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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

#421

Post by jen20 »

Jooror wrote: post #402
jen20 wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is straightfoward to build systems which derive their state from the audit trail instead of building the audit trail in parallel. That is what event sourcing is.

TIL, thanks! I was attempting to emphasize the absurdity of any software system being “absolutely correct at all times”. I don’t believe such a system can exist, at least not in such strong terms.

What's important is that the audit trail can be replayed to derive the state of the system - and preferably in such a way that investigators can determine what _would_ have been seen by someone using it on a specific day at a specific time. Whether the system is free from bugs is a different matter - no system is, which is why deriving state from the audit trail instead of a parallel process which is guaranteed to diverge is so important!

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

#422

Post by akudha »

amiga386 wrote: post #386
arp242 wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What about Fujitsu? Why can't the government make Fujitsu pay for the destruction caused by their shitty software? Because the software didn't cause it. Look, by all accounts the software was/is a piece of piss, but what made it such an egregious scandal is how the Post Office leadership dealt with things. There was really no good reason for that to happen. They just ignored reports of problems (proper reports writ…

I'm going to have to pull you up on this detail, as you seem to care about the details. Fujitsu/ICL won the contract to develop and run Horizon. They got a commission on every EFTPOS sale. They paid for all the computers, all the network setup, all the staff training. They literally ran the helpline. If you were a sub-postmaster and had a problem with Horizon, you called Fujitsu. It was Fujitsu that then told you tha…

Fujistu is a business - they're gonna lie and do all kinds of shady things to maximize profits, avoid litigation etc. Nobody expects a big business to be ethical or even do only legal things at this point.

It is the prosecutors conduct that is maddening here. They need to have higher standards - it is their job to prosecute actual criminal behavior, and not be lazy in fact checking

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

#424

Post by Anthony-G »

whycome wrote: post #165
akudha wrote: post #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?"…

It's fucking nuts because it's worse than that too. Fujitsu falsely claimed that they couldn't remotely modify data. They used technical info to obfuscate things for the accused and the judges.

I haven’t followed this issue closely but would lying in court about their ability to remotely modify data not be perjury?

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

#425

Post by partdavid »

duxup wrote: post #283
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…

These kinds of assumptions about fraud always make me wonder about the folks in charge. I was at a company acquired by silicon valley company. Our tech support department was folded into another tech support department. Immediately the folks in the valley were upset that we closed more cases / had far higher customer satisfaction scores ... by far. They made no secret that they assumed that us mid-westerners doing th…

Accusations are often confessions.

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

#426

Post by varispeed »

varispeed wrote: post #213
ThisNameIsTaken wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is particularly striking about the scandal is the impact of the mini-series. From what I understand (as a foreigner to the UK) is that it was the mini-series that sparked national interest in the case. Without it, those involved would still be in a bureaucratic and legal nightmare, in which all institutions rejected their innocence claims, and hardly anyone would have been held accountable. See also the "Impact"…

There are other scandals in the UK, like IR35 that basically prevents worker owned businesses from making profit, then resulting cottage industry of parasitic "umbrella companies" and tumbling economy. But directly affected people are easily generalised as those with broader shoulders so the public couldn't care less if they cannot run their little businesses. Meanwhile big consultancies that lobbied for it are getti…

The propaganda that was manufactured by the government around this was particularly clever. Most people believe the captive labour market that has been created was for the benefit of the tax payer - see the downvotes and no comments - and reject the idea that it is actually the opposite and only benefactors are big corporations. The idea that subsequent governments could be so corrupt, doesn't compute.

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

#427

Post by williamscales »

amiga386 wrote: post #386
arp242 wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What about Fujitsu? Why can't the government make Fujitsu pay for the destruction caused by their shitty software? Because the software didn't cause it. Look, by all accounts the software was/is a piece of piss, but what made it such an egregious scandal is how the Post Office leadership dealt with things. There was really no good reason for that to happen. They just ignored reports of problems (proper reports writ…

I'm going to have to pull you up on this detail, as you seem to care about the details. Fujitsu/ICL won the contract to develop and run Horizon. They got a commission on every EFTPOS sale. They paid for all the computers, all the network setup, all the staff training. They literally ran the helpline. If you were a sub-postmaster and had a problem with Horizon, you called Fujitsu. It was Fujitsu that then told you tha…

Thank you for the added detail.

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

#428

Post by borosuxks »

akudha wrote: post #422
amiga386 wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to have to pull you up on this detail, as you seem to care about the details. Fujitsu/ICL won the contract to develop and run Horizon. They got a commission on every EFTPOS sale. They paid for all the computers, all the network setup, all the staff training. They literally ran the helpline. If you were a sub-postmaster and had a problem with Horizon, you called Fujitsu. It was Fujitsu that then told you tha…

Fujistu is a business - they're gonna lie and do all kinds of shady things to maximize profits, avoid litigation etc. Nobody expects a big business to be ethical or even do only legal things at this point. It is the prosecutors conduct that is maddening here. They need to have higher standards - it is their job to prosecute actual criminal behavior, and not be lazy in fact checking

It's mad we let such organizations run systems for us, let alone exist in the first place. If they were humans, they'd be labeled sociopaths.

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

#429

Post by m101 »

dimal wrote: post #411
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…

Interesting how supposed fraud from lower class people is a high priority that must be punished, but fraud from upper class people is almost always protected by the corporate veil.

Let's not even talk about the financial crisis

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

#430

Post by AceJohnny2 »

klik99 wrote: post #395
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…

Someone brought this up in a previous HN comment section as an example of trust in software ruining peoples lives. But your explanation is far more human and recontextualizes it a bit for me - it just happened to be that this was done with software, but the real motivation was contempt for the lower classes and could have easily have happened 100 years ago with an internal investigation task force. Growing up half in…

> Traditionally America likes to pretend this kind of class contempt doesn't exist

It just manifests as racism.

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