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

arstechnica.com

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

#221

Post by hutzlibu »

amatecha wrote: post #149
marcosdumay wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the first time I see news about people committing hideous crimes just to cover up some mild offense. It's always surprising, and always feels absurd and impossible, but it just keeps happening. I guess just like comedy and bad suspense movies, crimes always escalate.

Right, like the ppl who murder their partner rather than admit to cheating on them or being way in debt or whatever... So messed up :(

There are also less extreme examples:

during a school trip with overnight stays, 2 of the teenage girls went out in the evening, even though it was forbidden. It was noticed after a while, so the teacher went looking for them. Just as he went out, they were about to come back(not too late). But they saw the teacher coming out - and hid themself, to not get in trouble in this moment. And this is of course when the real trouble started, because now the search started for real, with informing police about missing female students, big search etc.

Coming out right at the beginning would have meant been giving a warning ... but the hiding because of fear for the trouble made the trouble very big and got them close to being expelled. And anger from the others, because from then, everything was less fun with the teachers ..

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

#222

Post by switch007 »

justinclift wrote: post #189

Seems like the senior Post Office staff purposely "perverted the course of justice" here. Doesn't that mean they should be facing criminal charges?

Yes but it gets very awkward very quickly when you realise it’s the government who own and have responsibility for the Post Office. Why stop at the Post Office directors?

And who runs the Crown Prosecution Service? Ah yes, the government.

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

#223

Post by ninjin »

hermitcrab wrote: post #111
dang wrote: 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…

Private Eye have been covering it continuously since Computer Weekly broke the original story.

The Eye, still the most trustworthy source in the UK. It honestly feels like you are doing society a great service every time you grab a copy.

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

#224

Post by throw7 »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #45
arp242 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have generally found that there's not that much relation between people's stated beliefs and their actual every-day behaviour. By and large, I do think their beliefs are genuine and heart-felt, and that they're not faking them. It's just that it doesn't really influence their daily behaviour all that much. Generally people are motivated by the incentives of the moment, emotion of the moment, and that kind of thing.…

> People often assume that if someone has the "right set of beliefs" (whatever that "right set" is) that they're also a good person. IIUC, there are a few aspects of Christian theology that muddy this issue a bit. I'm probably a bit wrong, so I'd be grateful for any corrections: 1) Christians believe in progressive sanctification. I.e., the Holy Spirit works, over time, to make Christians more like Jesus. So you real…

Paul has letters admonishing christians for not being christians. We see everyday that professing christians often are not christians. All I can say is that christ called all of us to love God and love our neighbors.

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

#225

Post by prof-dr-ir »

dang wrote: 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…

For the record, here is a submission (and comment) by me:

Computer Says 'Guilty' - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27392724 - June 2021 (1 comment)

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

#226

Post by spondyl »

puzzledobserver wrote: post #77

The Wikipedia article on Paula Vennells tells me that the Post Office prosecuted 700 subpostmasters between 1999 and 2015 [0]. That works out to about one prosecution every 8 days. I do not know the baseline rate at which postmasters commit fraud or are prosecuted, but isn't one prosecution every 8 days an awfully high number? Shouldn't the Post Office have conducted some sort of internal investigation as soon as the…

While Paula is getting all the attention, mostly due to appearing in the dramatisation, I'd point out that we haven't heard from Adam Crozier who was CEO of the Royal Mail from 2003 - 2010 which was a fairly key period when this was all going down.

I pick on him particularly because after he handed the role over to Vennells, he went over to ITV for a number of years. The same ITV who provides the very dramatisation that brought all this stuff into the public eye once again.

That said, he had left ITV well before the series would have started production so it may have just been a creative decision rather than due to any outside influence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Crozier

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

#227

Post by snickerbockers »

orbisvicis wrote: post #33

"I [Paul Patterson, co-CEO of Fujitsu's European division] am surprised that that detail was not included in the witness statements given by Fujitsu staff to the Post Office and I have seen some evidence of editing witness statements by others" How does this scandal keep getting worse and worse when the only thing to cover up is a contract for some poorly written software? At this point I'm starting to suspect some u…

>when the only thing to cover up is a contract for some poorly written software?

There are a lot of programmers who seem to think it would be a horrific miscarriage of justice for somebody to be held responsible for the behavior of their own computer programs.

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

#228

Post by ijhuygft776 »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #7

Bugs are inevitable. The real issue is with the post office management that prosecuted people they knew there was a good chance were innocent, withheld evidence, falsified evidence, and harassed journalists investigating. What really bothers me is that the CEO of the Organisation at the time was also a Christian priest/deacon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Vennells > witness statements from Fujitsu staff due to…

> What really bothers me is that the CEO of the Organization at the time was also a Christian priest/deacon

Why does that bother you? It's just a bunch of lies too.

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

#229

Post by FerretFred »

chris_wot wrote: post #178
neilv wrote: 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…

> There seemed to be a culture in Fujitsu where incompetent and judgemental people were allowed to rule the roost.

This also applies to Parliament. They're renowned for it!

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

#230

Post by hackerlight »

switch007 wrote: post #222
justinclift wrote: post #189

Seems like the senior Post Office staff purposely "perverted the course of justice" here. Doesn't that mean they should be facing criminal charges?

Yes but it gets very awkward very quickly when you realise it’s the government who own and have responsibility for the Post Office. Why stop at the Post Office directors? And who runs the Crown Prosecution Service? Ah yes, the government.

> Why stop at the Post Office directors?

Because the principal and agent aren't the same thing. If an agent commits a crime without the knowledge of the principal, then only the agent should have criminal liability.

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