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At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says

nytimes.com

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Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says

#81

Post by lanfeust6 »

johnorourke wrote: post #39
mike_hearn wrote: post #8

To the NY Times: please don't say they died by suicide. The passive voice makes it sound like some act of God, something regrettable but unavoidable that just somehow happened. It's important not to sugarcoat what happened: the postmasters killed themselves because the British state was imprisoning them for crimes they didn't commit, based on evidence from a buggy financial accounting system. Don't blur the details o…

"died by suicide" is just a modern replacement for "committed suicide", because that phrase dates back to when it was a crime, so it's regarded as making the victim look bad.

Except colloquially no one today thinks the word has any bearing on whether the victim looks bad. It just means they're responsible for the act.

I guess some people take comfort in the idea that suicide is thrust on people and they take no responsibility for their actions.

Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says

#82

Post by noisy_boy »

mrkramer wrote: post #52
PUSH_AX wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well not really, no one should be committing suicide due to a buggy system. If you know the details of the case it was widespread but the post office decided to gaslight everyone and put people in debt and prison. That’s what caused this, the bugs were just a catalyst for shitty humans to do shitty things

Yea management failed but wouldn't the most logical thing be to call in computer forensics experts and quality test the software, reverse engineering it and try to catch the bugs. This wasn't the classic case of financial fraud, this was all about faulty software.

> Yea management failed but wouldn't the most logical thing be to call in computer forensics experts

Yea and who is responsible for engaging them?

Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says

#83

Post by nirui »

mrkramer wrote: post #40
cedws wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>if software developers screw up Well, yes, they did screw up, but the fallout was amplified 100x by bad management.

"The Horizon IT system contained "hundreds" of bugs[0]." If your accounting software has hundreds of bugs then you are really in the deep shit. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal#:~...

[flagged]

Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says

#84

Post by kayodelycaon »

energy123 wrote: post #58
XCabbage wrote: post #6

[flagged]

Journalists are taught that suicide is contagious. Using euphemisms may help reduce the number of suicides that their reporting directly causes.

That’s because suicide is contagious. Once one person does it, other people around them feel more justified doing it themselves.

Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says

#85

Post by secondcoming »

The inquiry into this scandal was live streamed on Youtube.

You had lawyers quizzing people from all ranks of the Post Office and Fujistu; very interesting.

Ever since, I’ve worded my work related electronic communications with the supposition that a lawyer may read them at some point in the future.

If I’m ever asked to do something seemingly unusual or ‘out of the box’, it must be put to me in writing.

Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says

#86

Post by noisy_boy »

rwmj wrote: post #59
cedws wrote: post #34

The failing is as much with the court as it is with Fujitsu. Why did they blindly accept Horizon’s data as evidence? What if the computer said the Queen stole all the money and ran off to Barbados, would they have thrown her in jail? Why was the output of a black box, which may as well have been a notebook Fujitsu could have written anything they wanted into, treated as gospel?

The actual answer to this is terrible. Courts had to trust the computer was correct. There was a common law presumption that a computer was operating correctly unless there is evidence to the contrary (and getting that evidence is basically impossible for the individuals being charged who were post office workers, not computer experts, and the source code was a trade secret). This might change, partly in response to…

> The actual answer to this is terrible. Courts had to trust the computer was correct. There was a common law presumption that a computer was operating correctly unless there is evidence to the contrary

That is just mind bogglingly stupid - who the hell are the idiots who wrote a law like that? Any of them wrote a line of code in their life?

Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says

#87

Post by mystraline »

rwmj wrote: post #59
cedws wrote: post #34

The failing is as much with the court as it is with Fujitsu. Why did they blindly accept Horizon’s data as evidence? What if the computer said the Queen stole all the money and ran off to Barbados, would they have thrown her in jail? Why was the output of a black box, which may as well have been a notebook Fujitsu could have written anything they wanted into, treated as gospel?

The actual answer to this is terrible. Courts had to trust the computer was correct. There was a common law presumption that a computer was operating correctly unless there is evidence to the contrary (and getting that evidence is basically impossible for the individuals being charged who were post office workers, not computer experts, and the source code was a trade secret). This might change, partly in response to…

Governments should have access to all the source of code they buy licenses to (and provided at sale), as a precondition of selling to a government.

When these sorts of things happen, the source can be subpoena'd with the relevant legal tool, and reviewed appropriately.

Why governments don't do this is beyond me. It greatly limits liability of gov procurement, and puts the liability on the companies selling such goods.

Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says

#88

Post by nusaru »

closewith wrote: post #62
mathiaspoint wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That mess inspired the American legal system though, which is probably one of if not the best in the world. IMO common law is still better than case law at least.

> That mess inspired the American legal system though, which is probably one of if not the best in the world. Poe's Law strikes again. The American legal system isn't even the best legal system in the US.

> in the US

Huh? What does this mean? Are there other systems in the US that I’m not aware of?

Re: At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal, Report Says

#90

Post by tonyhart7 »

nextos wrote: post #7

I have followed this scandal quite closely over the years, and these two quotations sum it up. Pretty sad: "The report alleges that even before the program was rolled out in 1999, some Fujitsu employees knew that Horizon could produce false data." "As the years went by the complaints grew louder and more persistent [...] Still the Post Office trenchantly resisted the contention that on occasions Horizon produced fals…

the employee knew something going to fuck up but higher up maybe don't want to deal with clean up and proceed to release it asap

hmm sounds like silicon valley work ethics

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