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UK court clears post office staff convicted due to ‘corrupt data’

theguardian.com

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Re: UK court clears post office staff convicted due to ‘corrupt data’

#151

Post by throwaway823882 »

cletus wrote: post #136

The first bizarre part to me about this fiasco is that accounting, as a discipline, is one that is designed to catch errors. Put it another way: it assumes errors will occur. This is why in shops, for example, you'll have manual stocktaking (ie let's verify what's in the store is what the computer thinks is in the store) and in any business you'll have reconciliation processes to find and remedy errors. This highligh…

> electronic voting should be outlawed

Nationally regulated, sure. Verified with a physical copy (or a different system), sure. But banned altogether? You might as well ban everything in the world that is digital, as none of them are fool-proof.

Voting isn't even that important. The wrong guy gets picked, what happens? Same bullshit as if the right guy got picked. If your choices are "Hitler" or "Jesus", then your system is just fucked up, and making voting fool-proof isn't the way to fix it.

In addition, electronic voting would be a boon to democracy. It would provide another avenue for maligned minorities in remote areas be able to vote, when things like paper ballot voting in the middle of a pandemic might fail or be error-prone (esp. when a fascist fucks with the postal system), or local authorities enforce racist requirements like a physical ID card.

Re: UK court clears post office staff convicted due to ‘corrupt data’

#152

Post by etothepii »

throwaway823882 wrote: post #148
LatteLazy wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree more broadly, you cannot expect the Post Office to prove a negative. How would they prove conclusively that the software had no bugs at all under any circumstances? That's a pretty steep QA bill imho.

This is the proof that how we write software is inherently wrong, if we allow innocent lives to be destroyed because we don't want to write it differently. Imagine not doing inspections of new building construction because it would be costly.

The Grenfell inquiry would like to talk to you ...

Re: UK court clears post office staff convicted due to ‘corrupt data’

#153

Post by jschwartzi »

LatteLazy wrote: post #144
davidhyde wrote: post #98

Those postmasters defending charges of theft against them in the 2000s should not have had to prove that the computer system they were forced to use had bugs. In order to prosecute them in the first place, the Post Office should have had to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt and without risk of bias, that the computer system was correct. So, independent review at the very least, not testimony from parties with a veste…

While I agree more broadly, you cannot expect the Post Office to prove a negative. How would they prove conclusively that the software had no bugs at all under any circumstances? That's a pretty steep QA bill imho.

They can actually use formal methods to prove that their software is bug free. This technique is often used in safety-critical systems to ensure that they function as-specified. As long as the specification is correct, the software system should perform to specification under all input conditions.

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

We should consider the cost of QA and of engineering process against the cost to these 39 people of their freedom and a large part of their lives due to an accounting error in the software.

Re: UK court clears post office staff convicted due to ‘corrupt data’

#154

Post by _ea1k »

gambiting wrote: post #20
kristjankalm wrote: post #16

This is unreal. Shitty software sending people to prison without anyone in the process considering what exactly is the likelihood of hundreds of postmasters simultaneously becoming thieves overnight.

>>considering what exactly is the likelihood of hundreds of postmasters simultaneously becoming thieves overnight I mean, I don't think anyone assumed they suddenly and inexplicably became thieves, just that the fancy new software finally caught people who have been scamming the post office for years. Obviously the software was completely wrong and it's criminal what happened to those people.

I agree. My first thought on hearing this was that they'd look at the priors and realize there had to be a mistake.

My second thought was that most accounting departments I've worked with actually wouldn't do that, would blame fraud, and then would congratulate themselves at how much better they've gotten at detecting it!

Re: UK court clears post office staff convicted due to ‘corrupt data’

#155

Post by MaxBarraclough »

davidhyde wrote: post #98

Those postmasters defending charges of theft against them in the 2000s should not have had to prove that the computer system they were forced to use had bugs. In order to prosecute them in the first place, the Post Office should have had to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt and without risk of bias, that the computer system was correct. So, independent review at the very least, not testimony from parties with a veste…

You make a solid point. A similar argument applies to closed-source voting machines built by the lowest bidder, something Schneier has written about.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/04/securing_elec...

Re: UK court clears post office staff convicted due to ‘corrupt data’

#156

Post by _ea1k »

kristjankalm wrote: post #26
gambiting wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>considering what exactly is the likelihood of hundreds of postmasters simultaneously becoming thieves overnight I mean, I don't think anyone assumed they suddenly and inexplicably became thieves, just that the fancy new software finally caught people who have been scamming the post office for years. Obviously the software was completely wrong and it's criminal what happened to those people.

yes, this reasoning does make sense. but given the human cost it should only make sense if there's a significant prior: in most of these cases there was no previous evidence whatsoever, just a new system, and boom, thieves. I think the core point here is how imbalanced this process was: postal system builds a new accounting program that shows money is missing. these people were convicted solely on the evidence that s…

Wow, we should get raises for the fine job we are doing at keeping people from stealing from our agency!

Re: UK court clears post office staff convicted due to ‘corrupt data’

#157

Post by redis_mlc »

This is a similar story.

When ATMs were introduced in Canada in the 70s/80s, it was common to believe they were infallible. When customers claimed they were short-changed by machines, often they were prosecuted for fraud or attempted theft.

I'm sure HNers can think of dozens of ways a machine could be wrong ...

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

Also, regarding the Postmaster article, note that somebody working on that project would likely face great difficulty in convincing anybody there was a systems problem.

Re: UK court clears post office staff convicted due to ‘corrupt data’

#158

Post by pas »

lbriner wrote: post #118
haunter wrote: post #43

https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252496560/Fujitsu-bosses... >For the first 10 years of Horizon’s existence, transaction and account data was stored on terminals in each branch before being uploaded to a central database via ISDN. Our source says this part of the system simply did not work. >“The cash account was a piece of software that sat on the counter NT box, asleep all day,” he said. “At the end of the day,…

I think a lot of "normal" people like the idea of holding corporates accountable but how would that actually work? The CEO blames one of their directors; the Director blames the supplier; the supplier blames the requirements documentation; the Business Analysts blame the culture for creating confusing and conflicting requirements. Yes, you can hold the organisation accountable but then the people who worked there bac…

The quick and dirty way is to somehow tie their power/privileges/financial-situation to that of those who they have power over. (And make it stick for many years.)

There's a big missing culture of fixing problems in corporations. Which of course must start with acknowledging the problem. Which of course means that people reporting problems shouldn't face negative consequences. Which means that the current cultural gap is not just a nice empty void, it's an actively hostile roiling psychological chasm of corporate warfare.

So if random CEO knew about some problems that actively harmed the employees and did nothing, and later a court says that the company did wrong, the CEO automatically has to pay some fines too.

And it should be possible to share (but not completely delegate) this responsibility down the corporate hierarchy, to incentivize executives/VPs/managers/team-leads to do the right thing.

Of course this would need a political culture that is motivated to develop, fine-tune and enforce such a framework. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: UK court clears post office staff convicted due to ‘corrupt data’

#159

Post by avs733 »

davidhyde wrote: post #98

Those postmasters defending charges of theft against them in the 2000s should not have had to prove that the computer system they were forced to use had bugs. In order to prosecute them in the first place, the Post Office should have had to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt and without risk of bias, that the computer system was correct. So, independent review at the very least, not testimony from parties with a veste…

Or breathalyzer convictions in the us...where charges are often dismissed if a subpoena for the code is granted

Re: UK court clears post office staff convicted due to ‘corrupt data’

#160

Post by lbriner »

arethuza wrote: post #143
jjk166 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's still presumption of guilt. If you're going to convict someone of stealing £59,000, the very first thing you should have to show is that £59,000 actually got stolen. If there is reasonable doubt that the crime took place, no one can be guilty beyond that reasonable doubt. If the defendant claims the computer system got it wrong, it's not enough to say you are unaware of bugs, the prosecution should have to…

Not only that £59,000 was actually stolen but that the accused received the money. There was no evidence that the post masters charged ever had the money in their possession!

What you are both arguing doesn't match up with the facts. It was proved beyond reasonable doubt multiple times. The "proof", (which we now know was flawed) was that the system had shown that what they had sold didn't tally with what was sent to the Post Office, to refute that proof, the defence have to show another plausible explanation.

Yes, if they could have proved they also received what was stolen, that would have been a slam dunk but there are enough plausible reasons why they can't find the money. Maybe it was given to friends and family as cash, maybe it was used to gamble or to pay off some criminal.

It isn't much different than somebody saying, "you did it because we found your DNA". The Courts or Jury are inclined to believe it because "science" and if the defence are not on their game enough to show how "because DNA" is not always watertight, the defendent is seen as guilty beyond reasonbale doubt.

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