I suspect most people outside of the UK won't have heard about the post office scandal, but it seems highly relevant to learn about now (given *waves* this):
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@rradczewski This is horrific, I remember being aware of it but not the extent of damage and lives destroyed.
@deech @rradczewski There's a miniseries with some big name UK actors in it that was quite engrossing. Toby Jones as Mr. Bates vs. The Post Office - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr_Bates_vs_The_Post_Office
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I suspect most people outside of the UK won't have heard about the post office scandal, but it seems highly relevant to learn about now (given *waves* this):
For over 15 years, the software post offices in the UK had to use contained severe bugs, particular in accounting, that everyone at Fujitsu/horizon and the post blissfully ignored. Over 900 (!!!) postmasters were sentenced for alleged theft and fraud, some went to jail, some committed suicide. All because the software was shit and everyone who could do something about it didn't care and swept it under the rug.
Everything, including how it was uncovered, about this seems bizarre and Kafkaesque, but we better prepare for it to happen more often.
Happens constantly in government contracting. Happened to me.
Three way message conversion / translation. Two of the messages had seven elements, one had five. Given this assignment, I made a little diagram showing the two missing elements.
I was fired. It was easier to fire the contractor.
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@rradczewski This is horrific, I remember being aware of it but not the extent of damage and lives destroyed.
@deech @rradczewski there's also a podcast series about it from radio 4 https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/m000jf7j
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@rradczewski
It is a bit like the "toeslagenaffaire" in the Netherlands.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_childcare_benefits_scandal@pietkuip @rradczewski this is also bad, but it is not similar to the Post Office Horizon case. Not remotely.
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I suspect most people outside of the UK won't have heard about the post office scandal, but it seems highly relevant to learn about now (given *waves* this):
For over 15 years, the software post offices in the UK had to use contained severe bugs, particular in accounting, that everyone at Fujitsu/horizon and the post blissfully ignored. Over 900 (!!!) postmasters were sentenced for alleged theft and fraud, some went to jail, some committed suicide. All because the software was shit and everyone who could do something about it didn't care and swept it under the rug.
Everything, including how it was uncovered, about this seems bizarre and Kafkaesque, but we better prepare for it to happen more often.
@rradczewski they had to hire more lawyers, and not once did they stop to ask the question "what is the likely cause of this (apparent) rise in theft across the board?"
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@rradczewski they had to hire more lawyers, and not once did they stop to ask the question "what is the likely cause of this (apparent) rise in theft across the board?"
@ftp_alun I can imagine people getting very excited that their fraud detection is getting better. That, and the inquiries also seem to suggest a good amount of racism and prejudice against postmasters.
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I suspect most people outside of the UK won't have heard about the post office scandal, but it seems highly relevant to learn about now (given *waves* this):
For over 15 years, the software post offices in the UK had to use contained severe bugs, particular in accounting, that everyone at Fujitsu/horizon and the post blissfully ignored. Over 900 (!!!) postmasters were sentenced for alleged theft and fraud, some went to jail, some committed suicide. All because the software was shit and everyone who could do something about it didn't care and swept it under the rug.
Everything, including how it was uncovered, about this seems bizarre and Kafkaesque, but we better prepare for it to happen more often.
@rradczewski the particularly crazy thing is how well known the software defects were. Computer Weekly were writing about it in 2008, and Private Eye shortly after.
It was common knowledge enough to be a topic of small talk in the IT industry in the UK, but there were still hundreds of convictions after these reports. -
I suspect most people outside of the UK won't have heard about the post office scandal, but it seems highly relevant to learn about now (given *waves* this):
For over 15 years, the software post offices in the UK had to use contained severe bugs, particular in accounting, that everyone at Fujitsu/horizon and the post blissfully ignored. Over 900 (!!!) postmasters were sentenced for alleged theft and fraud, some went to jail, some committed suicide. All because the software was shit and everyone who could do something about it didn't care and swept it under the rug.
Everything, including how it was uncovered, about this seems bizarre and Kafkaesque, but we better prepare for it to happen more often.
@rradczewski
I really enjoyed the docudrama Mr. Bates vs. The Post Office. It was shown on PBS Masterpiece Theater over here. -
I suspect most people outside of the UK won't have heard about the post office scandal, but it seems highly relevant to learn about now (given *waves* this):
For over 15 years, the software post offices in the UK had to use contained severe bugs, particular in accounting, that everyone at Fujitsu/horizon and the post blissfully ignored. Over 900 (!!!) postmasters were sentenced for alleged theft and fraud, some went to jail, some committed suicide. All because the software was shit and everyone who could do something about it didn't care and swept it under the rug.
Everything, including how it was uncovered, about this seems bizarre and Kafkaesque, but we better prepare for it to happen more often.
@rradczewski Vennells should have served prison time for that fiasco. Hundreds of subpostmasters and others were imprisoned but she gets to continue life as usual.
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I suspect most people outside of the UK won't have heard about the post office scandal, but it seems highly relevant to learn about now (given *waves* this):
For over 15 years, the software post offices in the UK had to use contained severe bugs, particular in accounting, that everyone at Fujitsu/horizon and the post blissfully ignored. Over 900 (!!!) postmasters were sentenced for alleged theft and fraud, some went to jail, some committed suicide. All because the software was shit and everyone who could do something about it didn't care and swept it under the rug.
Everything, including how it was uncovered, about this seems bizarre and Kafkaesque, but we better prepare for it to happen more often.
@rradczewski I saw a pbs docudrama recently it was just amazing what they did to people when it was their system all along. Horrifying.
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I suspect most people outside of the UK won't have heard about the post office scandal, but it seems highly relevant to learn about now (given *waves* this):
For over 15 years, the software post offices in the UK had to use contained severe bugs, particular in accounting, that everyone at Fujitsu/horizon and the post blissfully ignored. Over 900 (!!!) postmasters were sentenced for alleged theft and fraud, some went to jail, some committed suicide. All because the software was shit and everyone who could do something about it didn't care and swept it under the rug.
Everything, including how it was uncovered, about this seems bizarre and Kafkaesque, but we better prepare for it to happen more often.
Nice summary of a decades long scandal that is far from over.
Now, automate the errors via AI -- and join them to the big big company PR that such software is virtually "error free," rather than bad 20% or more of the time. So error free, you could use it to evaluate whether a prospective voter was a citizen or not.
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I suspect most people outside of the UK won't have heard about the post office scandal, but it seems highly relevant to learn about now (given *waves* this):
For over 15 years, the software post offices in the UK had to use contained severe bugs, particular in accounting, that everyone at Fujitsu/horizon and the post blissfully ignored. Over 900 (!!!) postmasters were sentenced for alleged theft and fraud, some went to jail, some committed suicide. All because the software was shit and everyone who could do something about it didn't care and swept it under the rug.
Everything, including how it was uncovered, about this seems bizarre and Kafkaesque, but we better prepare for it to happen more often.
@rradczewski yes I have heard of this, on a pod I think. (San Diego CA USA.) Disgusting and, uh, well I already said where I am so... It made me sad leave it there ...
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@rradczewski the particularly crazy thing is how well known the software defects were. Computer Weekly were writing about it in 2008, and Private Eye shortly after.
It was common knowledge enough to be a topic of small talk in the IT industry in the UK, but there were still hundreds of convictions after these reports.@bashtoni @rradczewski it’s been said, but can’t be repeated enough that Computer Weekly did excellent journalism on this. They didn’t let it go. Private eye too.
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I suspect most people outside of the UK won't have heard about the post office scandal, but it seems highly relevant to learn about now (given *waves* this):
For over 15 years, the software post offices in the UK had to use contained severe bugs, particular in accounting, that everyone at Fujitsu/horizon and the post blissfully ignored. Over 900 (!!!) postmasters were sentenced for alleged theft and fraud, some went to jail, some committed suicide. All because the software was shit and everyone who could do something about it didn't care and swept it under the rug.
Everything, including how it was uncovered, about this seems bizarre and Kafkaesque, but we better prepare for it to happen more often.
@rradczewski I think this is an interesting example, how a "we don't do software for nuclear power plants" to play down on sloppy programming can escalate to legal issues and destroy lives.
THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR SLOPPY SOFTWARE DEVELOPEMENT. NEVER. however trivial your field of work might feel.
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@pietkuip @rradczewski this is also bad, but it is not similar to the Post Office Horizon case. Not remotely.
@sleepingexplorer @pietkuip @rradczewski you are wrong about it not being comparable. The problem was not just because of people hunting down fraud, but also because the targets were picked by an algorithm (i.e. software). It completely destroyed peoples lives, also of their children. And to be clear - most of the targets were absolutely innocent. The algorithm used things like the area were they lived, the type of job they had and used racial profiling
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