If it was the Post Office editing Fujitsu's statements, who better than Fujitsu staff to confirm as a trial witness what was in the original pre-edited statements?

Re: Fujitsu bugs that sent innocent people to prison were known "from the start"

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've yet to meet any Christians who don't contradict other Christians, while being 100% convinced their personal beliefs are correct and all those other interpretations are wrong. Christian means "Christ-like", it's not surprising that different people have different interpretations of what that means. But my experience has been the stronger someone proclaims their christianity, the less trustworthy they are in gen…

Jesus himself said that worship of God is a thing that is private. That those who loudly proclaim or make public displays of their faith are straying from the path.

Matthew 28:18-20 quotes Jesus as saying ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.’

Jesus was really annoying to many, many people when he was going around preaching to large crowds. The fact that he was viewed as a rabble rouser and demagogue played a significant role in his death. (Along with proclaiming that he was the Son of God).

Re: Fujitsu bugs that sent innocent people to prison were known "from the start"

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes totally but shouldn’t it have been the prosecution that hired forensic accountants in order to, well, prosecute

In the UK, private parties can prosecute people. The Post office was doing this. As a citizen of the USA, this is a completely alien concept to me. How can a corporation put a person in prison?

It still goes to the regular courts. The problem comes when the prosecution lies and fabricates evidence.
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