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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

#361

Post by ChromaticPanic »

gnfargbl wrote: post #222
mystraline wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Governments don't do get source code for the same reason as every other customer doesn't get source code: software vendors are incentivized to refuse the request. Why are the vendors so incentivized? Well, coming back to Fujitsu and the Post Office, the answer is that refusing to share the source was worth about a billion dollars : https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgm8lmz1xk1o

This is why it's unethical for governments to use closed source software. Anything related to government functioning should be auditable.

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

#362

Post by CamperBob2 »

hotpocket777 wrote: post #328
mbonnet wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work on satellites that are intended for use in missile tracking. If I fail in the software, it might not "kill people", but people will die due to the failures. Though, I used to work on fighter jets and SAMs. People do die due to my work.

[flagged]

(Shrug) Some people need killing.

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

#363

Post by phendrenad2 »

We've chased all of the smart people out of government. You're more likely to find a smart person working as a cook the local fried chicken restaurant than you are to find one in government. It has to be said. And you'll all find that it's true if you pay attention. Those of you who have been paying attention already noticed this.

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

#364

Post by VagabundoP »

duncans wrote: post #143

What is amazing is the engineers the Fujitsu employed would testify in court against some of the subpostmasters saying "there were no faults" where in unearthed evidence of their support logs they could be clearly acknowledging bugs that could create false accounts, manually updating records and audit logs to balance it out (and also sometimes screwing that up). See Nick Wallis' coverage: * https://www.postofficetria…

Absolutely scandalous. What kind of engineer is she?

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

#365

Post by phendrenad2 »

KingOfCoders wrote: post #132
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…

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…

When people say "deep state" they mean "invisible state". Not "bad state". If you realize this, suddenly you'll understand what people are talking about a lot more.

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

#366

Post by akudha »

flir wrote: post #335
akudha wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In law enforcement, people tend to decide on a suspect and then look for proof. Yikes, such people shouldn't be in working in law enforcement then

Everyone does it. You and me too. It's just how brains work. First the opinion, then the evidence to back up the opinion.

Maybe everyone does it at some level, but not everyone works in a job that has the potential to wreck other people's lives and freedoms. There should be a higher standard for doctors, prosecutors, cops, judges etc than someone writing a todo CRUD app or a cashier at a bodega.

It is not too much to ask for prosecutors to be a bit more careful, bit more factual, understand the powers that come with their position and use it wisely. If they are not able to do that, they should pick some other profession which has lesser potential to cause damage than law enforcement.

Also - now that the software has proven defective, are they doing to go after Fujitsu or those who tested/signed off on the software? Probably not, maybe they will find a scapegoat at best.

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

#367

Post by [deleted] »

jordanb wrote: post #191

I went on a deep dive on this scandal about a year or so ago. One thing that struck me is the class element. Basically, the Post Office leadership could not understand why someone would buy a PO franchise. It's a substantial amount of money up front, and people aren't allowed to buy multiple franchises, so every PO was an owner/operator position. Essentially people were "buying a job". The people in leadership couldn…

[deleted]

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

#368

Post by sarreph »

jordanb wrote: post #191

I went on a deep dive on this scandal about a year or so ago. One thing that struck me is the class element. Basically, the Post Office leadership could not understand why someone would buy a PO franchise. It's a substantial amount of money up front, and people aren't allowed to buy multiple franchises, so every PO was an owner/operator position. Essentially people were "buying a job". The people in leadership couldn…

This is a salient observation that I don’t think has been presented bluntly enough by the media or popular culture (such as Mr Bates Vs The Post Office).

The UK is class-obsessed, which is not as immediately clear to the rest of the world (especially US). Lends a lot of credence to your theory.

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

#369

Post by citizenpaul »

lawlessone wrote: post #351
njovin wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the PO creates a franchise program that they later decide isn't suitable for any sane, good-faith actor, and instead of revising the terms of the franchise program to make it so, they assume that the participants are criminals and prosecute them?

The same way many think about welfare/unemployment/disability schemes. Constant hoops to jump through to prove they're looking for work or still incapable. Or in the case of illness to prove they're still sick. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59067101

There is a rather famous book written on this subject.

Catch-22.

In order to be given disability you must jump through so many hoops that no one whom is actually sick could complete them. Or how in unemployment you must prove you must spend your time proving you are looking for a job so you cannot spend you time actually looking for a job. My personal fav because its almost universal is sick-day policies that codify 100% abuse of sick days because people are punished for not using them because some people were "abusing" their sick days.

In the case of the book to be discharged from military service they must prove they are insane which no insane person could complete.

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

#370

Post by jedimastert »

izacus wrote: post #332
jedimastert wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus I desperately wish real ethics classes were required for computer science degrees

Ethic classes are pointless without ethical liability and accountability of people causing suffering. Yes, even the Jira javascript ticket punchers hould be accountable for what they do.

"ethics classes are useless because no one would willingly choose to act ethically" is an interesting stance to take...
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