Its not a bug
Whistleblowers: Software keeping inmates in Arizona prisons beyond release dates
261–270 of 434 posts
Re: Whistleblowers: Software keeping inmates in Arizona prisons beyond release dates
#262This is an outrage. It is also a perfect example of how software is used to create increasingly more elaborate and faceless bureaucracies that force individuals to spend more and more time contending with them. Somehow software has become the ultimate vehicle for bureaucratic violence. Software is simultaneously infallible and the perfect scapegoat. The inmate who lost their phone privileges for 30 days is an example…
The lack of desire to get things right throughout the bureaucracy is the problem. The software is just a mechanism. Other organizations that actually care figure out ways to get things right even when the software has issues. You can see in the film Brazil, from 35 years ago, that this was already a problem and concern even without modern software.
Much older than that. The blackly humorous 1965 short story "Computers Don't Argue" by Gordon R. Dickson is pretty much the definitive "software as a bureaucracy" story. No spoilers - it's short and well worth it:
Re: Whistleblowers: Software keeping inmates in Arizona prisons beyond release dates
#263Earlier quoted context omitted.
We know exactly how to fix it. Our cowardly politicians and toothless regulatory agencies are not up for the challenge. For every piece of software that can directly and materially harm someone's life like this, there should be a chain of responsibility. And within that chain, there should be legal recourse and, in most cases, penal consequences, especially in the case of inadequate software quality/testing/validatio…
Yeah but the cost of that chain will also rise. If I'm (or my company is) personally on the hook for bugs, then I'm going to adopt a NASA-like software quality regimen, pushing up the cost of the product. Every single part of the software stack below me, from hardware, OS, compiler toolchain, disavows responsibility so if I have to absorb all the risk, the product is going to be mind bogglingly expensive.
Good, this is precisely the objective.
Re: Whistleblowers: Software keeping inmates in Arizona prisons beyond release dates
#264Earlier quoted context omitted.
As an outside observer (European) this seems to be the way the American prison system is run. The inmates are not viewed as humans by the people responsible, enabling horrible conditions. Fixing such an issue should be top priority, and in the meantime, you would revert to pen and paper accounting to ensure the correct release of each prisoner.
> The inmates are not viewed as humans by the people responsible, enabling horrible conditions. This was not my experience as an inmate in Texas. Actually, we are referred to as "offenders" [0] because the terms "inmate" and "convict" are considered offensive. Staff can get in trouble for using a pejorative word like "inmate". (Not that they never do because quite honestly I don't know anyone that actually finds the…
It's tragic that the wrong noun is offensive and staff is taught to use the "right" terms, but being not being released on time... Well, sorry, the software says you stay, you stay, even if everyone realised it's a software "bug" (or outdated software).
Re: Whistleblowers: Software keeping inmates in Arizona prisons beyond release dates
#265Earlier quoted context omitted.
We know exactly how to fix it. Our cowardly politicians and toothless regulatory agencies are not up for the challenge. For every piece of software that can directly and materially harm someone's life like this, there should be a chain of responsibility. And within that chain, there should be legal recourse and, in most cases, penal consequences, especially in the case of inadequate software quality/testing/validatio…
At what point do you feel the developers - the ones who actually wrote the code - should be held legally responsible for that code's execution?
This headlining issue is a specification change and it is an administrative rather than an engineering failure to knowingly rely on outdated software. The article also refers to other software problems but in scenarios like this the people who write the code (as well as the people who operate it, such as corrections department IT staff) tend to have no decision making power whatsoever:
>“It was Thanksgiving weekend,” one source recalled. “We were killing ourselves working on it, but every person associated with the software rollout begged (Deputy Director) Profiri not to go live.”
Re: Whistleblowers: Software keeping inmates in Arizona prisons beyond release dates
#266This is an outrage. It is also a perfect example of how software is used to create increasingly more elaborate and faceless bureaucracies that force individuals to spend more and more time contending with them. Somehow software has become the ultimate vehicle for bureaucratic violence. Software is simultaneously infallible and the perfect scapegoat. The inmate who lost their phone privileges for 30 days is an example…
> It is also a perfect example of how software is used to create increasingly more elaborate and faceless bureaucracies that force individuals to spend more and more time contending with them. You are attacking the wrong target. It's the government that's broken. This kind of outrage can happen just as easily with pencil and paper. The root cause is the lack of accountability and desire to make the government functio…
How is this a government problem? People frequently lose access to social network accounts and email because of broken algorithms. Google can blacklist a business and send it broke. Insurance companies, credit bureaus and banks can make a wrong decision and deny credit.
Re: Whistleblowers: Software keeping inmates in Arizona prisons beyond release dates
#267This is an outrage. It is also a perfect example of how software is used to create increasingly more elaborate and faceless bureaucracies that force individuals to spend more and more time contending with them. Somehow software has become the ultimate vehicle for bureaucratic violence. Software is simultaneously infallible and the perfect scapegoat. The inmate who lost their phone privileges for 30 days is an example…
We know exactly how to fix it. Our cowardly politicians and toothless regulatory agencies are not up for the challenge. For every piece of software that can directly and materially harm someone's life like this, there should be a chain of responsibility. And within that chain, there should be legal recourse and, in most cases, penal consequences, especially in the case of inadequate software quality/testing/validatio…
> cowardly politicians
They aren't cowardly; they are responding rationally to a constituency that hates "criminals". Prioritizing fixing discriminatory systems (such as this software, or "stop and frisk", or the death penalty) is bad electoral politics for "tough on crime" politicians.
Re: Whistleblowers: Software keeping inmates in Arizona prisons beyond release dates
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
1.5 million prisoners in the USA. You want to go through that list, without software?
The article is about Arizona, which has under 40k. I don’t want to go through that manually either. https://www.stltoday.com/news/national/govt-and-politics/ari...
I dunno about that. With a good card catalog, that sounds pretty manageable to me. You shouldn't need to parse the whole database every day.
Re: Whistleblowers: Software keeping inmates in Arizona prisons beyond release dates
#269Do the Arizona prisons get more money, the more prisoners they have and the longer they have them? Were these same prisons responsible for the procurement of this software? Is the software perhaps working as intended?
Re: Whistleblowers: Software keeping inmates in Arizona prisons beyond release dates
#270Earlier quoted context omitted.
We don't say "perfection is impossible" when it comes to bridges collapsing. We understand that yes, on rare occasion a bridge WILL collapse, but we go and find the people responsible, and we still hold them accountable. This is a level of accountability that basically every other field of engineering is held to, and they've all risen to the challenge and left the "off-brand duct tape" behind. Even within programming…
Why not hold the people accountable that deployed the tool? Ultimately the tool helps a human do the job. It doesn't do anything on its own. If a contractor shows up to do repairs in your house, but their hammer is faulty and the head flies through your window you don't talk to the hammer manufacturer. You talk to the contractor. It's the contractor's job to deal with wherever they got the hammer from. If software de…
Would you blame the people who paid for the bridge for the collapse? Should they have understood the details and flagged where corners were cut.
When it comes to critical system I think it's fair to say that the engineers who build it are the only ones who can fully understand the risk.
This is the point behind accreditation. It forces the supplier to maintain a minimum bar for services to protect the reputation of the industry.