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

nytimes.com

131–140 of 585 posts

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

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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#:~...

So long as the jury understands this, it's all fine. If you're on trial for doing X and your jury is told by a prosecution witness "mrkramer did X" and under cross they admit that's based on computer records which are often bogus, inconsistent, total nonsense, it doesn't take the world's best defence lawyer to secure an "innocent" verdict. That's not a fun experience, but it probably won't drive you to suicide. One o…

> Asda can't prosecute me.

They can, actually. Anyone in the UK can launch a private prosecution. It's rare because it's expensive and the CPS can (and often do) take over any private prosecution then drop it.

Nevertheless, the power exists and has been intentionally protected by parliament. I think most would agree it needs reform, however.

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

#132

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…

There is no "deep state", just the state. Calling things "the deep state" tries to partition the state in two parts, a good one and a bad one.

There is also no "deep Amazon" or "deep Meta". Amazon is Amazon, Meta is Meta and the state is the state. People working for or representing the state have their own agenda, have their cliques, have their CYA like people everywhere else. And the state as an organization prioritizes survival and self defense above all other goals it might have.

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

#133
People should go to jail for this.

Anyone who has worked on a large migration eventually lands on a pattern that goes something like this:

1. Double-write to the old system and the new system. Nothing uses the new system;

2. Verify the output in the new system vs the old system with appropriate scripts. If there are issues, which there will be for awhile, go back to (1);

3. Start reading from the new system with a small group of users and then an increasingly large group. Still use the old system as the source of truth. Log whenever the output differs. Keep making changes until it always matches;

4. Once you're at 100% rollout you can start decomissioning the old system.

This approach is incremental, verifiable and reversible. You need all of these things. If you engage in a massive rewrite in a silo for a year or two you're going to have a bad time. If you have no way of verifying your new system's output, you're going to have a bad time. In fact, people are going to die, as is the case here.

If you're going to accuse someone of a criminal act, a system just saying it happened should NEVER be sufficient. It should be able to show its work. The person or people who are ultimately responsible for turning a fraud detection into a criminal complaint should themselves be criminally liable if they make a false complaint.

We had a famous example of this with Hertz mistakenly reporting cars stolen, something they ultimately had to pay for in a lawsuit [1] but that's woefully insufficient. It is expensive, stressful and time-consuming to have to criminally defend yourself against a felony charge. People will often be forced to take a plea because absolutely everything is stacked in the prosecution's favor despite the theoretical presumption of innocence.

As such, an erroneous or false criminal complaint by a company should itself be a criminal charge.

In Hertz's case, a human should eyeball the alleged theft and look for records like "do we have the car?", "do we know where it is?" and "is there a record of them checking it in?"

In the UK post office scandal, a detection of fraud from accounting records should be verified by comparison to the existing system in a transition period AND, moreso in the beginning, double checking results with forensic accountants (actual humans) before any criminal complaint is filed.

[1]: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/06/1140998674/hertz-false-accusa...

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

#134
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK law said that there was a presumption that computer systems were working correctly unless there was evidence to the contrary. That’s not inherently nuts. It makes roughly as much sense as assuming that, say, a dishwasher is in working order unless there’s evidence to the contrary. This presumption in and of itself could just as well aid a person’s defense as hinder it (e.g. if they have an alibi based on computer…

>UK law said that there was a presumption that computer systems were working correctly unless there was evidence to the contrary. Defense had to prove that only one Horizon/Fujitsu accounting software was buggy and the whole prosecution falls apart e.g. If John's Horizon/Fujitsu accounting software has bugs then Peter's Horizon/Fujitsu accounting software most probably has bugs too.

In principle, yes. It may be that the bar was set too high and that there needs to be some clarification of exactly what the presumption means.

I’d argue that some kind of weak presumption along these lines clearly makes sense and is probably universal across legal systems. For example, suppose the police find that X has an incriminating email from Y after searching X’s laptop. Are they required to prove that GMail doesn’t have a bug causing it to corrupt email contents or send emails to the wrong recipients? Presumably not.

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

#135
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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]

The suicide victims weren't programmers, they were postmasters, who had been falsely accused of fraud by the software.

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

#136
post #110
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Deep state" is, or at least to be, a perfectly respectable political term for bodies that retain power across changing governments.

Or in other words: the state. No ‘deep’ needed unless you’re trying to be emotive. Fujitsu is not part of the state and although the Post Office is owned by the state, it’s a stand-alone company. > “Perfectly respectable” Maybe in some fringe circles, but this term is certainly attached to a huge amount extreme propaganda and conspiracy that attempts to undermine western democracy and institutions.

The point, I think, is that that The Post Office acted like part of the state, notably in that they acted like an unconstrained branch of the CPS in bringing prosecutions against thousands of people.

> Maybe in some fringe circles

I would say the fringe circles co-opted it over the last couple of decades, and the term's obviously become heavily associated with them in some people's minds (eg. yours). But it's an older term than that.

Edit: Why would the loons have adopted it, if it was such a disreputable term?

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

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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#:~...

So long as the jury understands this, it's all fine. If you're on trial for doing X and your jury is told by a prosecution witness "mrkramer did X" and under cross they admit that's based on computer records which are often bogus, inconsistent, total nonsense, it doesn't take the world's best defence lawyer to secure an "innocent" verdict. That's not a fun experience, but it probably won't drive you to suicide. One o…

It's worse than that - in UK law you cannot question the evidence produced by a computer unless you can prove the computer is not operating correctly - it's an inversion of the normal burden of proof.

They've started the process of thinking about if that law makes sense given this case: https://www.gov.uk/government/calls-for-evidence/use-of-evid...

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

#138

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…

There is no "deep state", just the state. Calling things "the deep state" tries to partition the state in two parts, a good one and a bad one. There is also no "deep Amazon" or "deep Meta". Amazon is Amazon, Meta is Meta and the state is the state. People working for or representing the state have their own agenda, have their cliques, have their CYA like people everywhere else. And the state as an organization priori…

Fair. I use the term to refer to the parts of the state that are somehow buried deep, beyond most people's awareness. In this case the problems started with a government contractor, and were then covered up by people inside the post office. It wasn't a top-down conspiracy of politicians, or of civil servants following their orders.

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

#139
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 emperor has no clothes. Oxford is the worlds AI Safety research hub and yet they didn't think about campaigning to overturn a law which negates their entire reason for existing?

This happened a long time before the current resurgence in AI.

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

#140
This was depressing to read. Failures at so many levels.

1. Immediately after Horizon was rolled out, issues were reported. But ignored

2. Prosecutors didn't bother to verify if there is another explanation before accusing thousands of people of stealing? Isn't it common sense to pause for a second and think, "could we please double check the evidence? how can thousands of postal workers suddenly turn into thieves?"

3. local newspaper had published a photo of her and labeled her the “pregnant thief.” - of course, UK tabloids. Click baits and write whatever the fuck they want, no matter whose lives are destroyed

4. post office has said that it does not have the means to provide redress for that many people - so they have the means to falsely prosecute and destroy the lives of thousands of people, but they don't have the means to correct their blunders?

This happened more than a decade ago. Citizens are expected to do everything on time (pay taxes, renew drivers license...) or get fined/jailed, but the government can sit on their butt for 10 YEARS and do nothing about a blunder they caused?

What about Fujitsu? Why can't the government make Fujitsu pay for the destruction caused by their shitty software?

Jeez. This is just fucking nuts

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