[HN Gopher] Post Office lied and threatened BBC over Fujitsu dev...
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Post Office lied and threatened BBC over Fujitsu dev whistleblower
Author : johndunne
Score : 460 points
Date : 2024-01-12 11:34 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.co.uk)
| johndunne wrote:
| This Post Office scandal is currently ongoing in the UK. The
| Fujitsu developer in question confirmed what the Post Office was
| denying, that the Horizon software at the center of the scandal,
| had implemented methods for secretly editing accounts. Approx 700
| postmasters (self-employed managers of Post Office branches) were
| held responsible when large amounts of cash appeared to have
| vanished from tills, resulting in prosecutions for fraud and
| theft. I know someone who was affected by this, who managed a
| now-closed Post Office branch here in Wakefield, UK and it was a
| life ruining ordeal for her. She was accused of stealing
| PS1,000's in cash. I'm not sure if it was a bug or someone
| remotely changed the account records for her branch, but the
| campaign the Post Office ran to smear any accusations of
| wrongfulness on the part of the Horizon software is shocking.
| ExoticPearTree wrote:
| I loosely followed the discussion here on HN, but I don't see
| any mention of anyone from the Post Office being
| arrested/prosecuted/sentenced for this.
|
| It seems that some people there abused their power and need to
| cool down behind bars.
| petesergeant wrote:
| In fact, they had recently shortlisted the lady in charge of
| the PO at the time to be the Bishop of London, because of
| course they had.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| That's Paula Vennells and she was awarded a CBE for her
| role in running the Post Office. However, there's just been
| a petition that garnered over 1.2 million signatures for
| her to be stripped of her CBE and in response, she has
| "promised" to return it.
|
| I, for one, don't believe her.
| nebulous1 wrote:
| Apparently she can't "return" it, it has to be annulled
| by the British monarch.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| I hope Charlie does that then, but it depends on whether
| he cares enough about it.
|
| I think it would be fitting if a significant percentage
| of other people with CBEs started to return them with
| public statements about them not wanting to be associated
| with the likes of Paula Vennells.
| tialaramex wrote:
| It's not really on Charlie, any more than he's the one
| making the lists. His mother wasn't like "OH, we should
| honor that Post Office lady, I like receiving letters and
| I bet she's somehow responsible for that". She just got a
| list with Paula's name on it, along with various crooks,
| financiers, consultants, political hacks and maybe the
| odd charity worker.
|
| Issuing Honours is something a Monarch does, but like
| declaring War or deciding what Laws should govern the
| country, they don't actually make decisions, that's a
| government problem.
|
| So long as the general public were barely aware of a
| problem, this could skate along as not important _for
| years_ , but now lots of people are angry because they
| saw a TV show and for once when they said "Hey this is
| terrible!" instead of "It's just a TV show it's not real
| you idiots" those of us who were paying attention are
| like "Yes, so what are you going to do about it?" which
| as we've seen puts pressure on government to _actually do
| something_.
| Tyrek wrote:
| It's insane to me that most of the heat is being directed at
| Fujitsu. Sure, there's definitely some culpability there, but
| the Post Office (especially their legal team) holds the vast
| majority of the responsibility. There's a lot weighing in on
| the multi-year investigation that (has been) ongoing, but I
| can't help but feel like they're waiting for the public furor
| to cool down before releasing anything.
| toyg wrote:
| _> the Post Office (especially their legal team) holds the
| vast majority of the responsibility._
|
| It really depends on what Fujitsu told which PO manager.
| tialaramex wrote:
| The Post Office also paid independent people to figure
| out where the problem is, and the answer was "Horizon is
| garbage, you can't rely on it". So, they fired those
| people.
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-67921974
|
| This a pattern we've seen before
|
| 1. "We aren't wrong, you are too involved to make an
| impartial decision. We need somebody independent to
| investigate"
|
| 2. "The independent investigation has finished, but we
| need to properly digest their report, so we can't tell
| you what they said yet"
|
| 3. "We've now realised the independent investigation was
| inadequate, everybody who worked on it was incompetent
| and its findings are useless so we've destroyed the
| report. We declare ourselves exonerated, we were right
| all along".
|
| People tend to have this mistaken understanding of
| morality which assumes they're a _good_ person and so
| therefore obviously what they did must be good (since
| they 're a good person) and so they might need to uh, fix
| differences between the world as they've imagined it and
| the slightly less rosy reality.
|
| For example sure, you know that stabbing Sarah in the
| throat resulted in Sarah becoming dead, but you had to do
| that, because you're a good person and Sarah was going to
| tell the Police that you'd stolen $18.5M from the
| business. You didn't steal that money! Sure, yes, you
| took the money and maybe you technically shouldn't have
| done that, but you had a 100% sure strategy for playing
| Blackjack and recovering the $800 000 you lost last
| month, except that you got a bit confused and lost all of
| the $18.5M, but that's not theft, that's just a minor
| mistake you will be able to soon fix, if only Sarah
| doesn't tell these lies about stealing and get you
| arrested. So you had to, it wasn't murder, it was really
| self defence. You're a _Good Person_!
| Scoundreller wrote:
| > The Post Office also paid independent people to figure
| out where the problem is, and the answer was "Horizon is
| garbage, you can't rely on it". So, they fired those
| people.
|
| A UK tradition!
|
| > In 2009, the government came under fire when ACMD
| [Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs] chair David
| Nutt of Imperial College London was sacked for
| questioning government drug policy in public
|
| https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/little-has-changed-
| in-uk...
| mcguire wrote:
| As I understand it, there's an ongoing PPE thing as well.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Let me guess, they (also) only sacked people that went in
| one direction with respect to gov policy and not the
| other direction?
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| That implies that the Post Office didn't know about the
| true situation, but they most definitely did know about
| the issues, but continued to lie and fraudulently collect
| money from the sub postmasters affected whilst collecting
| bonuses for each successful prosecution.
| prof-dr-ir wrote:
| > currently ongoing in the UK
|
| To be precise it is _finally_ getting some of the attention it
| deserves, both from the public and from the government.
|
| The miscarriages of justice date from 1999 until 2015, and the
| high court ruling (about the software being faulty) that
| finally stopped the flow of convictions dates from 2019, almost
| five years ago. Very little happened since then, and in
| particular no one has been held accountable.
|
| If that delay sounds absolutely bonkers to you then yes, that
| is what everyone else thinks as well.
| krisoft wrote:
| > Very little happened since then, and in particular no one
| has been held accountable.
|
| Even crazier. The Post Office just recently lowered(!) the
| amount of money they allocated for compensations:
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67784706
|
| They basically allocated a pot of money to pay the people
| they have harmed off. But these people had to actively go out
| and request their conviction to be overturned. Which of
| course many people were reluctant to do, since it means they
| would be upturning their life again, and going to court and
| finding lawyers and etc. They understandably have very little
| trust in the system. So Post Office just shrugged and decided
| they don't need to keep that much money around.
| scott_w wrote:
| > Even crazier. The Post Office just recently lowered(!)
| the amount of money
|
| It's even worse: they're still fighting hard against the
| appeals, heaping more misery on the people trying to turn
| their lives around!
| miohtama wrote:
| Sounds like lawyers are at the driving seat
| dccoolgai wrote:
| IANAL but in my experience, the lawyers would say
| "doublecheck everything and if we're wrong, pay them so I
| don't have to spend a lot of effort litigating this". No,
| I would bet it's a combination of PR flacks and
| MBA/C-levels who would rather ruin lives than take a
| clear L on their record.
| mcguire wrote:
| Lawyers don't like losing cases.
| scott_w wrote:
| This is the leadership instructing the lawyers to fight
| the case. They can stop it at any time but they choose to
| continue the misery of their victims instead of admitting
| fault.
| LaundroMat wrote:
| Effort = income, so I don't see why certain lawyers would
| not be willing to do the case.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| What exactly does 'fighting hard' mean? I got the
| impression that the judges weren't very impressed with at
| least some of their appearances in court.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| They're hiding/losing evidence such as emails and
| refusing to answer questions.
| tuukkah wrote:
| They hire expensive lawyers who are experts in making
| black look white.
| scott_w wrote:
| I think you highlighted it right there. They're fighting
| even the slam dunk appeals, which is fucking disgusting,
| in my opinion.
| matteason wrote:
| And all the while Horizon is still in use and still making
| money vanish - via both bugs and the PS95 million paid to
| Fujitsu to keep it going for another two years:
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67940125
| alphaomegacode wrote:
| Seems one of the former senior executives of Fujitsu now
| runs a gov't agency that handles contracts to digital
| services vendors like...Fujitsu.
|
| Not sure how the legal authorities work in the UK but
| people have to be held accountable, regardless of political
| party. One would think the government's legal authorities
| have to act on behalf of the citizens not just in holding
| persons criminally responsible but also compensating
| victims.
|
| https://democracyforsale.substack.com/p/tory-donor-
| fujitsu-p...
| tgv wrote:
| The little that happened can be summarized as: the Post
| Office CEO from 2015 to 2019 got a CBE when she stepped down.
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| For those not from the UK like myself that had to figure
| out what CBE is - it stands for a title called Commander of
| the Order of British Empire. It's granted to honor notable
| service in various areas, including public works like the
| Post Office. This acronym is apparently common enough to
| people from the UK that news stories within the UK call it
| CBE without explaining what the acronym means, so your
| average UK citizen must know exactly what it means.
|
| Most people from the USA are probably familiar with the
| term "knighthood" or "being knighted" from the UK which is
| referring to the same award process but higher ranking. The
| two titles above CBE apparently are what knighthood refers
| to, known as KBE/DBE (Knight/Dame Commander of the Order of
| British Empire) and GBE (Knight/Dame Grand Cross of the
| Order of the British Empire, the highest honor). So CBE is
| essentially the third highest honor that can be granted in
| this fashion.
|
| Related to the story, it seems like the CEO in question was
| forced to give up the CBE title two days ago in relation to
| this scandal
| at_a_remove wrote:
| She said she will give it back. Which doesn't mean
| anything, King Charles would have to agree to it.
|
| She didn't say she would give back the associated _money_
| she got.
| ChrisSD wrote:
| Just to clarify, I doubt many people from the UK would
| know off hand what CBE stands for even though they know
| what a CBE is. The full name is pretty archaic in any
| case so it's basically just trivia at this point.
| Lio wrote:
| Really? I was under the impression this was common
| knowledge. Certainly within my family.
| tialaramex wrote:
| There are a bunch of different orders you can get
| knighted in, the British Empire is just one of them, for
| example the fictional James Bond has a CMG, (Companion of
| the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St
| George), and the actor Daniel Craig who played him _also_
| has a CMG, although unlike Bond he has not turned down a
| KCMG (Bond turns down the knighthood because it makes you
| more of a public figure which is undesirable for an
| active secret agent whereas it 's no problem for an
| actor).
|
| The Order of St Michael & St George is also famous
| because it's how the "Yes, Minister" joke works: CMG
| stands for "Call Me God". And KCMG for "Kindly Call Me
| God" / What does GCMG stand for? / "God Calls Me God".
|
| She was not yet "forced" to give it up, although that is
| likely the end result. These honours are notionally
| bestowed by the Monarch (so these days, Charlie) under
| advice, so a committee will decide that yup, Paula
| clearly shouldn't have this honour, take it away, and
| Charlie will sign the appropriate paperwork. What she's
| done so far is write asking _that_ it be taken away,
| which is almost nothing.
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| Interesting, thanks for sharing. Based on your comment I
| looked it up and found 6 other orders, including Order of
| Saint Michael and George that you mentioned. OBE is
| apparently not the most prestigious one, the highest and
| most prestigious one is apparently called The Most Noble
| Order of the Garter. Interesting slice of old royal UK
| culture.
| pmyteh wrote:
| Yes. The Garter and the Thistle (and the Order of Merit)
| are exclusively small and also in the personal gift of
| the sovereign. The Order of the British Empire is much
| larger and appointments are made on advice from the
| government.
| sorokod wrote:
| Her name is Paula Vennells.
|
| I take this opportunity to reinforce the association of
| her name with the scandal in future web searches.
| Wistar wrote:
| So, Paula Vennells's Post Office scandal?
| sorokod wrote:
| Yep, the same Paula Vennells that got a CBE in 2019 for
| services to the Post Office.
|
| https://www.gov.uk/government/people/paula-vennells
| peterfirefly wrote:
| "Ordener haenger man paa Idioter, Stjaerner og Baand
| man kun Adelen gier, men om de Mallinger, Suhmer og
| Rother, man ej et Ord i Aviserne ser. Dog, har
| man Hjaerne, kan man jo gjaerne undvaere Orden
| og Stjaerne."
|
| (A verse from a satirical song from 1790 -- "orders are
| hung on idiots".)
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| She was CEO from 2012 and started at the Post Office in
| 2007 as group network director. She may not have started
| the miscarriage of justice, but she certainly doubled down
| on it.
| chris_wot wrote:
| She was also, until very recently, an Anglican minister.
| dmix wrote:
| Was it the post office itself that was dealing out charges?
| Like a post office inspector or whatever it's called? Or was it
| a normal police referral type thing?
| benrutter wrote:
| So apparently in UK law, the post office carry out their own
| investigations before taking charges to court (effectively
| replacing the police for internal post office charges) which
| sounds mental to me.
| scott_w wrote:
| David Davis mentioned this on News Agents. It seems like a
| holdover from when it was simply an arm of the state, where
| it made sense that it could just handle its own enforcement
| (since it carried the power of the Crown). It's absolutely
| something that needs to be stripped away in the modern day.
| RuggedPineapple wrote:
| It's not really a holdover because the UK allows ANYONE
| to bring a private prosecution. They just have the
| resources to do it at scale.
| JdeBP wrote:
| There are legal arguments recounted in modern law
| textbooks that the _whole idea_ of private prosecutions
| in England and Wales is a hold-over nowadays. The
| argument goes that since CPS decisions are subject to
| judicial review, the raison d 'etre for private
| prosecutions, that they allow for bad exercise of public
| prosecutorial discretion to be corrected by private
| persons, no longer exists, since the bad exercise of
| discretion now has another remedy.
|
| There is a fair groundswell of opinion, already driven by
| the bad reputation that the RSPCA, another prolific
| private prosecutor, has garnered, against private
| prosecutions. The Horizon thing only serves to fuel this,
| and I wouldn't be surprised if there were not soon a
| proposal to do away with all private prosecutions on the
| back of these, despite the fact that Post Office Ltd and
| the RSPCA are _institutional_ private prosecutors, and
| there 's nowhere near as strong a case that _personal_
| private prosecutors are a problem.
| bmsleight_ wrote:
| Stephen Lawrence parents took the option of a private
| prosecution. Everyone must have access to justice.
| eli wrote:
| It's the same in the US. The US Postal Inspector is federal
| law enforcement within the post office.
| jetpackjoe wrote:
| I imagine that in the US, the actual prosecution is
| handled by US Attorneys though (the DOJ), and not the
| Post Office
| mandevil wrote:
| Not the same at all. The Postal Inspectors are law
| enforcement, not attorneys. They don't do prosecutions at
| all, the court stuff is handled by the regular Federal
| Attorney's who work for the Attorney General. The Postal
| Inspectors are basically a specialized FBI, but like the
| FBI, once the cuffs are on the suspect it's out of their
| hands. Though they may be called to testify, prosecution
| decisions are made by a different group responsible to
| different people- literally the first point of overlap in
| the chain of command between a Federal Attorney and a
| Postal Inspector is the President of the United States
| (the FBI, as also part of the Department of Justice,
| overlaps at the Attorney General).
| physicsguy wrote:
| It's not quite that, anybody in the UK can bring a private
| prosecution in the UK if the want, so the Post Office was
| not a special case here. It's really uncommon today, due to
| the cost, etc. and what often happens is that the "Crown
| Prosecution Service' which is the government organisation
| repsonsible for prosecuting crimes normally can 'take on' a
| prosecution and then choose discontinue it, which
| effectively stops it. Note that this is only the case in
| England/Wales, in Scotland the system is quite different.
| With that said, there are several organisations that do it
| still - the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
| Animals (RSPCA) still regularly brings private
| prosectuions.
|
| Historically, all prosecutions were private, and later, the
| police who investigated them carried them out.
| wozniacki wrote:
| Between 1999 and 2015, an estimated 3500 staff employed
| by the state-owned Post Office service were accused of
| fraud, theft or malicious accounting. Almost
| 700 of them were convicted in courts and some 230
| were jailed. Most were legally compelled to
| repay the amounts they were accused of fleecing,
| resulting in bankruptcies, marriage failures,
| substance abuse and even suicides. There was
| just one not-so-little problem - virtually all of
| those people were innocent
|
| Thats a lot of accusations and prosecutions don't you
| think, for it to go unnoticed or uninvestigated for such
| a long duration, dont you think?
|
| Doesnt the UK have independent non-political bodies that
| watch the watchers? What about protections for
| whistleblowers who call these things out?
|
| Frankly that sounds Banana-Republic-ish and not something
| you would find in a first-rate advanced economy.
|
| [1] Inside the incredible and devastating postal service
| scandal that could bring down the UK government
|
| https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/leaders/inside-the-
| incr...
| M2Ys4U wrote:
| _Anyone_ can bring a private prosecution (in England and
| Wales, at least. Scotland and Northern Ireland have
| different legal systems).
|
| The Crown Prosecution Service can take over any prosecution
| at the discretion of the Director of Public Prosecutions,
| but they didn't seem to know (and/or care) what the Post
| Office were doing.
| scott_w wrote:
| It's likely they won't step in if the organisation in
| question has the resources to handle prosecutions at the
| required scale. The CPS _did_ prosecute some cases but it
| 's hard to blame them since they were being lied to by
| the Post Office investigators.
| krisoft wrote:
| > which sounds mental to me
|
| Isn't this very similar to how the United States Postal
| Inspection Service works? (although I think they don't
| prosecute themselves, but refer matters to the
| prosecution.)
|
| I heard they are quite formidable and not to be trifled
| with.
| toyg wrote:
| Wait until you hear that the overwhelming majority of civil
| and criminal cases are ajudged by amateurs (magistrates)
| without any formal law qualification, who just happen to be
| local "grandees" or pensioners...
|
| The UK justice system is not fit for purpose - unless the
| purpose is to let the upper classes get away with (almost
| literal) murder.
| JdeBP wrote:
| Lots of people have told you that anyone can bring a
| private prosecution. But they aren't telling the whole
| story. Post Office Ltd, by being a successor to the
| government monopoly of four centuries, is in a rather
| strange legal position.
|
| The _royal_ mail had all sorts of powers, historically, as
| it was a royally sanctioned monopoly, with a charter. The
| process of privatization left some odd conventions around,
| such as that it was _normal_ for Post Office Ltd to
| prosecute things privately, when this has been
| _exceptional_ for most other entities.
|
| The Post Office used to prosecute for television licence
| offences, for example, and that only went away relatively
| recently compared to some of its historic powers.
| Historically, it had a monopoly over telephones and
| telegraphy, and some of the powers that the Post Office had
| in the 19th century were things like compulsory purchase of
| anyone running private telephone or telegraph systems or
| prosecuting people for traffic offences on the highway just
| because there was a mail coach involved.
|
| The Post Office Act 1953 granted the Postmaster General
| some very sweeping powers, and set the bar quite low for
| proving fraud against the Post Office: basically, the
| Postmaster General's say-so for some elements. The
| Postmaster General also had to give consent to all
| prosecutions of offences against the Post Office,
| effectively putting prosecutorial discretion in the hands
| of the Post Office. And the Postmaster General also had the
| power to collect the fines upon conviction.
|
| And that's part of how we ended up with the situation at
| the start of the 21st century.
| WrongAssumption wrote:
| How is this different from the US Postal Inspection
| Service?
| mandevil wrote:
| PIS are investigators, police. They are not prosecutors,
| they bring the information they collect to a US Attorney-
| who works for the Attorney General in the Department of
| Justice, not the Post Office- who actually conducts the
| court cases.
|
| In Law and Order: Postal Inspectors Jerry Orbach is a
| Postal Inspector, Sam Waterston is the Federal Attorney,
| and the closest boss who intersects in their respective
| lines of authority is literally the President of the
| United States.
| scott_w wrote:
| Yes. The Post Office historically was wholly owned by the UK
| Government, so maintained its own private prosecutors instead
| of relying on the Crown Prosecution Service. This is why it
| was able to fight so hard to get convictions, they had the
| funds to pay their own expensive lawyers to do it.
|
| This meant those that fought the charges and lost were then
| forced to "pay back" the money they "stole" _and also_ pay
| the Post Office legal fees _and_ being sent to prison. The
| scandal is sickening on literally every level you can
| imagine!
| miohtama wrote:
| A good and sad example why trifecta and separation of
| powers is important in democracy.
|
| No one should share the role of prosecutor, jury and judge.
| tomalpha wrote:
| This was a regular court process, with an independent
| judge and jury. It's just the prosecution was run
| directly by the post office and not the public
| prosecutor.
|
| It still had very bad outcomes, and clearly with the
| prosecution not being independent enough, but it wasn't
| an entirely closed process.
| JdeBP wrote:
| It's not quite regular. Normally, the (purported) victim
| and the prosecutor are not the same person. That's
| another thing that has been highlighted by this case: the
| fact that Post Office Ltd has inherited the ability to
| prosecute crimes committed against itself, rather than
| them being prosecuted independently by the Crown
| Prosecution Service.
|
| (More on which at
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38969076)
| scott_w wrote:
| The CPS also "successfully" prosecuted some cases based
| on the same evidence. If your key complainants are
| fabricating evidence that looks solid to a jury,
| separation of powers is not going to save you from the
| power of the state.
|
| As I said in a related comment: if I looked hard enough,
| I imagine I'd also be able to find similar miscarriages
| of justice in the USA, too.
| hnfong wrote:
| The key "complaints" of GP, as I understand them, are
| that being simultaneously the victim and prosecutor, the
| prosecutor-as-victim is more incentivized to use heavy
| handed tactics during the prosecution process.
|
| Whereas a generic prosecutor has a bunch of cases of
| reports from victims that are not related to them, and
| thus if a case is not sufficiently strong, they'd
| normally just pick another case where the evidence is
| strong. They also have the responsibility to
| independently review the evidence from victims and
| police. These procedural checks didn't apply in the post
| office cases.
|
| The procedural checks I mentioned above aren't fool-
| proof, but they're something.
| scott_w wrote:
| > The key "complaints" of GP, as I understand them, are
| that being simultaneously the victim and prosecutor, the
| prosecutor-as-victim is more incentivized to use heavy
| handed tactics during the prosecution process.
|
| I know what they wrote.
|
| > The procedural checks I mentioned above aren't fool-
| proof, but they're something.
|
| I pointed out the CPS itself also prosecuted cases based
| on the bad evidence provided to them, so the procedural
| checks also did nothing.
| hnfong wrote:
| I think we're basically on the same page, diverging only
| on speculative items.
|
| Do note that the fact that CPS prosecuted cases does not
| mean the CPS didn't throw out dubious cases. We only know
| the ones they did prosecute, but we don't know how many
| (if any) they did not prosecute. As I said, this is
| speculation.
|
| I also speculate that if you send hundreds of fraud cases
| to the CPS they might be suspicious why the rate of
| criminal fraud among the post office workers is so high.
|
| I agree there's no evidence that the "private"
| prosecutions made things worse, but it surely didn't
| help, and deprived the system of an opportunity (whether
| it would have been taken or not) to prevent the
| miscarriages in the first place.
| scott_w wrote:
| Honestly, the fact the Post Office were marking their own
| homework almost certainly made everything worse, in my
| opinion. I'm just taking issue with the idea that it was
| the sole cause, as we similar things happen under
| different systems, too.
| saulr wrote:
| > the fact that Post Office Ltd has inherited the ability
| to prosecute crimes committed against itself
|
| Any private citizen or business in the UK has a right to
| prosecute crimes. It just costs a lot of money, so you
| can imagine how it's used (spoiler: large
| companies/wealthy individuals against poor people).
| scott_w wrote:
| It was only the prosecutor, not the judge or jury. The
| issue is that the Post Office lied to the judge and jury
| about their evidence.
|
| There were a (relatively) small number of prosecutions
| from the CPS as well, which suffered from the same
| problem: the Post Office investigators gave the same bad
| evidence, which they used to convince a jury to convict.
|
| I don't see how separation of powers helps here. I'm sure
| if I looked, I'd find cases in the USA where the police
| and/or prosecutors told a pack of lies based on dodgy
| evidence to secure convictions of serious crimes, too.
| hennell wrote:
| Prosecuting directly meant there was no outside eyes on a
| lot of the cases, no questions about if it was actually
| in the public interest to prosecute, or external
| assessment of the evidence before pushing for plea deals.
|
| It's not a foolproof system, but I think most of the
| cases you'd find about 'dodgy evidence' would also
| mention a 'overly close relationship between police and
| prosecutors' - because fully independent prosecutors
| should be rejecting cases with dodgy evidence. The police
| can get a bit grumpy with CPS for being quite strict at
| times - but it holds them to work their next case
| properly.
|
| The PO clearly managed to convince the CPS in a number of
| cases, but had they had to do that for all there would
| have been a lot less cases prosecuted in total, and I
| think there would have been questions about their system
| a lot sooner.
|
| It might not have avoided the problem, but it would have
| been much needed additional oversight into what they were
| doing.
| scott_w wrote:
| > It's not a foolproof system, but I think most of the
| cases you'd find about 'dodgy evidence' would also
| mention a 'overly close relationship between police and
| prosecutors'
|
| So the separation of powers isn't a magic solution to the
| problem then.
| afandian wrote:
| We know they lied. Do we know specifically if they have
| been shown to have committed perjury?
| scott_w wrote:
| I don't think they perjured themselves which isn't the
| same as saying they didn't lie. It's easy to not perjure
| yourself if you're not asked the right questions.
|
| The lie came from the fact they weren't looking into
| their own evidence and realising something was up when
| they were prosecuting hundreds of sub-postmasters.
| afandian wrote:
| There's been so much misconduct in public office I just
| wish there were some open and shut cases.
| tialaramex wrote:
| In the US the police are specifically _allowed_ to lie to
| suspects, whereas British cops are not. If you can prove
| the police lied in a recorded interview or something used
| in evidence in court that 's going to be a big problem
| for prosecutors in the UK but not in the US where it's
| expected.
| sorokod wrote:
| Prosecutor and victim, extremely bad combination when a
| powerful organization is involved.
| scott_w wrote:
| See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38968431
| e40 wrote:
| Is there a podcast that talks about this?
| mrw34 wrote:
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jf7j/episodes/downloads
| supertron wrote:
| I recommend The Guardian's podcast episodes covering this:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2024/jan/08/revisited.
| ..
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/uk-
| news/audio/2024/jan/08/revisi...
|
| Also some Private Eye podcast episodes:
|
| https://www.private-eye.co.uk/podcast/49
|
| https://www.private-eye.co.uk/podcast/95
| sonicanatidae wrote:
| Welp, it'll be a fine, paid with other people's money and
| that's about it.
|
| Jail. The people who knowingly lied and sent people to prison
| need to be jailed. Not fined, not given a handie, not allowed
| to simply retire. J.A.I.L.
|
| They callously wrecked people's lives, including some that
| committed suicide.
| maeil wrote:
| Jail is not enough of a deterrent for the kind of enormous
| damage some of the involved have caused to society. For such
| large-scale, fully intentional, proven harm to society out of
| nothing but self-interest over a long period of time,
| stronger penalties than jail must be applied.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Such as? (Bearing in mind the ECHR)
| sonicanatidae wrote:
| Beating them with pool cues about the head and shoulders
| until their retinas detach would be a great consequence.
| whycome wrote:
| Echr?
| vizzier wrote:
| European Court of Human Rights.
| AHatLikeThat wrote:
| European Convention on Human Rights
| https://www.echr.coe.int/documents/d/echr/Convention_ENG
| polymatter wrote:
| Perhaps forced bankruptcy to personally pay back
| compensation to the Post Office. Follow the money the way
| they do with terrorists.
| rlpb wrote:
| > I'm not sure if it was a bug or someone remotely changed the
| account records for her branch...
|
| From https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/09/how-the-
| post...:
|
| > One [bug]...would see the screen freeze as the user was
| attempting to confirm receipt of cash. Each time the user
| pressed "enter" on the frozen screen, it would silently update
| the record. In Dalmellington, that bug created a PS24,000
| discrepancy, which the Post Office tried to hold the post
| office operator responsible for.
|
| The fact that this is even possible, apart from the sheer
| incompetency of a software design that permits it, means that
| no person can reasonably be accused of stealing cash if that
| accusation is based on records from this system.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| > would see the screen freeze as the user was attempting to
| confirm receipt of cash. Each time the user pressed "enter"
| on the frozen screen, it would silently update the record
|
| Consider the shittiest homegrown shopping portal probably
| doesn't do that and any commercial point of sale system
| absolutely won't do that either. The system has to be such a
| POS internally that no other vendor will take the liability
| for it.
|
| Reminds me of the Therac-25 that killed people. This thing
| probably killed more people than that.
| notso411 wrote:
| This was custom software on custom hardware. Bit different
| from some web app with built in debounce.
| mcguire wrote:
| Any word on consequences for the software engineers involved?
| rich_sasha wrote:
| If this scandal was about incompetence only, it would be
| outrageous.
|
| But this was at least a deliberate, criminal cover up at the
| expense of hundreds of innocent people, maybe worse, implemented
| with tools intended for fighting serious crime. It seems
| unbelievable that this could happen in a civilized country.
| 127361 wrote:
| They had Operation Ore in the early 2000s, thousands of
| innocent people were arrested and it resulted in 44 suicides.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2007/apr/26/comment.s...
|
| https://insidetime.org/newsround/massive-miscarriage-of-just...
| gadders wrote:
| And the Tom Watson delusion: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-
| england-hereford-worcester-640...
| grumpyprole wrote:
| It also remains to be seen whether there will ever be any
| accountability. So far there has only been the promise to hand
| back a CBE.
| alexriddle wrote:
| Which isn't even legally permissible, there is no way to
| 'give it back' (although you could stop using the title) - it
| can only be taken from you, which has to be done by the king
| on recommendation of the prime minister.
| Angostura wrote:
| I can't think of an instance where giving it back has been
| refused. It certainly won't in this instance
| denton-scratch wrote:
| I can't think of an instance when it's been given back.
| You get a notification that you're being considered for
| an honour; if you're going to turn it down, you do it at
| that stage, before it's been conferred.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| Yeah, that's what I thought. Her promise to return the
| "honour" looks to me like an attempt to avoid having it
| seized off her.
|
| These "honours" (knighthoods, peerages etc.) should now be
| referred to as "disgraces". Liz Truss handed out an honour
| for roughly each four days of her incumbency as Prime
| Minister, nearly all to crazies from the extreme right of
| the Conservative Party. We already have way more peers than
| can actually be stuffed into the House Of Lords.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > These "honours" (knighthoods, peerages etc.) should now
| be referred to as "disgraces".
|
| Boris Johnston's attempts to knight his father and
| Russian oligarchs donating money to the conservatives for
| titles are examples of this.
| wrboyce wrote:
| Not to mention that "Owen" woman who nobody seems to know
| anything about but is this spitting image of his ex-wife
| and has that trademark Johnson shade of hair.
| tjpnz wrote:
| Paula Vennells handing back her CBE doesn't get remotely
| close to accountability. Many won't feel a sense of closure
| until she's aggressively prosecuted and languishes in a
| prison cell for the rest of her years. I'm actually surprised
| at the restraint shown by ITV in her depiction, because in
| real life she bears many of the hallmarks of a cartoon
| villain.
| jbstack wrote:
| I agree with the sentiment, but it's important to add that
| this should only happen _if_ it 's proven to the criminal
| standard of proof, in a court room, that she was complicit.
| pi-e-sigma wrote:
| Why can't we apply the same standard of proof that was
| used to prosecute and sentence innocent people in this
| scandal?
| lostlogin wrote:
| Why can't this burden of proof be applied when giving out
| awards? The various paedophiles and fraudsters might be
| caught earlier.
|
| Another one today:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/12/british-
| cond...
| krisoft wrote:
| Because two wrongs doesn't make a right.
| 123pie123 wrote:
| the legal responsibility of a director is different. she
| is accountable (along with other senior directors) for
| issues caused by the company
|
| "A director can be found to be personally liable for a
| company offence if they consented or connived in an
| illegal activity, or caused it through neglect of their
| duties."
|
| https://www.girlings.com/latest/when-does-a-director-
| assume-...
|
| so she either knows about this or is negligent - either
| way jail time should be given
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| I bet Paula Vennells is lying about that. It sounds like some
| kind of PR statement to deal with the petition getting over a
| million votes to strip her of her honour.
| ziddoap wrote:
| For someone not familiar with the acronym, what is CBE?
|
| A quick search shows me 371 different matching acronyms,
| ranging from the "Calgary Board of Education", to "current
| best estimate", to "Central Bank of Egypt".
| pi-e-sigma wrote:
| Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) This is
| awarded for having a prominent but lesser role at national
| level, or a leading role at regional level. You can also
| get one for a distinguished, innovative contribution to any
| area. https://www.gov.uk/honours/types-of-honours-and-
| awards
| ziddoap wrote:
| Interesting, thanks! I would have thought that'd be
| shortened to "COBE".
| pi-e-sigma wrote:
| One should rather ask why the UK still hands out orders
| that have 'British Empire' in their title :)
| lostlogin wrote:
| Wait until you hear about the House of Lords and
| hereditary titles.
| pi-e-sigma wrote:
| Unfortunately I know it already. The more you know about
| the UK legal and political system the less it looks
| democratic
| hnfong wrote:
| To be fair they are _slowly_ making their institutions
| conform to a more democratic outlook.
|
| For example, their Supreme Court finally moved out of the
| House of Lords in 2009... (so much for "separation of
| powers" before that, even though they were joined only in
| name...)
| tialaramex wrote:
| But contrast the situation of the United State of
| America, whose "Supreme Court" rather than an independent
| institution is in fact filled with partisan hacks to such
| an extent that it appears many on the Right felt that it
| was _worth_ the obvious downsides of Donald Trump as
| President to get more Supreme Court justices.
|
| Even the Law Lords (as they were typically called when
| the exact same body existed as notionally part of the
| House of Lords prior to becoming the UK's Supreme Court)
| were _way_ more independent than that. A Government
| minister can say "No" to the pick of the committee which
| independently chooses candidates for this job, but they
| can't pick for themselves, the committee can just give
| them the same name again until (inevitably) the minister
| gets replaced with one who doesn't say "No".
|
| It would _in theory_ be easier for a British government
| to abolish their Supreme Court than for the US
| government, but in reality in both cases it would cause a
| constitutional crisis. The UK is quite capable of
| _having_ a constitutional crisis, you don 't need to
| write your constitution down to do that, but it isn't
| very likely.
| toyg wrote:
| That "O" would exist in pretty much all British honours,
| so it's just redundant.
|
| The levels of the order (which is the only one used on a
| regular basis, post-WW2) are MBE/OBE/CBE/KBE/GBE.
| Two9A wrote:
| "CBE" refers to Commander of the most excellent order of
| the British Empire [0] which is a title conferred by the
| monarch on those deemed to have performed especially well
| in the service of the nation.
|
| So you can see how its value might be diluted by this
| instance.
|
| [0]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_British_Empire
| scott_w wrote:
| This is the one you need:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_British_Empire
|
| The CBE in particular: Commander of the Most Excellent
| Order of the British Empire (CBE)
|
| Yes, the UK still refers to the British Empire.
| flerchin wrote:
| Does a CBE confer some benefits?
| tialaramex wrote:
| Not really. It's shiny. It's like a real life
| ding/chievo/whatever you call them these days.
|
| It's important enough that you can write it on like headed
| notepaper without seeming like a complete jerk. If I see
| somebody sent me a letter from "A Smith CBE" that seems
| reasonable I guess they have a CBE, how about that - if
| they write "A Smith BA(Hons)" I know they're a terrible
| person - who cares that you have a fucking undergraduate
| degree? Am I supposed to be impressed?
|
| One more notch up makes you a knight. So, if you're
| collecting and this is early in your career that's a good
| sign you could get there. For example when I was a research
| student 20+ years ago, my Head of Department was looking to
| get herself some Honours, and these days she's Dame Wendy.
|
| But like, it doesn't come with a heap of money or anything
| as far as I know. You briefly get to meet Charlie I guess,
| but I met his previous wife once (when I was a kid) and she
| was just some woman, so I doubt he's any different.
| HPsquared wrote:
| It does shatter the illusion somewhat.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| I think the best way forward is for everyone involved in it at
| Fujitsu and the Post Office gets prosecuted for taking part in
| a criminal conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
|
| Certainly Paula Vennells should absolutely be in prison for her
| oversight and deliberate destruction of people's lives.
| ploxiln wrote:
| It's always the cover-up that makes it truly terrible. Like
| Watergate ... or when police misbehave in general ... it's
| always the desperate cover-up.
| Zenst wrote:
| I can believe this as going thru something along the same lines
| with my housing association and met police, and it is shocking
| how many people who focus upon being seen to do a job and lie to
| cover up their mistakes have grown over the past few decades in
| the UK.
|
| I shudder at how many scandals never come to light as the process
| to clear things up and get the truth out is an uphill battle. Oh
| and my local MP is Ed Davey, who is deeply linked to this PO
| scandal, though in fairness, he does seem to be singled out over
| all the others who did less on their watch.
|
| I somehow wonder if society is on a path of race to the bottom at
| times and amazed how it works with all the flaws that just seem
| to grow.
|
| Heck whilst typing this I get an email from police about some
| bail I never attended and yet again, it's the wrong person and
| has nothing to do with me beyond causing me more grief and
| stress. I don't even have a criminal record and due to do jury
| duty later this year, which is unlikely as being driven to wits
| end.
| Angostura wrote:
| If you are going though something similar, don't forget to let
| Private Eye know.
| Zenst wrote:
| Think I did poke them a couple of years ago, never heard
| back. Oh well, way more evidence now and have it somewhat in-
| hand. Just so slow going thru the process and even then,
| getting evidence together and data requests and the level of
| failures just compounding. As so wide and kinda sureal that
| it is hard to believe. Police and housing covered up and
| protected an abuse addict (police informer) and ignored so
| many safty concerns and evidence that people dead due to it
| and past people who tried to speak out, either dead or
| gaslighted. Even tried that on me and sadly for them I
| recorded evidence for years and now case of bring all their
| failures to light in the open. Let alone all the housing
| failures that just keep growing. Fact my gas supplier
| identified fault in gas safty in october that they still not
| fixed and my concerns that impacted not only my flat but all
| the other flats (it does as i checked) and entire estate as
| fault when built and as such making every gas and electrical
| safty certificate for past 25 years invalid. Seems to fall on
| deaf ears, even HSE (Health and Safty Executive) seem to be,
| well they should fix it and toothless. Yet this is just
| nothing and whole list of failures by them that they already
| under investigation. Let alone all my findings and damming
| evidence. The the Met Police.
|
| But hard to really deal with it due to PTSD of it all and
| decade of abusive neighbours who literally tried to get me
| killed and not only proof of that ignored but made out the
| other way around when it is clear as crystal with evidence
| submitted that is not only untrue but downright blatant lie.
| Police ignored that and more so, much more in past that it is
| a history of pure and utter failings and criminal.
|
| Glad I have video and audio recordings proving it and that
| includes meetings in which police and housing lie and damming
| as hell. Yet, you would think somebody would care, but dam as
| I'm not alone in these situations. But look at Post Office
| scandal - how many people died over that and efforts to get
| to light. Then the pressure to pursue the truth and effort
| when others died trying.
|
| It is scary how often things get covered up. There again, I
| used to work for the BBC and mindful how things can get swept
| under carpets and ignored like Jimmy.
| InCityDreams wrote:
| Look up 'Power to the Proletariat' on yt. No lecturing,
| just great tips for dealing with the uk cops. After a while
| you see the same, same tricks they use.
| greggsy wrote:
| Used to read Private Eye in the 90's as a teenager. I thought
| they were a satire mag - what is their interest in these kind
| of stories?
| jaymzcampbell wrote:
| They have always had a strong slant on investigative
| journalism. The whole back section (and quite a lot of the
| front tbh too) fall into that. The writing can still be
| acerbic but the journalism is hard hitting.
|
| They continue to honour one of their very earliest
| columnists with "The Private Eye Paul Foot Award for
| Investigative and Campaigning Journalism". It's a big part
| of the magazine.
|
| https://www.private-eye.co.uk/paul-foot-award
| tialaramex wrote:
| It may be that you didn't understand what satire is? If
| everything is fine, satire is redundant. This sort of
| investigative journalism is closely allied to the work of
| the satirist.
| lostlogin wrote:
| The tv comedy show 'Have I Got News For You' covers much of
| the same ground. It's a good show if you like (their)
| politics.
| peterfirefly wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Canard_encha%C3%AEn%C3%A9
|
| Satirical papers aren't always about fun and jokes -- the
| good ones often break important stories before the serious
| papers.
|
| They often use code to write things they would otherwise be
| sued for:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tired_and_emotional
| Angostura wrote:
| They have been reporting on this story extensively for
| years.
| Clubber wrote:
| >I somehow wonder if society is on a path of race to the bottom
| at times and amazed how it works with all the flaws that just
| seem to grow.
|
| Bureaucracies don't scale well.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Time to read some Kafka.
| Zenst wrote:
| Read it, I'm living one of his greatest unwritten novels that
| Black Mirror episodes seem more like documentaries than they
| should.
| m_mueller wrote:
| or watch 'Brazil'
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| My favourite Christmas movie!
| m_mueller wrote:
| I can tell you like it warm and cozy...
| mhh__ wrote:
| I have been reading about this in private eye for maybe a decade,
| nothing happens, TV show? Instant progress overnight.
| JdeBP wrote:
| That seems to be one of the points that the BBC article is
| making, too. _Panorama_ , one of the BBC's highest profile
| current affairs shows, points this out in 2015, and nothing
| happens. Post Office Ltd even pats itself on the back that
| nothing comes of the BBC programme. ITV dramatizes it in 2024,
| not even handling it as news, and it's immediately Conservative
| government priority.
| mhh__ wrote:
| They're probably angling to use it against Keira Starmer
| because he was DPP
| mhh__ wrote:
| "Keira Starmer" - good job me
| dtf wrote:
| Some bright spark at CCHQ realised it could be weaponised
| against both Ed Davey (Leader of the Liberal Democrats, and
| former Post Office minister 2010-2012) and Keir Starmer
| (Leader of the Labour Party, and former Director of Public
| Prosecutions 2008-2013).
| bufio wrote:
| It's an election year.
| thesaintlives wrote:
| No idea if the t.v. show is good but the radio 4 show most
| certainly is:
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/m000jf7j
|
| Check that out to see how the U.K. establishment works.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| The TV series is very good, but it's quite tough going in
| places.
| edandersen wrote:
| Last I heard they were trying to rebuild Horizon on "AWS and
| JavaScript". I wish I was joking.
| tauchunfall wrote:
| There is a cloud-based system which will be the successor of
| Horizon legacy (from 1999) and Horizon online (from around
| 2010).
|
| >Is Horizon still being used? >Yes. There have been several
| versions of Horizon since its introduction in 1999 and the
| current version of the system, introduced from 2017, was found
| in the group litigation to be robust, relative to comparable
| systems. But we are not complacent about that and are
| continuing to work, together with our postmasters, to make
| improvements. We will be moving away from Horizon to a new IT
| cloud-based system that will be more user-friendly and easier
| to adapt for new products and services. This is currently being
| developed with the involvement of our Postmasters.
|
| via: https://corporate.postoffice.co.uk/en/horizon-scandal-
| pages/...
| raesene9 wrote:
| I was reading an interesting bit today
| (https://read.uolpress.co.uk/read/electronic-evidence-and-ele...)
| about the "presumption of reliability" that can occur in cases
| involving "mechanical instruments" which is extended to include
| software.
|
| I think the idea that complex systems are assumed to always be
| correct is... dicey at the best of times and even more so when
| it's critical to a criminal case.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| For some computer functions it makes sense, such as audit logs
| and other basic operations e.g. timestamps. For complicated
| accounting software, there should definitely be some kind of
| proof of correctness such as being self consistent and having
| sufficient auditing and logging systems.
| graemep wrote:
| It was actually intended to stop people challenging the
| reliability of things like speed cameras.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| Yes, that's an interesting case as cameras are routinely
| calibrated, but the software is closed source which I think
| is a mistake. It should be possible to challenge whether a
| system is operating correctly if you have decent evidence
| against it e.g. GPS tracking. I do think that modern cars
| should be fitted with a black box device with the owner
| having ultimate control over access to it, so they could
| submit it for evidence to prevent miscarriages of justice.
| graemep wrote:
| I think "presumed to be operating normally for certain
| devices is certain oversight and testing requirements are
| met" is reasonable.
|
| Definitely ought to be open source.
|
| I wonder whether the black boxes insurance companies like
| to push would provide the evidence required?
| acdha wrote:
| > I do think that modern cars should be fitted with a
| black box device with the owner having ultimate control
| over access to it, so they could submit it for evidence
| to prevent miscarriages of justice
|
| I'm not sure this is workable: if the owner had control,
| there'd be a cottage industry of people offering to fake
| evidence against camera tickets. If the owner doesn't,
| it'd get requested by police and insurance routinely and
| since most drivers regularly break local traffic laws
| that'd have a big negative impact on the owners, which
| makes me think it's politically infeasible. Insurance
| companies might try to mandate that but I imagine they
| are very careful about changes which could shift
| customers.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| I think those issues could be overcome by using
| encryption and checksums for the logs with the decryption
| key held by a third party that would read and release the
| data on request by the owner or in criminal cases where
| the owner was a victim.
|
| The more likely model is that the insurance companies own
| and provide the black boxes in return for reduced
| premiums from the owner.
|
| The current situation is that some drivers run their own
| dashcams and can choose to provide video evidence, but
| that could be open to abuse if someone very carefully
| edits the video and no-one spots it.
|
| I agree that the drivers shouldn't be forced to self-
| incriminate - the police should be using their own
| evidence which could well be from other drivers
| submitting their own driving data/video.
| toyg wrote:
| This is actually one of the few applications of blockchain
| techs that makes sense - as a write-only store of
| transactions for auditing purposes, it's potentially very
| practical.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| I agree, but wouldn't there be problems with the speed and
| cost in electricity. Also, would it need to be a single
| logging blockchain shared by everyone or I would imagine
| there could be issues with every computer system running
| its own blockchain - would that make it easier to fake?
| menzoic wrote:
| >wouldn't there be problems with the speed and cost in
| electricity
|
| proof of stake blockchains don't have those issues
| parineum wrote:
| > I agree, but wouldn't there be problems with the speed
| and cost in electricity
|
| It's either that or it's vulnerable to 50%+1 attacks.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > complex systems are assumed to always be correct
|
| ..absent evidence to the contrary. But in the Post Office case,
| the Post Office had all the evidence, and refused to disclose
| it. As far as I'm aware, failure to disclose evidence that
| might help the defence is perverting the course of justice. I
| don't know why no manager's been charged.
| raesene9 wrote:
| Yep that's a huge challenge. The other one is that individual
| defendant's are unlikely to be able to afford the expertise
| needed to analyze a large complex setup, even if the details
| of the system (e.g. source code) are made available.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| It's worse than that - there was evidence that Fujitsu could
| remotely affect the different branch computers with at least
| one person seeing it happen before their eyes and the Post
| Office absolutely denied that it was possible or had ever
| been possible.
| beardyw wrote:
| Yes it's an interesting point. At first I was horrified that it
| is so, but then the alternative is to require proof that a
| system is reliable, which no one could provide. It would need
| to be somewhere between, talking about best endeavours or
| something. It sounds messy however you approach it.
| raesene9 wrote:
| It is very tricky. In some industries you see things like
| device certification and regular external testing
| requirements (e.g. weights and measures) but applying that to
| the very fast moving world of software would be .... tricky,
| to put it mildly.
| forinti wrote:
| One has to wonder how bad the justice system has to be if a trial
| is unable to surface the truth in this rather trivial case.
|
| And it failed multiple times.
| fmajid wrote:
| England's legal system is still riddled with the legacy of
| feudalism. The private prosecution mechanism used by the Post
| Office was first used in the 17th Century.
|
| Note that Scotland has its own legal system and it is generally
| saner. Not sure if any sub-postmasters were prosecuted in
| Scotland.
| M2Ys4U wrote:
| >Not sure if any sub-postmasters were prosecuted in Scotland.
|
| They were, though through the usual public mechanism by the
| Procurator Fiscal
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > Scotland has its own legal system and it is generally saner
|
| Scotland's legal system prosecuted and jailed Craig Murray.
| It also prosecuted Alex Salmond, who was unanimously
| acquitted by a jury; but Craig didn't benefit from a jury.
| The chief prosecutor is a member of the government, and
| controls police investigations.
|
| In the case of a political prosecution, I wouldn't describe
| the Scottish system as "saner".
| Marazan wrote:
| Craig Murray identified complainants who's identity had
| been protected by court order.
|
| What did you expect to happen?
| denton-scratch wrote:
| Not really; that's "jigsaw identification", i.e.
| identification is only possible by combining multiple
| reports. It was not possible to identify complainants
| just by reading Craig's blog. Other journalists, whose
| writings _could_ be used to directly identify
| complainants, were not prosecuted.
| peterfirefly wrote:
| Did he supply a crucial missing piece of the puzzle then?
| denton-scratch wrote:
| The prosecution case was that he provided a piece of the
| puzzle. I have no reason to believe it was a _crucial_
| piece.
|
| I was reading his blog while all this was going on.
| Despite my curiosity, I was unable to get any clues about
| who the letter-women were. But I'm not Scottish, I'm not
| involved with the Scottish National Party, and I don't
| hang around with SNP politicians (or any politicians).
|
| Perhaps someone who mixed in those circles could have
| found clues; I understand that several Sottish
| journalists published pieces from which a knowledgeable
| reader could deduce who was being referred to. But I
| believe Murray was pretty scrupulous in avoiding
| violating the judge's order.
|
| I think it's obvious he was persecuted for his trenchant
| support of Alex Salmond.
| peterfirefly wrote:
| That reminds me of one of the cases against Tommy
| Robinson (in 2018). As far as I could tell from abroad,
| he really didn't disclose anything that hadn't already
| been disclosed in traditional media.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Robinson_(far-
| right_acti...
|
| And even if he did -- there is something wrong with a
| justice system that would let that lead to these guys
| going free:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huddersfield_grooming_gang
|
| Reading the dates (years!) relevant to the case is enough
| to make anyone shutter -- first complaint taken seriously
| (allegedly) was in 2011 and the arrests didn't happen
| until 2017.
|
| Some cases seem to be more about politics than about the
| law (let alone justice).
|
| ---
|
| Do I have to say it? I probably do. I think Robinson is
| an idiot. A football hooligan who seems to have
| oppositional defiant disorder.
|
| He is also right that there is a problem with Muslim
| crime in the UK -- and their grooming gangs seem to be a
| huge problem and there has indisputably been a cover up
| of it.
| stephen_g wrote:
| My recollection is that there was no crucial piece that
| was not around the same time also reported in the mass
| media. Why this was dismissed as apparently not being
| relevant as a defence was confusing (if I recall
| correctly, something about media being self-regulating
| through a professional association and blogs not being
| so, which doesn't seem to matter when a reporter in the
| media did the exact same thing with no consequences that
| Murray was jailed for)
| janice1999 wrote:
| > Craig Murray identified complainants
|
| He didn't. His reporting included facts that the police
| and judge claimed _could_ be used to identify people.
| Many of these facts were also public knowledge anyone
| following the case likely already knew. These were the
| same police who brought the failed charges against
| Salmond. The entire case stinks of corruption and many
| people including Noam Chomsky have publically backed
| Murray.
|
| [0] https://www.thenational.scot/news/18486299.global-
| figures-in...
| Marazan wrote:
| Look, if at judge warns me that I have published
| information that may be used to identify an person who's
| identify is under legal order and I continue and
| repeatedly publish further information that may be used
| to identify the person what do you expect to happen?
| micv wrote:
| The post office was acting as victim, investigator, and
| prosecutor and simply lied or withheld evidence to ensure that
| the defence had nothing to work with and the jury had nothing
| to contradict that view. It's absolutely batshit levels of
| corruption and there must be severe consequences.
| tempaway34564 wrote:
| Partly its to do with the people in the courtroom not knowing
| enough about IT, so that when the Post Office claimed their
| massive late 90s XML based hub-and-spoke database with 13,000
| spokes was 'robust' it was taken as a given. Whereas anyone in
| IT could look at the architecture and think "well, there's
| bound to be all kinds of bugs in there".
|
| I mean, they had expert witnesses and stuff. But I've been
| reading about this in Private Eye for years, and as an IT
| person you read it and think 'yes those people are totally
| being fucked over because the organisation is hiding the bugs
| that obviously lurk in their enterprisey system' whereas for
| non-technical people it was less obvious.
| forinti wrote:
| Surely they could have checked the accounting and then
| verified what products and services were sold and what the
| total owed should have been.
|
| If there were duplicated entries, they would have stuck out
| like a sore thumb.
|
| So even before the system came into question, basic
| accounting should have been used.
| duncans wrote:
| Yes, you'd think so, but the Post Office "auditors" didn't
| do that and just blindly believed what the computer said
| the balance should be.
| HenryBemis wrote:
| ..and THIS is why you need a strong, independent Internal Audit
| dept, with serious, educated, trained IT Auditors.
|
| News like that make me very angry.
|
| From the little I find to read, looks like it would take a
| 'basic' IT Auditor could in a few days figure out (and fail)
| basic ITGCs.
|
| And it amazes me when I hear the term "DevOps" ( _cringe_ ). But
| hey, I get it.. we need to make money, A LOT of money, and we
| need to make it FAST because of reasons (competition, greed, lack
| of talent, timing, etc.). Who has time and money to spend on
| Dev/Staging/Prod? Only stupid highly regulated environments need
| to be stupid enough to do this..
|
| Going back to the story, THIS happens, people go to prison,
| people die. I have (in my IT Audit years) discovered/uncovered SO
| MANY tragic things.
|
| And what scares me.. when I see YC 'offsprings' hiring and 99.9%
| of jobs are "stuff-building/money-making". Zero audit roles. And
| I am not angry because "damn - please hire me".. it's that how
| many of these places have an experience, IT savvy auditor? Not
| someone's cousin that is an accountant.. (no disrespect - it will
| take a CPA 10+ years to not be tricked).
|
| And with that, I leave you with a friendly note on IT Auditors
| find and hire one with strong IT knowledge/background. They are
| worth their weight in Latinum!!
| robbbbbbbbbbbb wrote:
| To be fair, neither of the two organisations responsible for
| Horizon over the period in question - Fujitsu Services,
| formerly ICL Pathway - in any way resemble your pastiche of "YC
| Offspring" startups.
|
| Indeed, they were the exact opposite: huge multinationals with
| presumably gigantic legal, infosec and HR policy departments
| who could probably jump through the various compliance hurdles
| required by this procurement process in their sleep.
|
| By comparison the startups you're complaining about usually
| take years to reach sufficient maturity to take part in large
| public sector procurement processes like this.
|
| Clearly in this case maturity and scale were not a bulwark
| against incompetence, opacity and mendacity. Indeed the
| opposite - as I type this the Post Office's lawyers Herbert
| Smith Freehills are making mealy mouthed justifications for
| witholding reams of technical evidence from the public enquiry
| for months. It's disgusting, and as someone running a small
| business and endlessly having to justify our commitment to
| information security, data privacy and transparency I find the
| hypocrisy infuriating.
| bloomingeek wrote:
| <Senior Post Office managers briefed the BBC that neither their
| staff nor Fujitsu - the company which built and maintained the
| Horizon system - could remotely access sub-postmasters' accounts,
| even though Post Office directors had been warned four years
| earlier that such remote access was possible.>
|
| Jeez, as I'm betting almost all readers of HN know, if it's
| connected to the internet, it's not always secure. I'd suggest
| this is a blatant lie, the truth of which could have easily been
| verified by asking their in-house tech. After being told by
| Fujitsu about remote access possibilities, they didn't want
| believe them?
| duncans wrote:
| The system was originally connected via private ISDN lines so
| that wouldn't have been a factor for the first cases.
| cmsefton wrote:
| I highly recommend reading Private Eye's special report, Justice
| Lost In The Post https://www.private-
| eye.co.uk/pictures/special_reports/justi... [PDF]
|
| Private Eye were one of the few people reporting on this
| regularly. I've been reading about it in there for close on ten
| years, and am still astonished that it's taken this long to
| really hit home what happened to these individuals. Bravo to the
| makers of the recent show that's brought it back into the
| spotlight. It's truly shocking what the Post Office and Fujitsu
| did, and one can only hope prosecutions arise from this.
|
| For anyone working in IT, there are lessons to be learned here
| about what impact software can have on individuals' lives, and
| bravo to any whistleblower that came forward to speak out.
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| > there are lessons to be learned here about what impact => a
| mgmt crowd with zero skills and integrity <= can have on
| individuals' lives
|
| A friendly yet rueful amendment.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| It's more shocking than that. It's just one example of a
| culture of corruption that pervades government and government-
| adjacent contracting in the UK.
|
| Fujitsu acted like thugs not just to save face, but because
| important shareholders would lose money if the truth came out.
|
| Also, this kind of thing:
|
| https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/fujitsu-post-office-scandal...
|
| The PM's father in law is the head of Infosys. The PM's wife
| still has significant holdings in Infosys. Infosys and Fujitsu
| have a close partnership.
|
| And so on. It's corrupt from top to bottom. The UK government
| is effectively the marketing wing of the huge public sector
| corporates, who invariably seem to have senior Tories and Tory
| donors on their boards.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > It's corrupt from top to bottom.
|
| I'm sure that you already know about it, but the bit that
| gets me is the Russian oligarchs and their money, honours,
| property and influence.
|
| Assignations, poisoning etc and still the situation is
| tolerated.
| scott_w wrote:
| This is specific to the Conservative Party as being the
| ones essentially bribed by the Russian state.
| gadders wrote:
| As opposed to spying for the Russian state, like Labour
| MPs.
| sparks1970 wrote:
| While I don't disagree with the overall premise, Rishi Sunak
| has only been an MP since 2015 and this scandal has been
| going since 1999 so I am not sure the relationships you
| present:
|
| Rishi Sunak -> Wife (Met 2004, Married 2009) -> Father ->
| InfoSys -> Fujitsu
|
| Add up to any proof or even suggestion of corruption - just
| rich people know other rich people.
| gadders wrote:
| Yeah, he was born in 1980. This scandal started when he was
| 19 and at Uni.
| albert_e wrote:
| Yeah I dont know how Infosys-Fujitsu having a "close
| partnership" directly implies anything or implicates
| anyone.
|
| Every big business has dozens if not hundreds of
| "partnerships".
|
| I dont think someone at Fujitsu managing a big account like
| the UK post office would go out of their way to screw
| something up or cover something up because a partner
| company's co-founder happens to be F-I-L of the UK PM? Like
| what's the incentive here?
| oh_sigh wrote:
| It's also ignoring the fact that if Fujitsu was rolled up
| tomorrow, Infosys would probably be better off for it,
| gaining a bunch of contracts that Fujitsu previously had.
| _fat_santa wrote:
| I also wonder what responsibility the courts hold, seeing as
| folks were prosecuted and jailed on just IT evidence.
|
| I mean how in the world can you accuse and convict someone of
| theft when there is zero evidence outside of the IT system. And
| how in the world was the IT system never scrutinized?
|
| I personally think the prosecutions were a sign of the times
| when people were still far too trusting of computer systems. I
| feel like these days, everyone would realize that there would
| be at least reasonable doubt as to the accuracy of the system,
| yet when these prosecutions were mostly taking place it feels
| like everyone just assumed the system was perfect.
| dazc wrote:
| Add that also the Post Office was a trusted institution, the
| CEO at the time being also a prominent person in the Church.
| mherdeg wrote:
| Yeah. It's baffling to me that Private Eye covered this in
| explicit, specific detail a decade ago and there were
| essentially no consequences for many years after.
|
| (I have the same feelings as mhh__ in
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38967529. Just a
| remarkable and extremely slow miscarriage of justice.)
| supertron wrote:
| > I highly recommend reading Private Eye's special report
|
| Agreed. For those more audio inclined, I linked to these in
| another comment but I originally discovered their reporting on
| this via their "Page 94" podcast:
|
| https://www.private-eye.co.uk/podcast/49
|
| https://www.private-eye.co.uk/podcast/95
| idontwantthis wrote:
| So who did alter the records? Were employees at Fujitsu stealing
| or just fucking around?
| denton-scratch wrote:
| As far as I can tell, employees at Fujitsu couldn't get the
| money; they used the remote access feature to correct the
| errors that resulted from the bugs. According to the show, this
| was often done sloppily, so that a PS3,000 discrepancy would
| turn into a PS6,000 discrepancy, instead of being reduced to
| zero.
|
| These changes via remote access were _not logged_.
|
| There was also a point in the drama where the Fujitsu support
| staff talked a subpostmaster through fixing the errors herself;
| that is, accounts could be tampered with without using remote
| access.
|
| I suppose all this unaudited frigging with balances was enabled
| to cover up the fact that Horizon had serious bugs.
|
| What I'm waiting to find out is why the Post Office managers
| were so desperate to protect the reputation of Horizon, that
| they were willing to risk being charged with perverting the
| course of justice.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| > What I'm waiting to find out is why the Post Office
| managers were so desperate to protect the reputation of
| Horizon, that they were willing to risk being charged with
| perverting the course of justice.
|
| They received bonuses for each successful prosecution and it
| would be career suicide for any of them to blow the whistle.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| I get that the investigators, lawyers and lower-level
| managers were being encouraged with bonuses to cover-up the
| Horizon shortcomings, and use settlement offers to browbeat
| subpostmasters into exhonerating Horizon.
|
| What I haven't learned yet, is why senior management wanted
| so much to exhonerate Horizon, that they would hand out
| bonuses to investigators, and to inquiry witnesses who gave
| "the right" testimony. The Post Office doesn't have a lot
| of money; it only broke profit in about 2014.
|
| It can't be that the senior management were responsible for
| commissioning it, and screwed up; most of the people who
| did the comissioning will have retired. Similarly, the
| system was comissioned under a Labour government, and
| nobody from that era is still around. So I suspect it's the
| civil service, whose policies and cultures can outlive any
| human.
| greggsy wrote:
| They were bullied and given leniency if they didn't speak ill
| of the shortcomings
| benrutter wrote:
| This whole horizon system story is fascinating for so many
| reasons. One thing I don't understand though is exactly what the
| bug was?
|
| For context, it led to (sometimes huge) discrepancies in what it
| thought should be in the till based on sales data from the day.
|
| I don't build systems anything like Horizon, so this is probably
| a massive over simplification, but surely tracking stock and cash
| in tills should be really simple? Does anyone know if there are
| public details on what exactly the technical bug was?
| andy_ppp wrote:
| Haha, obviously you haven't worked in any large enterprises
| before that aren't software companies. Basically the business
| rolls dice and comes up with some random requirements and then
| tries to change those requirements constantly until you end up
| with software that looks so hideous nobody understands anything
| about it and all the chopping and changing leaves the code in a
| complete mess with lots of bugs. The problem is the people
| making these requests do not understand the costs, if they were
| building a house they wouldn't dig up the foundations on a
| whim, but because software is so ephemeral it seems (to them at
| least) cost free.
| InsomniacL wrote:
| https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/bates-v-...
|
| I have only skimmed this so far but it seems there were many
| bugs.
|
| Also this stood out to me.
|
| > 4. Fujitsu inserted transactions. These are injected into
| branch accounts by Fujitsu. They may be performed in order to
| 'balance' a discrepancy. These do NOT require acceptance by
| SPMs in the same manner as TCs and TAs.
| tauchunfall wrote:
| >Fujitsu inserted transactions
|
| They inserted transactions for corrections of discrepancies
| where you could not see they were authored by them; it was
| just assumed the postmaster did.
|
| They did not let postmasters know about this; probably an
| order by the post office.
|
| These corrections where incorrect, and caused discrepancies
| to increase; they mixed plus and minus sign quite often.
|
| They added lines of code to the system running on the counter
| in the local post office.
|
| They used the message store system like wild west without
| defining a data schema.
| blitzar wrote:
| > They inserted transactions for corrections of
| discrepancies where you could not see they were authored by
| them; it was just assumed the postmaster did.
|
| Then prosecuted the postmasters for inserting transactions,
| because "only the postmaster can insert transactions".
| cmsefton wrote:
| There wasn't just one bug, there were many. One of them was due
| to a "missing payments node", but there were many software
| faults, including rounding errors, data corruption, and issues
| with synchronization between local and central databases.
|
| Two bugs are detailed here: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-
| news/2024/jan/09/how-the-post...
|
| > One, named the "Dalmellington Bug", after the village in
| Scotland where a post office operator first fell prey to it,
| would see the screen freeze as the user was attempting to
| confirm receipt of cash. Each time the user pressed "enter" on
| the frozen screen, it would silently update the record. In
| Dalmellington, that bug created a PS24,000 discrepancy, which
| the Post Office tried to hold the post office operator
| responsible for.
|
| > Another bug, called the Callendar Square bug - again named
| after the first branch found to have been affected by it -
| created duplicate transactions due to an error in the database
| underpinning the system: despite being clear duplicates, the
| post office operator was again held responsible for the errors.
|
| There weren't just bugs, either Fujitsu had the ability of
| modifying or adding transactional records remotely, but always
| denied they had the ability to do so, as did the Post Office.
| tgv wrote:
| There's a computerphile video on youtube where a prof goes
| through A, C, I and D and gives an example where each of these
| went wrong. Professionally speaking, it's shocking.
| codeulike wrote:
| Hey you're right, from two years ago, good catch
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBJm9ZYqL10
| tauchunfall wrote:
| >One thing I don't understand though is exactly what the bug
| was?
|
| It was not only the bugs but also the UX and the overall
| process that made things worse.
|
| The system did things that the postmaster was either unaware
| of, or did not intend to do. When there was a customer session
| and a session time-out occurred it was changed into an actual
| transaction without the postmaster intending it; like you have
| a shopping cart on an e-commerce site and it transforms the
| shopping cart automatically into a sale after timeout.
|
| There were screen freezes and when the postmaster pressed enter
| while the screen freeze happend, it multiplied the amount of
| money, without the screen being updated.
|
| Postmasters are responsible for discrepancies, and when they
| called the telephone support they were occasionally told "not
| to worry, it will sort itself out". There were corrections from
| the outside and postmasters sometimes waited for weeks and even
| months for these corrections to happen to resolve the
| discrepancies. Sometimes they never happened.
| codeulike wrote:
| It was a bunch of different bugs
|
| We're trying to figure out the architecture over on this other
| thread - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38954516
|
| But basically it was based on a sortof replicated XML database
| that sent text files back and forth, so the basics of
| synchronisation and consensus were just not covered properly.
| e.g. if someone kept pressing a key when the screen was frozen,
| duplicate transactions got created. Or if they turned their
| machine off earlier than 5pm, end-of-day processes did not get
| run properly. Or if their node was trying to synchronise with
| the central node a bit later than normal and the central node
| was doing a 'reindexing' operation, their messages got lost.
| Lots of edge case synronisation bugs basically.
|
| edit: also here's a good computerphile video about the bugs
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBJm9ZYqL10
| pjc50 wrote:
| > surely tracking stock and cash in tills should be really
| simple?
|
| You'd think so, except they wanted a custom system built at
| incredible expense.
| InsomniacL wrote:
| What shocks me the most is the amount people who pleaded guilty
| (who claim they are innocent) to receive a lesser sentence.
|
| I'd equate that to torture.
| Semaphor wrote:
| Isn't that the general issue with plea deals? Unless you are
| wealthy, pleading out is often the better choice.
| davedx wrote:
| The entire US criminal justice system revolves around plea
| bargains
| pi-e-sigma wrote:
| For anyone who thinks the parent is exaggerating: 97% of all
| convictions in the US is due to the plea bargains.
| SkyBelow wrote:
| This is why plea deals should be considered a violation of any
| notion of rights to a jury trial, fair trial, or similar. It is
| like the right to vote, where voting for the wrong party might
| end up with you going to prison.
| sheepscreek wrote:
| I am absolutely flabbergasted. At least for American public
| companies, SOX compliance requirements make it impossible for
| something like this to ever happen without an explicit
| authorization in place. The rule is simple: every destructive
| action (think mutable) needs to have one requester and one
| approver.
|
| As long as it is logged in some system, you're golden. This is
| somewhat enforced through regular publicly disclosed audits. I
| suppose that's what Ernst and Young did when they noted in an
| audit that Fujitsu has unrestricted access to modify accounts
| without the postmasters knowledge, and this poses risk.
|
| What strikes me as bizarre is that no regulatory body took any
| action on that report. Maybe the report was private, I'm not sure
| - I don't know how things work in the UK. In any case, this
| really takes your trust away from public institutions. You're
| left to wonder, if this was possible, what else might still be
| possible?
| mcguire wrote:
| I've worked on HR software for a large organization in the US
| that relatively frequently gets sued on hiring decisions.
|
| One of the features that the customer desired was essentially
| an overriding, free-form, editor for the recorded information,
| as part of the "get all of the information for a case to be
| submitted to the court" bit.
|
| We didn't do it, because the entire development team thought it
| was ridiculous, and the person requesting it retired before
| issue boiled over.
| miohtama wrote:
| Here is the Wikipedia page on the topic. The issues started
| already in 90s and dragged without a proper fix, people
| committing suicides as the result
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal#....
| mgkimsal wrote:
| Watched the Mr Bates 4 part series, and a few things didn't make
| much sense to me.
|
| The balancing. Perhaps because more was cash, but I would have
| expected some logging to have shown "at 4pm, the account had cash
| on hand of X pounds. at 4:08pm, the account had 2300 pounds
| less". Would that not have been useful? But watching (yes, it was
| a dramatization, but it didn't seem like much), it seems like PO
| did not want to admit _any_ fault, ever, at all, and just kept
| sticking to that far beyond the time when they could have just
| cut their loss, held up their hands, and said "hey - problem
| identified, we'll fix it".
|
| If I _sold_ 5000 pounds of stuff, and should have received 5000
| pounds, and... I _have_ 5000 pounds on hand, but the computer
| says I have a shortfall 1000 pounds... _how_ is that defensible?
|
| Where did the money 'go'? If I had 4000 pounds on hand, but the
| computer then said I should have 6000, and I'm short 2000
| pounds... why wasn't that discpreancy noted?
|
| Also.. what was the motivation behind all the changes? The
| whistleblower seemed to indicate this was remote people at
| horizon "fixing" things by hand. Were these all just 'accidents'
| no one owned up to? The drama seemed to indicate there was some
| intentional retaliation against some people, but it couldn't have
| been intentional in all cases. But also... it doesn't sound like
| anyone at Horizon _stole_ that money, they were just changing
| figures in a system.
| Marazan wrote:
| One of the bugs in the system was that one of the data entry
| screens which postmasters recorded their takings would
| routinely freeze. If you hit "Return" again whilst the screen
| was frozen it would silently submit the figures again. So if
| you had PS4000 of takings and submitted, got the frozen screen
| bug and hit return again then the Post Office thought you had
| PS8000 of takings.
|
| These were _incredibly obvious_ duplicate entry errors when the
| Post Office investigated but they blindly took the system as
| perfect and automatically assumed criminality on the part of
| the postmaster.
|
| NOTHING about this makes any sense if you assume people on the
| Post Office/Fujitsu side were acting in good faith.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| > These were _incredibly obvious_ duplicate entry errors when
| the Post Office investigated but they blindly took the system
| as perfect and automatically assumed criminality on the part
| of the postmaster
|
| They did not blindly take the system as perfect, but instead
| they were well aware of the errors and instead decided to
| bully the sub postmasters and gain bonuses for successful
| prosecution. They knew exactly what they were doing and took
| pains to hide any evidence of the shortcomings of Horizon.
| mgkimsal wrote:
| Outside of ego/reputation, I can't see what the coverup
| provided. Maybe that's all it was. Crazy.
| contravariant wrote:
| You're about 1 or 2 steps away from reinventing double entry
| bookkeeping. Buy yeah in a proper accounting system you'd have
| those entries which would be easy to check, and nobody would be
| able to remove or edit them and the system would keep track of
| who was responsible for which entry.
|
| This system works well enough that it can be done with pen and
| paper. Perhaps consolidating some stuff from time to time (but
| keeping the calculations for X years).
|
| As far as I can tell Horizon wasn't playing by the rules,
| either because of bugs or because of badly designed secret
| admin access (maybe to fix those bugs, but you can guess how
| well that goes).
| dccoolgai wrote:
| I was wondering when this was going to breach the Zeitgeist. I've
| been reading about it for a while now. I'd really love to watch
| the recent show about it (that apparently triggered the awareness
| of it in the U.K.) but I can't find a way to watch it on any of
| my streaming services in the U.S. Does anyone know how to see it
| in the States?
| dazc wrote:
| It was an ITV series which isn't a streaming service, as such.
| You may be able to access the Radio series though which is well
| worth a listen. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jf7j
| JdeBP wrote:
| ITVX is, purportedly, though.
|
| I have some relatives who tried out ITVX for the first time
| especially to watch the drama, which they didn't catch as it
| was broadcast. They reported that ITVX was almost unusable,
| and also that the app crashed their telly and caused it to
| lose the ability to output sound until they rebooted the
| telly and let it go through an update cycle. "BBC iPlayer is
| much better." came the grumble down the telephone. (-:
|
| I told them that it was ITV, which has 4 channels and is
| almost bound to repeat it.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| I'd recommend pirating it and it's easy enough to find through
| the usual trackers.
| tauchunfall wrote:
| For those who don't want to pirate it, there is a summary
| which tells the story using scenes from the TV series.
|
| >Post Office Scandal Explained
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdQQib3rmkE
| yard2010 wrote:
| After the latest bullshit from the BBC I can't trust anything
| they say, I need to check their sources on everything and
| honestly it's so tiring I just ignore their stuff. There are
| better sources for news. Like, credible sources
| erinaceousjones wrote:
| This is an article that heavily mentions the BBC, the
| broadcaster of Panorama, being threatened by the Post Office.
| Other than the Panorama production company, whom chose to be
| interviewed by the BBC, in this instance where else would you
| go for a direct source?
|
| If I were to hazard a guess, you haven't chosen to read the
| article, and have no motivation to actually substantiate your
| distrust for them past a vague "it's bullshit".
| cube00 wrote:
| Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry Livestream
| https://www.youtube.com/@postofficehorizonitinquiry947
|
| Inquiry website https://www.postofficehorizoninquiry.org.uk
| capr wrote:
| but has any of this made any of you intelligent middle class
| people with best access to self-education ever doubt our social
| organization based on a monopoly on the use of violence in a
| geographical area?
| krisoft wrote:
| I have a tangential question to this whole debacle: I'm a
| developer who worked on a lot of safety critical stuff. I think I
| know a lot about that. But never worked with "money stuff". What
| are the best practices in this regard?
|
| I understand this whole thing is not just a software development
| failure. But it also feels as if the Fujitsu developers had done
| a better job we wouldn't be having the whole debacle.
|
| So what are the best practices with a system like this? Are there
| good and practical books for example on the topic?
| pjc50 wrote:
| A good start might be the French "NF525" law, which lays down
| legal standards for how cash registers should work.
| https://www2.ikosoft.com/en-gb/all-knowledge-about-the-nf525...
| / https://www2.ikosoft.com/en-gb/cash-security-software-how-
| to...
|
| "Any software with nf certification must not allow any
| concealment of data essential for VAT assessment. It must be
| equipped with a system for identification and tracing of all
| processes and information relating to collections.
|
| Concerning the registration, the security is done by electronic
| signature. All information recorded in the cash register system
| cannot be modified or deleted. Errors and returns are
| automatically considered as new transactions.
|
| As regards the retention of data, the minimum period imposed by
| the standard is six years. Furthermore, during a tax audit, an
| archiving system must facilitate the interventions of the tax
| authorities, by quickly restoring the data necessary for the
| calculation of VAT.
|
| Note that archiving is systematic before any purging procedure.
| This rule ensures that the data is available at each
| intervention of the administration's agents."
|
| It's perhaps a bit more like signed git commits than
| blockchain; the requirement is that every transaction be signed
| and immutable. If "corrections" are required, the correction
| has to be appended to the log leaving the original in place. I
| believe there's also a requirement to feed all this receipt
| data to the tax authorities.
| codeulike wrote:
| Here's a system audit manual from Jan 2000, part of the inquiry
| evidence. Lets figure out how this thing worked.
|
| https://www.postofficehorizoninquiry.org.uk/evidence/pol0002...
| duncans wrote:
| See also the Fujitsu whistleblower, Richard Rolls' witness
| statement
| https://www.postofficehorizoninquiry.org.uk/evidence/witn007...
| arkh wrote:
| The thing is: the higher ups thinking that postmasters where
| routinely stealing and the fact Fujitsu altering records without
| logging was standard shows a culture where you can bet those
| higher ups are used to steal and think everyone does it.
| menzoic wrote:
| This couldn't happen if the transactions were on a blockchain
| greggsy wrote:
| Or better accounting, testing, logging and administration
| standards, which would be necessary with or without blockchain.
| lagerlagerlager wrote:
| ICL originally had contract AFAIK. It seems to me that the
| disappeared funds could have gone to people with access to the
| system and not just a result of accidental coding. International
| Computers Limited existed as a commercial entity and brand from
| 1968 to 2002, it was finally and completely absorbed into
| Fujitsu.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| > It seems to me that the disappeared funds could have gone to
| people with access to the system
|
| How could that happen outside of the Post Office? ICL/Fujitsu
| had remote access to all the remote boxes and could add/amend
| records without any audit trail and without knowledge of the
| sub postmasters, but I can't see how they could get money to go
| into their own pockets unless they entered into a deal with the
| sub postmaster operating the branch. Hypothetically, they could
| delete some transactions and then the sub postmaster would have
| more money in their till than accounted for and could split the
| proceeds. (I don't think this ever happened).
| joe463369 wrote:
| The disappeared funds were briefly covered in the programme.
| Standard accountancy practice when you've got mystery funds is
| to record them in a 'suspense account' and if it comes to light
| where the dough came from, you update your records. If no one
| comes forward after x years you just have to treat it as free
| money from who-knows-where.
| iandanforth wrote:
| Is the Post Office a private company? Why are they using phrases
| like 'protect our brand?'
| zh3 wrote:
| What is clear about this is that the system couldn't even balance
| the books (which has been obvious for years, to anyone in the UK
| following the story).
|
| If the computer says "You took PSx thousand and only banked PSY
| thousand", the first thing to do is audit the receipts and
| (unless there were fraudulent entries being made, while noting
| this was allegedly not possible) as the first rule of forensic
| accounting is 'follow the money'.
|
| What's so bad here is that the executives of a well respected UK
| institution acted purely from a profit/reputational motive, and
| dug themselves deeper and deeper into the hole as a result.
|
| More scarey part of this is that it's Minority Report - "Computer
| says you're guilty, end of story". Positive take would be the
| courts are less likely to believe the 'computers are infallible'
| line in the future.
| spondyl wrote:
| Some important context that might be useful for fellow confused
| readers:
|
| A new four-part dramatisation about the Horizon scandal aired
| from January 1st - 4th in the UK.
|
| As a result, the scandal became a popular topic for discussion
| publically and in the media, as well as introducing the issue to
| a whole bunch of people who were unaware
|
| I was a bit confused myself as to why this was getting coverage
| out of the blue until I learned about the ITV series yesterday
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr_Bates_vs_The_Post_Office
| chris_wot wrote:
| Why would anyone allow Fujitsu to gain new contracts?
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