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Sent To Jail Because of a Software Bug
First time accepted submitter toshikodo writes "The BBC is reporting a claim that some sub-post office workers in the UK have been sent to jail because of a bug in the accounting software that they use. The Post Office admits Horizon computer defect. I've worked on safety critical system in the past, and I am well aware of the potential for software to ruin lives (thankfully AFAIK nobody has been harmed by my software), but how many of us consider the potential for bugs in ordinary software to adversely affect those that use it?"
and shit like this doesn't happen or can at least be properly traced back by a third party and gives people the means to defend themselves.
A government spokesman has stated they have "absolute confidence" in all their computer systems, and what happened to Mr. Buttle was merely an unfortunate accident that could have happened to anyone.
"I got to the end of one week and I was £2,000 short so I rang the helpdesk and they told me to do various things and then it said I was £4,000 short.
"They then said I had to pay them the £4,000 because that's what my contract says - that I would make good any losses.
"Then while I was repaying that it jumped up to £9,000."
System 'confidence'
Ms Hamilton said that, by the time the figure reached £36,000, she lied to the Post Office - wrongly telling them the books were balancing just so that she could open the office the next day."
it seems like the helpdesk did not have the power or know-how to see something is very wrong there or maybe they did see something looks off but it's not in the script. Or maybe they where near the max time per call and said said say it's balanced and I will pass this up the chain.
Sorry guys, but i bear ZERO responsibility for anything that this little program could cause. At the end of the day, i don't own the software, i don't sell it, i don't reap the benefits. All i do is just to "code" the requirements, nothing more, nothing less.
sounds like outsourcing or PHBs saying that with the real IT guys far from the real issues.
At least they didn't have to pay for their own interrogation.
not when you are a 1099 fedex does the same BS
FedEx package after the FedEx delivery driver had a neighbor I didn’t know in my building in [redacted] sign for a package from Apple.
and then make the driver be on the hook for it even when they don't have all day to wait and it common to give stuff / leave stuff to neighbor or drop it your door when you are not home.
http://consumerist.com/2011/08/19/report-your-iphone-stolen-get-a-visit-from-the-fedex-thugs/
So these employees were forced to use the UK PO accounting software, which had bugs, and which showed in some instances imaginary shortfalls that they had to repay with no way of defending themselves. Sounds peachy! I hope some judge throws the book at the UK post office and finds some way to redress the situation.
Similar thing happened to me ~10 years ago(another EU country). National Telecom kept insisting I owed them money, when I called to see WTF is going on not so helpfuldesk assistant said he can see my payment and it cleared but system still wants moar money, he knows its a glitch and I can ignore it. A month later I get a bill for 2x what they imagined I owed them plus interest. I called again, asked for name of helpdesk guy, asked him to check it and informed next bill comes like this I will be reporting fraud to the police with his name attached - he cleared whole thing in 10 minutes.
Yes, this was very asshole of me, but it goes to show where is a will, there is a way.
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
We make software for Healthcare professionals. As you can imagine, the risk footprint is pretty ugly.
We have special testing programs that are targeted at protecting patient safety.
We also have insurance up the wazoo (a technical term). Our PI Insurance covers us for several millions of dollars per claim, and hundreds of millions for class actions. It is our single biggest insurance expense for the entire organisation.
I'm happy to say that in 18 years, we've never made a claim against it, and we've never been notified of any negative consequence on any patients.
shoddy system for shore. but there is no circumstance where telling a lie about the books being balanced is an acceptable response in this scenario no matter how painful the system or process is, It just makes the problem 10 times worse.
Maybe that'll encourage other CEO/CFO... to hire competent developers at the right (accurate/higher) salary. Due to the apparent easiness of the www languages (html,css,js,php) many people coming from various horizons proclaim themselves "developer", then offering their "talent" at a lower price.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
So this defines your relationship with that poor bastard. You have some broke-ass shit that needs fixing, and he is there to make you try to give up and fix your shit yourself. Now you could attempt to do that, and most of the time you're some wanker who just needs his hand held while he RTFMs. But sometimes you legitimately have some shit that needs fixing. If you KNOW you're a person who needs actual help and you KNOW about your relationship with aforementioned poor bastard, your only choice, really, is to beat that guy like he owes you money. I suppose alternately you could attempt to explain all this to him, but that would take a good bit longer and he really does have call stats he needs to make.
It would be nice if the process could work in such a way that you didn't HAVE to be an asshole to someone, but I guess that's just the way the world works.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Private Eye, a fortnightly UK satirical and news magazine first raised this issue
almost two years ago. Here's a link to the journalist's blog article.
sounds like they should've used the windows 7 eula (section 25): LIMITATION ON AND EXCLUSION OF DAMAGES. Except for any refund the manufacturer or installer may provide, you cannot recover any other damages... This limitation applies ... even if ... Microsoft knew or should have known about the possibility of the damages.
In what way were you being an asshole? Someone (or something) was trying to defraud you, and you stood your ground and made them (or it) stop. That's not being an asshole; that's merely being responsible.
Kid-proof tablet..
The problem, I think, is that there weren't any books per se to begin with: Everything is tabulated with a computer, and the computer is wrong.
And when the computer is off by tens of thousands of pounds/dollars/whatever: OMFG.
But lying? No. Telling the truth is good, especially when it comes to official money. "I don't know what's happening because we're off by a huge amount of money, far more than we could ever accomplish in a day's business" is a good starting point.
(Just because the books are already cooked by some outside force, does not mean that one must continue to cook them.)
Kid-proof tablet..
there is no circumstance where telling a lie about the books being balanced is an acceptable response
It was a good response if she was trying to cover up her theft of 36,000 pounds.
I use some healthcare software that frequently drops drug prescriptions or swaps people's names on the top of clinical letters. I've complained and complained to the helpdesk but it's simply never acknowledged. Hasn't happened yet but if anyone comes to harm, it'll be me who is held to blame.
In what way were you being an asshole?
Because it was just some poor guy at the help desk, who is getting paid $10 an hour (if he's lucky), and doesn't need someone to sue him for fraud to make his day worse. It's not his fault, and now he's making threats at him.
I'm not saying he did the wrong thing, just that the guy at the help desk didn't deserve the treatment he got.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
What I build every day directly relates to the stats and commission of a large number of people. The problem is I'm given flawed methodology from the outset by the managers and above of these people. They basically do not have the analytical or even basic math skills required to be writing the requirements they are in charge of. When I point out all the problems with how they want to approach what we're doing, all I get in return is talk of scope creep and lines like "you're trying to fix today's problems when what we need done is the design for tomorrows system!" which I'm assuming they got out of a book or trade magazine because I hear it repeated enough. None of it really matters when they're doing something as idiotic as dividing every month by 30 to get a daily average.
"well most months are 30 days"
No, most months have 31... what about holidays and weekends?
"See? It all averages out!"
You and I have entirely different definitions of "average" and... whatever, I've written all my objections into the design requirements, please sign off that you're ignoring my warnings, thanks.
"Done!"
Again, your peoples numbers will be completely wrong...
Real Engineers have to get licensed by various bodies to ensure they Know What They Are Doing And Give A Shit.
When Engineers do horrible deisgns, sometimes they are even held to some kind of standard for their failure.
Contrast with computer programming. Every web douche wants to be called a 'software engineer' but god forbid anyone try to regulate them. Instead of actual professional licensing, that deals with reliability and quality of work, knowledge, etc, instead we get "MSCE" or other pseudo marketing garbage that means nothing.
*ahem*
The poor guy at the help desk: Was he, or was he not representing the company?
Kid-proof tablet..
but how many of us consider the potential for bugs in ordinary software to adversely affect those that use it?"
What the hell man, have you ever installed or released software? What kind of literally retarded question is this?
MIT License
BSD
GPL
No, really. Are you an idiot, or do you just play one on the Internet? For fuck's sake man, there are even disclaimers that state the software can't be used in nuclear power facilities. Living under the rock wasn't good enough for you, so you made some glasses out of stone and entered the real world?! Are you Kidding Me? Even JOKE licenses have indemnity clauses. The truth of the matter is this: Writing perfect software is possible, I have created perfect driver software in assembly that handled EVERY possible input EXACTLY as they should -- computers have finite state, so it's very doable. However, that shit is expensive as hell. Furthermore, even when I knew my software was PERFECT I still used an indemnity clause. Why? Because unless you're willing to guarantee me that the RAM and CPU and all other Hardware that my software touches is operating PERFECTLY at all times, physically audited by ME or my agents whenever I want to, perhaps even tearing a machine apart down to the microchip level, and peeling away the silicone level by level to ensure your circuits are NOT haywire and ensure you're not lying, then I can't EVER be absolutely sure what "my software" will do.
If you can't assume the responsibility for the operation of the machines and systems YOU are responsible for operating, including the testing and verification of the software in and beyond the hardware's operating environment, then YOU DO NOT HAVE PERMISSION TO USE MY SOFTWARE.
[Yes, this is a trick question.]
Kid-proof tablet..
You definitely can't call accounting software "ordinary", at least not in terms of risks.
It operates in an area with high legal risks for its users in case of an error, and it's not a revelation for the developers of said class of software.
They have misplaced trust in their computer system.
And misplaced lack of trust in human beings.
Accounting shortfall should not mean someone goes to jail.
It should mean a thorough investigation is launched, and the tool that first reported the shortfall should not be assumed to hold accurate information.
"peeling away the silicone level by level to ensure your circuits are NOT haywire"
Silicone computer circuits?
To resummarize:
Sub-postmasters, for those who aren't aware, are private subcontractors of the UK postal system. They are not directly employed by the government, they operate as private businesses.
The UK requires them to use specific software, called Horizon, to manage all transactions and accounting.
This software had a pretty serious bug that resulted in wrongly calculated shortfalls into the thousands of pounds. Their contracts, however, stipulate that they must make up for shortfalls themselves. Doesn't matter if the software is wrong, that's what it says, that's what it is (sounds like government to me...)
This bug went unfixed for years, despite numerous complaints and reports.
Some postmasters started falsely reporting the shortfalls as the obviously miscalculated numbers climbed to ridiculous amounts (tens of thousands) that would put them out of business by the end of the day. Because falsely reporting accounting numbers is illegal (even though the "right" numbers are obviously wrong and completely not the postmasters' fault), some of them were sentenced to prison, most likely due to the strict, unwavering and unreasoning nature of law.
Basically, they were users self-correcting for what they knew was a flaw in the software they were forced to use, and they went to jail for it or otherwise paid dearly. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. All in all, a pretty deplorable miscarriage of justice.
I mean, every program in one way or the other will retain some bugs, just like humans there ain't no perfect program. That's why the need for upgrade comes in. Except when the program is loaded by error of omission or commission with malicious bugs, and you've not categorically told us that.
Well I know accounting means money, Maybe someone wants to pay the bills.
All the same I hope my website doesn't have such bugs www.swaggland.com.
Once again its the Anonymous Coward, lol are you kidding
shoddy system for shore. but there is no circumstance where telling a lie about the books being balanced is an acceptable response in this scenario no matter how painful the system or process is, It just makes the problem 10 times worse.
I dunno, when your business is about to be shut down due to a computer glitch and there's nothing you can do about it... It didn't end well for her but I can certainly see why she did it. What would you do if the choice is between "lie" and "be shut down"?
http://blog.nexusuk.org
"[I]t is used by around 68,000 people in more than 11,500 branches, successfully processing more than six million transactions every day."
How can thorough investigations possibly be needed here?!? This is the postal system, don't you know!?!
Obviously YMMV, anecdote time, but...
I used to work in a role where I was responsible for reconcile the finances of a bank branch every day. Basically, we relied on the computer to tally everything up correctly. If the computer reported a discrepancy, I'd spend the next hour with a print out, pencil and calculator going through every transaction line by line until I found the exact key press where the discrepancy originated (not always easy if there were multiple and overlapping discrepancies). 99% of the time (and because our banking software was pretty rock solid) it was human error, such as someone accidentally withdrawing some virtual money from the virtual till as part of a transfer, but accidentally leaving it in virtual limbo. You'd correct it and do some tedious audit paperwork.
Long story short, it was always possible to do the day's finances manually when you needed to. I would hope, for her sake, that the Post Office employee from TFA was trying her best to manually reconcile her issues, and not just leaving it to anonymous call centre staff.
In the context of a court case, judges have discretion to turn over closed source to for-hire special/expert witness review and presentment to the court. So your claim of only two choices for review (OSS wins the day, vs the P.O. can refuse to do anything) is evidently meant to convince the more gullible reader into believing OSS would have made the problems experienced by Ms Hamilton & co. easier to resolve. The sub-post masters would have to sue for satisfaction either way, and hire the special witness either way.
The Postal service (and Horizon by extension) clearly wish avoid liability in this, as do any institutions of its size. Given the soft and squishy language in announcing the report, with total avoidance of addressing specific sub-post masters' claims, they'll continue that way. But as their system is already closed source, your false dichotomy claim is most unhelpful to their plight, making you out as an opportunist.
O lord, bless this thy holy hand grenade, that with it thou mayest blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.
It's not like the suit would be against that individual employee.
And either way, that employee could easily get out of that by simply passing the call to his boss. But in this case, it seems the guy knew what he was doing, and fixed the problem himself.
No, really. Are you an idiot, or do you just play one on the Internet? For fuck's sake man, there are even disclaimers that state the software can't be used in nuclear power facilities.
My favorite "why we can't use Free software" argument is always "if we buy from Microsoft/IBM/whoever, there's someone to sue if it all goes wrong; if we use Free software we have to accept the liability" - a clear indication that someone's never actually read an EULA (although admittedly the limited liability clauses in EULAs may not actually be legal, but I've never heard of someone suing Microsoft when Word breaks...)
http://blog.nexusuk.org
ALL of the major accounting software packages have tons of bugs in them. They just stick disclaimers in them voiding them of any responsibility. I know because I was an accountant once, I was hauled over the coals a number of times because of it, even got a disciplinary for poor performance. I quadruple checked and added things up in excel and on paper yet the numbers which came out when entered on the software didn't add up. Until I started recording my screen and demonstrated that it was the software at fault I was entering my calculations as I had worked them out on excel. I vindicated myself but the boss had the knives out for me already and used it as an excuse to sack me and outsourced everything to Pakistan as well as getting rid of his 40 other staff.
More importantly, we prostitute ourselves to the People With Money. If Money says "no time for proper testing", "no time for proper documentation", "no time for proper architecture", we cave in 99% of the time. IT people are often very, very knowledgable, but we have absolutely no spine.
There are always "business reasons" for doing things in a half-assed way. Even when that means that other people (like Bank clerks) will go to jail for this.
But that is just one symptom of a wholly rotten system of corrupt rule and it appears it needs a proper implosion, before anything will be fixed. The banksters have taken over government and we the people already believe in their Money Ideology. We deserve all the shit we can get from this. Disregard the computer scientist, worship the money-changer and then take all the piss you can get from the money-changer.
To the customer, he appears to be representing the company, but to his employer he is authorized to read the script and no more. Always ask for the guy's manager first if you need them to actually resolve a problem by doing something out of the ordinary.
you mean rhetorical.
A sort of middle-ground thing would be that the government regulates software which can get people into jail, like the system in discussion. These systems need to have proper, documented quality assurance, bullet-proof and redundant logging facilities to allow for the investigation of any "mysteries".
Normally, any finance system is designed to allow for every single transation to be double- and triple-checked and this is especially necessary in the age of finance done by software.
But you know what ? Some sort of people-manipulating "business person" has been fucking up all sensible measures of this kind (in order to meet an illusionary cost objective and to implement 175 stupid, useless "extra" features) and now some clerks go to jail for that. The cynicism of our rotten elite at work.
The elite will pay back when they march into the facilities of the Fourth Empire of Rick Cromwell, the 3rd.
You mean rhetorical ?
in some countries engineers (real ones, not fake software "engineers") can go to jail if they are proven negligent, and engineering qualification requirements are becoming embedded in laws and standards
fortunately in most cases computer programs don't kill people (the cases where they do are usually heavily regulated anyway, such as medicine and aviation) so end users have developed a kind of apathy towards computers where they have come to expect errors, especially in windows (if microsoft can't even have a product launch without a bsod then what hope has the rest of the programming fraternity got?).
real engineers are held to a high standard because the public expects it. if buildings routinely collapsed nobody would go in them.
programmers will only ever take responsibility when they are forced to by the public (and the legal system), and when that happens just watch how the number of software engineers goes from dime a dozen to a very expensive rarity. it takes a long time to build the credibility of a profession. doctors and other medical specialists are likely more trusted than engineers, but engineers rank fairly highly (which is why programmers like to associate themselves with engineering). programmers are no doubt more trusted than lawyers and second-hand car salesmen, but they are probably notable mainly for their impressive skills with a computer (however inconsistent and unreliable they may be), not their trustworthiness.
Pretty much being an asshole to helpdesk people is the only way to get results.
No, it's a surefire way of being treat like an asshole.
how many of us consider the potential for bugs in ordinary software to adversely affect those that use it?
MIT License
BSD
GPL
programmers include these eulas so that they don't have to consider the effects or consequences of bugs in their software... eulas don't exactly impose any level of responsibility on the programmer (that's kinda the opposite of what they do actually)
if only real engineers could have these kind of eulas on their structural computations... imagine walking into a skyscraper with a big sign like this at the entrance:
"ENTER THIS SKYSCRAPER AT YOUR OWN RISK. SOME NUMBERS HAVE BEEN CRUNCHED TO COME UP WITH A DESIGN THAT WE THINK WILL WORK BUT WE DON'T OFFER ANY WARRANTIES, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED THAT THIS SKYSCRAPER WILL BE FIT FOR PURPOSE, AND THE ENGINEERS WILL NOT BE HELD LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL ETC DAMAGES. IF THIS BUILDING KILLS YOU... TOUGH SHIT."
I have created perfect driver software in assembly that handled EVERY possible input EXACTLY as they should
i'll bet that's the kind of half-assed confidence that the programmers of the Therac-25 had before they killed people
In a system/company which is PROPERLY run, there is a way of finding out whether the software is wrong: It's callend "Inventur" here in Germany: You basically count all the physical stuff (cash, post stamps, other valuable items). Then you compare that list against the computer.
THIS is going to discover any issues. That's how it is done on a regular basis in HONEST countries. Now, Britain is run by a bankster PM, so fuck that.
So it was with Australia's Telstra. A bit of perseverance would have one's complaint escalated until someone who knew what's what actually fixed the problem. Not so now.
Telstra rang my mother and demanded she buy the new you-beaut modem, which she did. I took one look and realized 'Nope, won't work with a e-tablet'. So she took it into the shop. They saw it working on their computer so they tried it on the e-tablet. After a few minutes the check-out chick went to her manager. They agreed it wouldn't work so a recovery and refund was organized. Then mum got the bill for the modem. Mum called Telstra and tried to explain the problem. But no-one would make a decision. In their defense, my mother doesn't understand the necessity of Key Words. So she refused to pay the bill, the whole bill as punishment. When her phone was disconnected I finally called Telstra and organised the refund. Looking at mum's phone bill I noticed her off-contract modem had gone from a $30 fee to a $50 fee. So we went to Telstra and found a modem on a cheaper plan, that would work with an e-tablet (although the one-click setup software was Windows only). But mum was now on the bad customer list and couldn't get credit approval. We made other plans for internet and she cancelled her off-contract modem. The next day Telstra rings wanting to know why she had cancelled the modem service. Mum explains the situation but the help-desk refuses to make a decision. The following day the same thing happens. And again, the day after. And the rest of the week. No-one would fix the actual problem.
No, I mean trick. Though it's a trap might be an appropriate footnote.
Kid-proof tablet..
A sort of middle-ground thing would be that the government regulates software which can get people into jail, like the system in discussion. These systems need to have proper, documented quality assurance, bullet-proof and redundant logging facilities to allow for the investigation of any "mysteries".
OR! How about if you see a fucking bug in the software you're using that's generating discrepancies, then instead of covering for it, YOU DO YOUR FUCKING JOB, and refuse to use the piece of shit defective software until it's fixed and you can perform your duties. I do agree that governments should get involved. To facilitate this, it should be a mandatory requirement for all hardware drivers to be open source so that the software interacting with it, and the users of the hardware, can audit and fix broken shit. Give me closed source software, the specs for it, and an open platform to run it on, and I'll tell you if it's got any bugs. That means you could pay ME, or other engineers like me, to ensure the shit software you bought was working.
Hell, just mandating a competent help desk would have fixed the TFA's issue.
It is always easy to judge someone who might have been in a very pressured situation (thats a lot of money) and feeling completely helpless. esp. if you are sitting on your high horse looking down at them. I guess the poster have never made a bad decision in such a situation, but in that case they are in a seriously tiny minory. (not that lying is good, but if you are feeling your world fall apart around you, you tend to get desperate. again i can only assume the poster is one of those lucky people that have never been in a desperate situation where they simply could see no end to the trouble and whatever they did made it worse (seemingly the number increased at every attempt))
Sometimes Therac-style, sometimes WoW-style ...
Dude, you're Australian. You're lucky to have some pretty strong consumer protection law on the books.
According to my Aussie friend if you have a problem with Telstra, or any other Aussie telecoms company, you contact the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman and your problem will almost always get sorted quickly. He's had to call them when Telstra have dragged their feet fixing his Internet connection. After he complained to the Ombudsman, Telstra were calling HIM back and apologising, and had a team out in his neighbourhood fixing the problem the next day.
Are you eligible to vote in any country or any other form of election? By the false premise you're proposing you are to blame and should be treated as such, for everything that country/group does.
Elevating a problem from business critical pain in the arse to a potential Jail sentence is NOT a good solution. The unpalatable and only solution is to actually be shutdown and then hold the system that caused said shutdown liable for your costs through the courts. It sucks arse but it is far better than rotting in jail because of it.
Can a doctor go to jail for making an error that kills the patient?
Can a politician go to jail for making an error that impacts the whole country?
" Hell, just mandating a competent help desk would have fixed the TFA's issue."
I may be nitpicking, but mandating competence wouldn't have helped at all. Having competent people would have helped.
Most likely there are already several laws, rules , and procedures that mandate that they give the support contact to a competent company. That didn't make it happen. Where I work, a government agency, we have all kinds of rules mandating secure computing practices. Our systems are absolutely insecure. You can mandate faster than light travel and see what that gets you. Or maybe mandate that fast food workers are worth $18 / hour. That doesn't make them worth that, it just gets them laid off.
Now the problem is shown to exist and has lead to serious consequences, it's time to call to account the experts that testified in court that such a problem was impossible, and similarly to call to account the managers that flatly denied there was a problem. At the very least any future announcement on a similar subject that they care to make should trigger the question if they are as certain now as they were when they pronounced on this case.
Good luck with that. I had to phone my car insurance company three times, the first two times I was promised a manager would call me back immediately. My tone went from polite but frustrated to full on shouting down the phone and threatening to come round and burn the place down angry at which point I was magically transferred to a manager. The first thing I said to the manager was that he was an arsehole for making it so difficult to reach him that I had to deliver such a torrent of abuse to a member of his staff in order for them to be allowed to put me through to him directly. I've also told several people I've spoken to at Spark Energy that they should look for somewhere else to work because having seen the level of incompetence they show to their customers I wouldn't want to be dependent on them for my pay.
In English I'd guess that would be an inventory. Which would work if they don't assume you've stolen the missing items.
In what way were you being an asshole?
Because it was just some poor guy at the help desk, who is getting paid $10 an hour (if he's lucky), and doesn't need someone to sue him for fraud to make his day worse. It's not his fault, and now he's making threats at him.
I'm not saying he did the wrong thing, just that the guy at the help desk didn't deserve the treatment he got.
of course he deserved. he was working as the henchman for the company trying to fraud the customer - he was the company contact and was getting paid for being that company contact. shitty job, but working a shitty job at a shitty company doesn't really provide moral protection from assholeness, in fact it's pretty much the opposite. add to that the fact that he _could_ fix the problem he was exactly the right person to say that what the company was doing would not stand.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
It is even worse than that, usually customer-facing support agents have absolutely no say in how the company handles things. so given the premise they proposed - just being part of a group (being human, being part of a country, being part of a family, debating on /., you name it) makes them responsible - they do not have to have any actual say in the matters (I will concede that we could limit it to groups you choose to join, but that is still a whole lot of responsibility)
obviously the fucking computer program should have shown where the money went or what was bought with it supposedly.
that some people were put to jail without them even being able to show actual money missing(or the services the supposed money paid for) is a pretty big fuckup from the police as well.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Australian Ombudsmen kick arse. They have some pretty tough powers over whoever they are monitoring, and they aren't afraid to use it.
I'm guessing that wasn't on their radar screen...
When he was threatened with a lawsuit the problem magically went away. Obviously, he had the power to fix it. If it took threatening him to get him to fix it, then he deserved the threat.
I'm guessing that wasn't on their radar screen...
Must've been the European subsidiary of Initech..
That's the court's job. If the software isn't 100% certified they should just throw out any evidence based on it.
In fact, they should just in general throw out "evidence" that is not confirmed by something other than some (single!) computer program.
Posting as AC for obvious reasons.
Our postal authority uses the same system (Horizon is the UK post office name for the 'entire system'). The counter system runs something called WebRiposte Essential written by an Irish firm called Escher. The way the system works is that everything you do on it is written to what is effectively a journalling system that is replicated peer-to-peer. It is extremely reliable, and Escher boast about it having never lost a transaction. This journalling system is indeed very solid, it is highly fault tolerant and it works very well. The basic end-of-day reports use this (it's called the message store).
Now Horizon may have other accounting stuff that we don't have here, so I can't say anything about that.
Occasionally we have had a postmaster not balancing, and in the case where it gets out of hand our postal authority doesn't just go and have them prosecuted on what WebRiposte tells them, the facts are verified rather than just accepting what the computer system says. In every case so far it's turned out that there has been theft. The worst one was my next door neighbor who was a postmaster ended up in this situation. He was entirely innocent. It turns out it was one of his staff members who was actually doing the stealing, she was taken to court and successfully prosecuted - not just on the computer evidence, but other physical evidence too. However, this didn't stop my neighbor from losing his job (the sub office employs their own staff, the sub postmaster is responsible for what their staff do too and can end up paying the price). Of course at first he believed his staff member was not stealing - when you employ someone and think they are of good character, you're going to try and defend them. The consequences for him despite being entirely innocent was nearly losing everything - he has a young family and an extended period of unemployment is devastating.
Yep. A threat to call the ombudsman will get most small balances instantly wiped with Australian companies, even when the company is in the right. The companies get billed for each incident, which is in the hundreds for some industries. And that is before it is even considered.
Not having the audit trail should be the crime.
Add to that the decision to prosecute without an independently verified audit trail, and the magistrates' decision to allow such prosecutions to proceed.
A few years back, I forgot to cook my books and all the accountants got salmonella.
Or what you would call 'Indians' in the U.S.
I wonder how many of these postmasters were of INDIAN descent?
... how many of us consider the potential for bugs in ordinary software to adversely affect those that use it?"
Isn't that what "bug" means in the software field? After all, an error in software that doesn't affect anything relevant to users rarely (if ever) gets listed as a "bug". Bug reports are always the result of software getting something wrong in a way that a user notices. If the affect were beneficial, I sorta doubt that many users would report it.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
The software is lying, the suspect is making a guess.
I get the idea that at such a point every choice is a bad one.
Well, Ok, it was some poor shlub at a phone. One of two things happen:
1. He clears it.
2. He shines on the caller, maybe saying he fixed it but doesn't (happened to me several times) or puts you on hold for the supervisor who never answers (same).
I reject the shlub hupothesis. Oh, not the shlub part. Just that it's wrong to try to motivate. When "honey" instead of vinegar fails for the 4th time, then what?
Also I doubt knowing the name does any good. They don't give their real ones so they can't be tracked down for the beatings they richly deserve, I mean, so insane phone ragers can't go after them.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
You may not understand what a "sub-post-master" does.
A sub-post-master runs a tiny little post office. The kind that doesn't have employees, or only has a couple employees. He's basically a mailman who can also sell stamps. Oh, and he's a private contractor so he can't get help from anyone in the government except the help desk. A subpostmaster simply does not have the money to hire an accounting guy full-time to go through the books every day.
who obviously put more trust into a computer program without challenging its correctness than they trusted those postmasters. Obviously those judges had no idea of the subject matter and still felt comfortable to jail people.
well, I would be buggered!
No, it's a surefire way of being treat like an asshole.
Nope, at least with Dell, being nice will get you lied to and blown off. Yelling and cursing will get your dead under-warranty equipment replaced.
So then "inventory" would prove that the "computer was right". Or it would prove that there is excess cash/post stamps etc in the shop. That would prove the computer/software wrong.
In addition, the software must store several detailed logs of each and every important activity both at the client and the server levels. If it doesn't, that's British Incompetence(TM) and they should sue the hell out of Royal Mail.
I fully expect the judicial establishment to take the side of the overpaid, incompetent M.B.A. mupperts who run Royal Mail, though. You need to punish the little guys so that the big criminals can cream of billions and crash the entire economy in the process. Otherweise the little guys might demand that the big crimes stop.
But Maggie T. made the British eat beef from cows that ate cow-meat which was processed under reduced temperature. To "save costs" in the cow-cannibalism-business. That broought Britain hundreds of thousands of cows with dissolving brain ("BSE").
But there is justice - Maggie T. herself got a brain disease and chances are she got it from the cannibal cow meat she caused herself.
If you let Money fuck with your nation, you have to bear the consequences. You better fuck Money before it fucks you. The Chinese are doing it 100% correctly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovine_spongiform_encephalopathy
All the joys of Shopkeeper Ideology !
Sure you're taking a big crap in the middle of a day of a guy whose life involves 6-10 people an hour taking a big crap on him, but his stats demand that he answer 6-10 calls an hour. If you really need something fixed you could argue with him for 20 minutes or you could get pissed off with him in the first three and let him get on to the next guy in line to take a crap on him. Sure you're being an asshole, but it really is best for everyone involved. You get to someone with the power to fix your thing, he gets to keep his shitty ass job for another day. Hooray!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
engineers have the power to tell the boss NO on doing something that negligent and they can't say we will find someone who will do it.
Most of those guys are just trying to get you to go away in 10 minutes or less so they can make their call stats for the week.
In what moronic universe is that metric what anyone wants from a Helldesk call center? It's supposed to facilitate problem solving communications between the company and its customers leading to customer satisfaction and retention. Instead, it's penny-pinching Helldesk costs and aggravating relations with customers, for what? Saving a few bucks on Helldesk salaries to the exclusion of the reason why the Helldesk exists in the first place? Management that comes up with ideas like that should be defenestrated.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
Mr. Archibald Buttle arrested, interrogated, and killed all because a fly got caught in the printer.
I kind of don't get this.
I know that accounting can be complex, but underneath it all there has to be transactions.
Credits.
Debits.
Raw data.
If the numbers on the screen don't look right, the first thing I want to see is the raw data.
They do have the data somewhere, right?
Right???
Was it REALLY a bug in their accounting software, or was it an ingenious plot executed by none other than one Peter Gibbons, one Michael Bolten, and one Samir Nagaa..... whatever! I KNOW these guys used a 3.25" floppy disc to install a virus in the accounting system to put money in their bank account. Duh!??
No idea why they didn't use a USB drive.... well they did, it was a USB (floppy) drive...strange thieves they are!
The control software for Toyota cars was written without any, absolutely no, consideration for occupant safety. Writing the code so the brake will override the accelerator seems like an obvious thing to do. It is such an obvious issue I can't see how a whole team of technology experts writing the code couldn't see it. "It's not my job." is probably the reason. Some idiot wrote the specification for the software but he/she wasn't a programmer so she wouldn't know how simple it would be to have the brake override the accelerator. She didn't put it in the design specification so the programmers didn't code it because it's not their job to think of things like that.
You seem to be under the impression that voting actually matters, or that we have as much a choice in our government as we do in our employers.
where a large financial institution insisted its systems were bug free and secure,
... at that time the computing department of one of the banks issuing ATM cards had "gone rogue", cracking PINs and taking money from customers' accounts with abandon ... more than 2,000 people who had suffered "phantom withdrawals" from their bank accounts
eventually to be proved wrong:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/21/phantoms_and_rogues/print.html
Where did you get the idea that the Horizon Computer System mentioned in the article was open source?
I checked four articles and could not find anything about it being open source.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23233573
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/07/09/post_office_admits_false_accusations_after_computer_system_cockup/
http://www.dailytech.com/UK+Post+Office+Software+Bugs+Likely+Created+False+Financial+Shortfalls+Imprisonment/article31924c.htm
http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240187566/Post-Office-Horizon-system-investigation-reveals-concerns
Was your post in reply to something that has been modded down, or are you just using the opportunity to forward the FUD agenda?
This reminds me of idiot jury reactions to DNA evidence: ITS A MATCH SO GUILTY, ignoring the real chance of contamination, half-assed analysis, and straight up framing by cops and DAs switching / adding a 'match' to the evidence.
So these dim bulbs are similar: COMPUTER SAY, SO GUILTY.
Idiocracy; fully-formed and writ large upon society's tombstone.
My Post Office was the only one in our Scottish town. The manager was scrupulously honest, very old school. She's been there for years, and knew most of her customers by name. She did a superb job. Then one day in 2010 auditors arrived, unannounced, shut the Post Office down, and sent the manager home. We were never told exactly what happened, but piecing together the clues it seems the software suggested money was missing. They went through the books with a fine tooth comb but never found anything against her. Somehow she got through her year of hell and last I saw of her she had a cleaning job.
So they basically ruined her life.
Until now I always assumed that my old boss just made some minor mistakes that were blown out of proportion. But she could well have been just another victim of the bug.
Then he should quit, thus increasing the cost of bad software. You're accountable for your actions no matter whose orders you are following, or how poorly you are paid.
With my experience in this type of environment what probably happened was he put the guy on hold and got his manager who has more elevated privileges to execute the request. It may have seemed like the helpdesk guy did, and has the power to, fix the problem when in reality he probably needed his managers password, and probably got yelled at for requesting it.
Apparently the help desk guy had the authority to "clear the whole thing in 10 minutes". So no, he wasn't just authorized to read the script and no more.
Also, five bucks says the help desk guy answered the phone by saying "Thank you for calling Company X" rather than "You have reached William the Technician". If he presents himself as a representative of the company, then he either represents the company or is committing fraud.
I have to say, an accounting system that can't decide if the balance due is 2000 or 4000 is automatically broken and cannot be trusted at all. The only solution is to run an independent transaction log through different software or manually. The software's transaction log cannot be used because it has already proven itself untrustworthy and the problem might be in the log handling.
I'm usually up front about it. I tell them very politely in one or two lines what the problem is, and that I know it's not in the script and that SOME representative of the company is about to be yelled at in the most unpleasant manner I can imagine without giving them an excuse to hang up by swearing. Then I ask to speak with a supervisor.
Or perhaps he bent the rules because he was being personally threatened at the time, and his employer disciplined him for it later.
Which is a lot better than their UK versions, who are appointed from within the industries theyr' supposed to regulate and whose career paths go back inside those same industries. Can you say "regulatory capture"?