[HN Gopher] At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Of...
___________________________________________________________________
At Least 13 People Died by Suicide Amid U.K. Post Office Scandal,
Report Says
Author : xbryanx
Score : 519 points
Date : 2025-07-11 11:56 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| belter wrote:
| Some context:
|
| "How a software glitch at the UK Post Office ruined lives" - 2024
| | 331 comments - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39010070
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
| bmacho wrote:
| https://archive.md/oldest/https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/10...
| ignoramous wrote:
| Another post office operator, Seema Misra, was pregnant when she
| was sent to prison. She said in testimony that the local
| newspaper had published a photo of her and labeled her the
| "pregnant thief." While she was in prison, her husband was beaten
| up and subjected to racist insults, she testified.
|
| The tidal wave of fascist & far-right grievances are so hard to
| contain and fight against in the moment. Multi-cultural societies
| everywhere are never getting rid of it, are they?
| bravesoul2 wrote:
| At the moment yes but always has been in the UK.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| Blaming the grievances on multiculturalism is yet another lie
| on the never-ending pile of lies that is fascism. If everyone
| was a literal clone from the same insular culture, fascism will
| invent new distinctions to create outgroups to oppress.
| tumsfestival wrote:
| After race it's religion, when it's not religion it's
| politics, when it's not politics it's social class... It's
| stuff like this that makes me wonder if we will ever achieve
| anything like the Star Trek future where we just get past
| racism and bigotry. I have a feeling bigotry will be our
| great filter as a species.
| nextos wrote:
| I have followed this scandal quite closely over the years, and
| these two quotations sum it up. Pretty sad:
|
| _" The report alleges that even before the program was rolled
| out in 1999, some Fujitsu employees knew that Horizon could
| produce false data."_
|
| _" As the years went by the complaints grew louder and more
| persistent [...] Still the Post Office trenchantly resisted the
| contention that on occasions Horizon produced false data."_
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| the employee knew something going to fuck up but higher up
| maybe don't want to deal with clean up and proceed to release
| it asap
|
| hmm sounds like silicon valley work ethics
| nlitened wrote:
| It would not surprise me if some developers at that time
| reported to journalists that they had a bug in their code,
| they'd go to jail for fabricating evidence, cybercrime,
| stealing of trade secrets, breaking an NDA, or something like
| that.
| hungmung wrote:
| Why not all of the above?
| mike_hearn wrote:
| To the NY Times: please don't say they died by suicide. The
| passive voice makes it sound like some act of God, something
| regrettable but unavoidable that just somehow happened. It's
| important not to sugarcoat what happened: the postmasters killed
| themselves because the British state was imprisoning them for
| crimes they didn't commit, based on evidence from a buggy
| financial accounting system. Don't blur the details of what
| happened by making it sound like a natural disaster.
|
| Horizon is the case that should replace Therac-25 as a study in
| what can go wrong if software developers screw up. Therac-25
| injured/killed six people, Horizon has ruined hundreds of lives
| and ended dozens. And the horrifying thing is, Horizon wasn't
| something anyone would have previously identified as safety-
| critical software. It was just an ordinary point-of-sale and
| accounting system. The suicides weren't directly caused by the
| software, but from an out of control justice and social system in
| which people blindly believed in public institutions that were
| actually engaged in a massive deep state cover-up.
|
| It is reasonable to blame the suicides on the legal and political
| system that allowed the Post Office to act in that way, and which
| put such low quality people in charge. Perhaps also on the
| software engineer who testified repeatedly under oath that the
| system worked fine, even as the bug tracker filled up with cases
| where it didn't. But this is HN, so from a software engineering
| perspective what can be learned?
|
| Some glitches were of their time and wouldn't occur these days,
| e.g. malfunctions in resistive touch screens that caused random
| clicks on POS screens to occur overnight. But most were bugs due
| to loss of transactionality or lack of proper auditing controls.
| Think message replays lacking proper idempotency, things like
| that. Transactions were logged that never really occurred, and
| when the cash was counted some appeared to be missing, so the
| Post Office accused the postmasters of stealing from the
| business. They hadn't done so, but this took place over decades,
| and decades ago people had more faith in institutions than they
| do now. And these post offices were often in small villages where
| the post office was the center of the community, so the false
| allegations against postmasters were devastating to their social
| and business lives.
|
| Put simply - check your transactions! And make sure developers
| can't rewrite databases in prod.
| SirFatty wrote:
| "The passive voice makes it sound like some act of God,
| something regrettable but unavoidable that just somehow
| happened. "
|
| That's a really odd take.
| RandomBacon wrote:
| > odd take
|
| It's not odd when the sentiment is widespread, for example,
| look at the other comments in this thread that talk about it.
| SirFatty wrote:
| Oh, well if everyone else is parroting it, then it must be
| correct.
| reliabilityguy wrote:
| I hope you see the irony of " everyone else is parroting
| it, then it must be correct".
| some_random wrote:
| You should probably just state what your opinion on it
| is, instead of bouncing between different complaints.
| squigz wrote:
| It's not that odd - it's simply pointing out that phrasing
| can and does play a rather large role in how we internalize
| and react to news.
| thoroughburro wrote:
| It was an extremely common criticism of the passive voice.
| Yours is the weird take.
| CivBase wrote:
| For what it's worth, I agree. It never crossed my mind that
| the phrasing could lead anyone to believe the suicides were
| "unavoidable" or an "act of God", especially when the title
| clearly ties the suicides to a causation.
|
| The phrasing could be made more accusatory, but I don't think
| that's inherently better.
| ellisv wrote:
| I don't think the NY Times reads HN comments.
| cedws wrote:
| >if software developers screw up
|
| Well, yes, they did screw up, but the fallout was amplified
| 100x by bad management.
| mrkramer wrote:
| "The Horizon IT system contained "hundreds" of bugs[0]."
|
| If your accounting software has hundreds of bugs then you are
| really in the deep shit.
|
| [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal#
| :~...
| PUSH_AX wrote:
| Well not really, no one should be committing suicide due to
| a buggy system. If you know the details of the case it was
| widespread but the post office decided to gaslight everyone
| and put people in debt and prison. That's what caused this,
| the bugs were just a catalyst for shitty humans to do
| shitty things
| mrkramer wrote:
| Yea management failed but wouldn't the most logical thing
| be to call in computer forensics experts and quality test
| the software, reverse engineering it and try to catch the
| bugs. This wasn't the classic case of financial fraud,
| this was all about faulty software.
| voxic11 wrote:
| The Post Office management knew about the bugs but didn't
| want to take the blame for the accounting issues they
| caused (since it was management that purchased and
| approved the software some blame would have fallen on
| them).
| mrkramer wrote:
| Fujitsu was all to blame, after all they created and
| maintained the software. It just blows my mind why would
| courts pursue the individuals and not the creator of the
| software, when they realized that this mess was
| widespread and not isolated.
| blibble wrote:
| because UK law says (said?) the computer can't be wrong
|
| and the post office management had no interest in proving
| otherwise
|
| they should be going after the management
| foldr wrote:
| UK law said that there was a presumption that computer
| systems were working correctly unless there was evidence
| to the contrary. That's not inherently nuts. It makes
| roughly as much sense as assuming that, say, a dishwasher
| is in working order unless there's evidence to the
| contrary. This presumption in and of itself could just as
| well aid a person's defense as hinder it (e.g. if they
| have an alibi based on computer records).
|
| In this case it should have been very easy to provide
| evidence to override the presumption that the Horizon
| system was working correctly. That this didn't happen
| seems to have resulted from a combination of bad
| lawyering and shameless mendacity on the part of Fujitsu
| and the Post Office.
|
| Don't get me wrong -- the whole thing is a giant scandal.
| I'm just not sure if this particular presumption of UK
| law is the appropriate scapegoat.
| mrkramer wrote:
| >UK law said that there was a presumption that computer
| systems were working correctly unless there was evidence
| to the contrary.
|
| Defense had to prove that only one Horizon/Fujitsu
| accounting software was buggy and the whole prosecution
| falls apart e.g. If John's Horizon/Fujitsu accounting
| software has bugs then Peter's Horizon/Fujitsu accounting
| software most probably has bugs too.
| foldr wrote:
| In principle, yes. It may be that the bar was set too
| high and that there needs to be some clarification of
| exactly what the presumption means.
|
| I'd argue that some kind of weak presumption along these
| lines clearly makes sense and is probably universal
| across legal systems. For example, suppose the police
| find that X has an incriminating email from Y after
| searching X's laptop. Are they required to prove that
| GMail doesn't have a bug causing it to corrupt email
| contents or send emails to the wrong recipients?
| Presumably not.
| mike_hearn wrote:
| IIRC one issue was that every time someone advanced the
| theory something was wrong with Horizon, the Post Office
| kept claiming that nobody else was experiencing any
| issues. They also lied under oath, claiming no bugs that
| could cause such situations were known. Given this most
| the of defence lawyers abandoned that line of inquiry
| (they were nothing special, seeing as village postmasters
| aren't rich).
| buzer wrote:
| Proving bugs can be pretty hard if you don't have access
| to software & source code. That is similar to the US,
| courts usually won't give you access to source code to
| verify if software is operating correctly, you generally
| only get cross examine the company representative &
| person who performed the test. DNA tests are one good
| example.
|
| One case where defense did get access to the code (FST
| developed by NYC) led to discoveries
| (https://www.propublica.org/article/federal-judge-
| unseals-new...) that led to it being retired from use.
| noisy_boy wrote:
| > Yea management failed but wouldn't the most logical
| thing be to call in computer forensics experts
|
| Yea and who is responsible for engaging them?
| mrkramer wrote:
| I meant courts should've called in multiple expert
| witnesses and even computer forensics companies. This
| case looks like government or in this case courts
| colluded with British Post Office.
| mr_toad wrote:
| > I meant courts should've called in multiple expert
| witnesses and even computer forensics companies.
|
| UK courts don't (can't) do that, that's up to the
| plaintiffs or defendants.
| voxic11 wrote:
| But it was the decision to gaslight and charge the
| postmasters with crimes that caused the suicides, not the
| bugs in the code. If they had just admitted that the
| accounting issues were due to bugs in the system then I
| really doubt anyone would have committed suicide.
| tialaramex wrote:
| So long as the jury understands this, it's all fine.
|
| If you're on trial for doing X and your jury is told by a
| prosecution witness "mrkramer did X" and under cross they
| admit that's based on computer records which are often
| bogus, inconsistent, total nonsense, it doesn't take the
| world's best defence lawyer to secure an "innocent"
| verdict. That's not a _fun_ experience, but it probably won
| 't drive you to suicide.
|
| One of the many interlocking failures here is that the Post
| Office, historically a government function, was allowed to
| _prosecute people_.
|
| Suppose I work not for the Post Office (by this point a
| private company which is just owned in full by the
| government) but for say, an Asda, next door. I'm the most
| senior member of staff on weekends, so I have keys, I
| accept deliveries, all that stuff. Asda's crap computer
| system says I accepted PS25000 of Amazon Gift Cards which
| it says came on a truck from the depot on Saturday. I never
| saw them, I deny it, there are no Gift Cards in stock at
| our store.
|
| _Asda_ can 't prosecute me. They could try to sue, but
| more likely they'd call the police. If the police think I
| stole these Amazon cards, they give the file to a Crown
| Prosecutor, who works for the government to prosecute
| criminals. They don't work for Asda and they're looking at
| a bunch of "tests" which decide whether it makes sense to
| prosecute people.
|
| https://www.cps.gov.uk/about-cps/how-we-make-our-decisions
|
| But because the Sub-postmasters worked under contract to
| the Post Office, it could and did in many cases just
| prosecute them, it was empowered to do that. That's an
| obvious mistake, in many of these cases if you show a
| copper, let alone a CPS lawyer your laughable "case" that
| although this buggy garbage is often wrong you think
| there's signs of theft, they'll tell you that you can't
| imprison people on this basis, piss off.
|
| A worse failure is that Post Office people were allowed to
| _lie_ to a court about how reliable this information was,
| and indeed they repeatedly lied in later cases where it 's
| directly about the earlier lying. That's the point where it
| undoubtedly goes from "Why were supposedly incompetent
| morons given this important job?" where maybe they're
| morons or maybe they're liars, to "Lying to a court is
| wrong, send them to jail".
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| > If you're on trial for doing X and your jury is told by
| a prosecution witness "mrkramer did X" and under cross
| they admit that's based on computer records which are
| often bogus, inconsistent, total nonsense, it doesn't
| take the world's best defence lawyer to secure an
| "innocent" verdict. That's not a fun experience, but it
| probably won't drive you to suicide.
|
| I imagine digital records are involved in nearly every
| trial at this point. Good luck getting this point
| admitted by the justice system.
| tialaramex wrote:
| There are plenty of examples, Light Blue Touchpaper talks
| about this a bunch. You do have a problem that courts
| will believe technicians very broadly unless somebody
| competent is cross-examining to highlight where the
| limits of their evidence are. So your defence will need
| to hire such an expert and your legal team need to get
| the judge to understand why everybody is going to listen
| to nerd stuff for however long when they thought this was
| a case about, say, theft.
| cameronh90 wrote:
| > Asda can't prosecute me.
|
| They can, actually. Anyone in the UK can launch a private
| prosecution. It's rare because it's expensive and the CPS
| can (and often do) take over any private prosecution then
| drop it.
|
| Nevertheless, the power exists and has been intentionally
| protected by parliament. I think most would agree it
| needs reform, however.
| tialaramex wrote:
| This is Technically Correct, which is, I admit, the Best
| Kind of Correct, but in practical terms it won't happen.
|
| [Edited: Got the Futurama quote wrong, fixed that]
| carstout wrote:
| Unfortunately the "its rare" isnt true. it is more common
| now than it was back in the horizon days. It also isnt
| necessarily expensive since you can apply for costs with
| the default being for it to be paid (unless good reason
| not to). As such whilst its not an option for the average
| person who cant afford the upfront cost it is very
| practical for large businesses especially if they engage
| in it often and hence can stand up a department for it.
|
| Its one of the offerings from TM-Eye aka one of the
| "private police forces". https://tm-eye.co.uk/what-we-
| do/private-prosecutions/
|
| It is an actual example of a two tier justice system
| since those who can afford the private prosecution skip
| the queue for the public system but will still normally
| have the taxpayer pay for it.
|
| There is currently a consultation underway as per below
| article which, incidentally, mentions a more recent
| dubious example of private prosecutions which got slapped
| down.
|
| https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/oversight-
| and-re...
| DaveLond wrote:
| It's worse than that - in UK law you cannot question the
| evidence produced by a computer unless you can prove the
| computer is not operating correctly - it's an inversion
| of the normal burden of proof.
|
| They've started the process of thinking about if that law
| makes sense given this case:
| https://www.gov.uk/government/calls-for-evidence/use-of-
| evid...
| foldr wrote:
| It's only an inversion of the usual burden of proof if
| you assume that evidence from a computer can only ever be
| used to aid the prosecution. It can also be used to aid
| the defense, in which case this presumption makes it
| harder to convict someone, not easier.
| petercooper wrote:
| A juror can, and should IMHO, however consider that
| evidence based entirely upon computer records may
| potentially be erroneous and therefore unable to secure
| proof 'beyond a reasonable doubt'. If I were a juror, I'd
| default to non-guilty if a case were based entirely upon
| the results of an algorithm or computerised records
| because they introduce doubt.
| ptero wrote:
| Every system has bugs, even deployed, high visibility
| accounting systems. Debian stable, which I personally view
| as the gold standard for a robust general purpose OS, has
| hundreds of bugs.
|
| That is not to say that bugs are good. They are bad and
| should be squashed. But the Horizon failure, IMO, is with
| the _management_ , that pretended that the system was bug
| free and, faced with the evidence to the contrary, put the
| blame on postmasters. My 2c.
| wat10000 wrote:
| I'd be shocked if any piece of software large enough to
| qualify as an "accounting system" didn't contain at least
| hundreds of bugs. We're just not that good at building
| software. Especially if you consider that the system
| encompasses all of the dependencies, so you should count
| bugs in the OS, CPU, any relevant firmware, etc.
| mr_toad wrote:
| If any large system wasn't constantly logging errors I'd
| immediately assume there was something wrong with the error
| logging system. Only trivial software is bug free.
| drweevil wrote:
| Indeed. This is not about Horizon's bugs. It is about
| management that was incurious and perhaps politically and
| financially motivated to ignore Horizon's shortcomings,
| enough so to knowingly destroy lives. Charges of murder
| should be laid.
| aenis wrote:
| But we hold engineers to much higher ethical standards than
| management. One does not expect management to blow the
| whistle - or even understand whats what when dealing with
| complex issues in distributed systems. If the engineers start
| lying - its game over.
|
| I cried when I was reading the book. So much suffering.
| Bought a copy for all the it architects in my company and
| asked all of them to read it. Should be part of curriculum
| for aspiring software engineers.
| xbryanx wrote:
| > please don't say they died by suicide
|
| I encourage you to read the current thinking on this evolving
| language, which offers some explanation as to why we're moving
| away from damaging language like "committing" suicide.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_terminology#%22Committ...
| https://www.iasp.info/languageguidelines/
| lou1306 wrote:
| I think they are saying that the current title ("people died
| ... amid scandal") muddies the water when it comes to the
| causal relation, arguably "people were led to suicide by
| baseless accusations" _might_ be a more faithful descriptor
| of who's at fault here, but I understand journalists don't
| want to risk being sued (and neither do I, hence my use of
| _might_)
| vanderZwan wrote:
| I suspect the point was that they were _driven_ to suicide.
| As in pushed into a corner by external, human forces.
| lanfeust6 wrote:
| "damaging", in no quantifiable way whatsoever. It's just the
| euphemism treadmill at work, nothing more.
| tweetle_beetle wrote:
| I would say it's not the treadmill at work in this case.
| It's not simply a replacement.
|
| The article linked by the parent comment explains it well
| and references plenty of considered material. But the tldr
| is that committing suicide aligns with an active
| criminal/immoral act, while dying by suicide is a factual
| cause of death with many possible causes.
|
| Consider how people would like your death, or the death of
| a loved one, described by others. And if you can't, maybe
| consider how others might be affected.
| lanfeust6 wrote:
| > But the tldr is that committing suicide aligns with an
| active criminal/immoral act, while dying by suicide is a
| factual cause of death with many possible causes.
|
| The projections are doing the work here. Colloquially
| today what's understood is that "commit" merely means
| they did the deed. People can judge that to be immoral or
| not regardless; most people don't, except through the
| lens of religion.
|
| They might judge it to be the wrong choice, as I surely
| do, and I don't think it helps to diminish agency as
| though suicide is an inevitability following any given
| circumstance.
| xbryanx wrote:
| > in no quantifiable way whatsoever
|
| You may disagree with my assertion, but there has been
| considerable research into the role of media and reporting
| in suicide, indicating that contagion is real and that
| words matter when reporting on these issues.
|
| Source: https://reportingonsuicide.org/research/
| lanfeust6 wrote:
| That words matter is why I'm in opposition, as this
| diminishes agency in people.
|
| Today I would say that framing suicide as "immoral" in
| secular society is banal and has no traction, but most,
| excepting certain circumstances, would suggest it is a
| bad choice. That surely follows if you as well as I would
| try to talk an able person out of suicide.
|
| I don't think it helps to diminish agency as though
| suicide is an inevitability following tough
| circumstances. That's the message I am getting from the
| euphemism treadmill game, and I reject it.
|
| The message should be that you can go through hell and
| recover, and you still have a choice. And granted there's
| always nature vs nurture; just as we are not entirely the
| product of our environment, the environment does shape
| us. But it's not all-or-nothing.
| Hercuros wrote:
| The person you are replying to shared some research by
| experts on the topic giving recommendations. You can
| argue for or against anything, but it's useful to at
| least engage with the evidence being presented.
| dogleash wrote:
| edit: lol wut? The more I think about this the less it makes
| sense. The stigma of suicide is from the societal attitude
| that it's wrong and you should never do it. Using a verb
| isn't the bit that tells everyone it is wrong. If you want to
| remove the _stigma_ take away all the signs for 998 and
| perfunctory statements that help is available, and replace
| them all with "do it. no balls, do it."
|
| Isn't the stigma desired anyway? It keeps people from going
| through with it. That's why society deliberately creates and
| actively cultivates the stigma.
|
| I doubt removing "committed" removes any stigma to seek help.
| What sucks about suicidality is that everyone is so sterile
| about it. Removing the word is more of that. IMO the
| sterility discourages the not-yet-at-rock-bottom suicidal
| from reaching out.
|
| My pre-edit comment was that just about sterility and linking
| to: "Envying the dead: SkyKing in memoriam"
| https://eggreport.substack.com/p/rehosting-envying-the-
| dead-...
| Hercuros wrote:
| > Isn't the stigma desired anyway? It keeps people from
| going through with it. That's why society deliberately
| creates and actively cultivates the stigma.
|
| That's a very optimistic take on how "rational" society
| tends to be. The thought that "if things are in a certain
| way in society, then it must make sense (from a moral or
| societal point of view) for them to be that way."
| johnorourke wrote:
| "died by suicide" is just a modern replacement for "committed
| suicide", because that phrase dates back to when it was a
| crime, so it's regarded as making the victim look bad.
| tjwebbnorfolk wrote:
| I say this as someone whose father killed himself when I was
| in 5th grade:
|
| The "victims" who suffer after a suicide are the living, not
| the dead. These kinds of "modernizations" are transparent PC
| nonsense made up by well-intentioned do-gooders who have no
| idea how to represent the interests of other people who have
| a lived experience that they don't understand.
|
| The person is dead either way. There's literally no way to
| sugarcoat this fact. We'd rather you just speak in plain,
| honest language than trying to make it sound less bad
| somehow.
| stirfish wrote:
| That's a really hard thing to go through. I'm sorry you had
| to bear that as a fifth grader.
|
| It's possible that both you and your dad are victims in
| different ways.
| CrazyStat wrote:
| What makes "committed suicide" any more plain or honest
| than "died by suicide"?
| tjwebbnorfolk wrote:
| I don't have a big issue with that particular phrase
| itself. Although the passive voice is designed to conceal
| or obscure the actor, which doesn't accomplish anything
| here. Attributing a suicide to anyone other than the
| actor starts to appear oxymoronic very quickly. Yes life
| is complex and whatnot -- that's a given, we don't need a
| reminder every time anything happens.
|
| But really it's the transparent and ham-handed attempts
| by some others to smooth over the sharp edges of reality
| merely by re-phrasing how things are written.
|
| People generally don't want pity, but these re-phrasings
| accomplish nothing other than to make clear that one
| person feels sorry for another.
| watwut wrote:
| > Although the passive voice is designed to conceal or
| obscure the actor, which doesn't accomplish anything
| here.
|
| No, passive voice is not in general designed to conceal
| or obscure the actor. Especially not in the sentence
| here.
|
| There were valid similar complains about crime reporting.
| But the language there was different. The sentence "The
| innocent McKay family was inadvertently affected by this
| enforcement operation" is trying to hide culpability. We
| can discuss that. These two are incomparable:
|
| - A deputy-involved shooting occurred. (Ok, we are
| avoiding the actor. We do not know who was shooting.)
|
| - A person died by Suicide. (Clear to anyone who done
| what.)
| haswell wrote:
| > _Attributing a suicide to anyone other than the actor
| starts to appear oxymoronic very quickly._
|
| No one is an island. We're all deeply
| intertwined/interconnected. We're the sum total of our
| lived experiences and without a doubt some have lived far
| more challenging lives than others and are influenced by
| factors that would lead just about anyone down a dark
| path.
|
| The grief felt by those left behind is the result of that
| aforementioned interconnectedness.
|
| Getting back to the quoted bit, isn't this a bit like
| saying "attributing grief to anyone other than the person
| experiencing it is oxymoronic"?
|
| My point is not to diminish the impact on those left
| behind in any way. Clearly this is a traumatic event that
| causes excruciating grief.
|
| But I think we also need to be honest about the
| environmental factors that lead to suicide. Hopelessness
| is one of the large causes. If there are systemic reasons
| causing people to feel hopeless, and if those systemic
| problems could theoretically be changed/improved, and
| such improvement lowered the suicide rate, there's a
| strong case to be made that the systemic factors share
| the responsibility.
|
| > _Yes life is complex and whatnot -- that 's a given, we
| don't need a reminder every time anything happens._
|
| I don't think it's a given. Clearly some lives are far
| more complicated than others. There exists a subset of
| people for whom that complication will become an
| insurmountable problem. Often those people have been
| traumatized, or have never learned the tools necessary to
| work through their feelings.
|
| Some people are bullied into killing themselves. Should
| that be attributed wholly to the person who was bullied?
| tjwebbnorfolk wrote:
| Yes I already said that life is complicate because I KNEW
| that someone would write this very comment. But reminding
| people that life isn't simple isn't the PSA that you
| believe it to be.
|
| Yes, everything causes everything, there is no one single
| thing to blame. Life is hard and complicated. Every rule
| has exceptions. Every truth has contradictions. Every one
| is a hypocrite. The world is big and complex.
|
| We all know this already. We don't need this disclaimer
| to every statement that anyone makes. At a certain point,
| it just becomes noise.
| reliabilityguy wrote:
| Because the latter implies some external attribute to it?
| wat10000 wrote:
| That's what makes the latter more accurate.
| octopoc wrote:
| It assigns agency to the person who died.
|
| Think about it this way: I have relative who is vegan, so
| she has been trying to convince me to kill myself for
| many years now.
|
| I can still _choose_ whether I do it though, and
| obviously I chose not to so far, although during COVID I
| didn't have much other social interaction, so I nearly
| went through with it.
|
| I had agency throughout though. I'm not dead because I
| _chose_ not to go through with it.
|
| That's the difference.
| lokeg wrote:
| What?
| octopoc wrote:
| Agency is the ability to act. If someone dies against
| their own will, they don't have agency, which is why we
| don't use language like "they committed their own death"
| to refer to such instances.
| marliechiller wrote:
| whats veganism got to do with comitting suicide?
| octopoc wrote:
| Many vegans think everyone else is evil/demonic for
| eating meat. "Meat is murder" etc etc. So the natural
| conclusion to that is, according to several vegans I
| know, that everyone who eats meat should be forced to
| either stop being a mass murderer or kill themselves.
|
| Keep in mind there was a point where I was vegan, I know
| several vegans, so I know what I'm talking about.
|
| They're not shy about it either--look up That Vegan
| Teacher on YouTube for relatively middle-of-the-road
| vegan behavior in action.
| nosefrog wrote:
| I was vegan for 7 years, one of my vegan friends had the
| opinion that human hospitals should be banned and only
| animal hospitals should be allowed.
| Ray20 wrote:
| Mental illnesses usually occur in conjunction with other
| mental illnesses.
| wat10000 wrote:
| Comparing nagging from a relative to wrongful prosecution
| is asinine. You might as well say that you had heartburn
| and it didn't kill you, so what's with all these people
| dying from heart attacks?
| kelnos wrote:
| The latter implies that suicide just happened to the
| person, like they got hit by a bus.
|
| The former correctly attributes the action to the person
| who killed themselves. Certainly the motivations and
| causes that drive people to suicide are complex, but
| ultimately it is a choice the person makes.
|
| "Committed" is perhaps not the best word, since it's
| associated with crimes (and suicide is not a crime in
| many places anymore), but it's at least more active.
| JdeBP wrote:
| For context: Suicide was a crime in the United Kingdom until
| 1961.
|
| * https://legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Eliz2/9-10/60/contents
|
| * https://bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14374296
| lanfeust6 wrote:
| Except colloquially no one today thinks the word has any
| bearing on whether the victim looks bad. It just means
| they're responsible for the act.
|
| I guess some people take comfort in the idea that suicide is
| thrust on people and they take no responsibility for their
| actions.
| lostmsu wrote:
| This seems to be a common topic in the current pendulum
| swing.
| wat10000 wrote:
| Healthy, sane people in good situations don't kill
| themselves.
|
| It follows from that fact that if someone kills themselves,
| at least one of those things was not true. And those things
| can and often are thrust on people, or at least occur
| against the will of the person.
|
| In this case, a bad situation was thrust on a whole bunch
| of people, and it ended up killing some of them.
| lanfeust6 wrote:
| > Healthy, sane people in good situations don't kill
| themselves.
|
| Correct. This has no bearing.
|
| > it ended up killing some of them.
|
| No, and it's irresponsible and unhelpful to act like
| agency and choice is not part of the equation. As if to
| say that basically everyone chooses the same way
| (euthanasia) in the face of terminal illness, or
| depression.
|
| Tautologically, if you want to convey that help is out
| there and that a better life is possible, then you're
| saying people have a choice to make.
| wat10000 wrote:
| There's a lot of agency in heart attacks too, but we
| still say that the heart attack killed them, not that
| they killed themselves with a heart attack.
|
| There is agency, but it's equally irresponsible and
| unhelpful to act like outside factors are not part of the
| equation, and that someone who drives a person to suicide
| is blameless.
|
| Let's say someone jumps out of a burning building and
| they're killed by the fall. Did they have agency?
| Responsibility? Should we describe that as "committed
| suicide"?
| mannykannot wrote:
| While there is no real doubt that most, if not all, of these
| suicides were a direct consequence of the appalling way this
| monumental failure and its investigation was handled, reporting
| the news responsibly has become a minefield in which any
| deviation from what is strictly known is liable to be exploited
| by those who do not want their role in events to become public.
|
| As you want to call a spade a spade, can we agree that the
| software engineer who testified repeatedly under oath that the
| system worked fine, even as the bug tracker filled up with
| cases where it didn't, is undoubtedly among those who are
| morally (if not legally) culpable to a considerable extent?
| noisy_boy wrote:
| > Perhaps also on the software engineer who testified
| repeatedly under oath that the system worked fine, even as
| the bug tracker filled up with cases where it didn't
|
| I don't think you needed to ask for agreement.
| mannykannot wrote:
| Partly on account of the "perhaps" in the original, and
| partly because I have seen (elsewhere) "just doing his job"
| defenses.
|
| In corner cases, culpability for uncertain expertise can be
| a tricky issue - you may recall the case of the Italian
| geologists, a few years back, indicted for minimizing the
| risk of an earthquake shortly before one occurred - but the
| case here seems pretty clear-cut (again, I'm speaking
| morally, not legally.)
| PaulKeeble wrote:
| No question, they should be tried for corporate manslaughter
| and criminal enterprise for the cover up along with all their
| management. They should all be serving very long sentences,
| they killed many people with their lies.
| mike_hearn wrote:
| It's quite possible he will end up going to prison, and
| absolutely, that would be the right outcome. It's hard to
| know what was going through his mind as he made that
| decision.
| hinkley wrote:
| He should be charged with perjury and sued by the families.
| foldr wrote:
| > To the NY Times: please don't say they died by suicide. The
| passive voice
|
| "X died by suicide" is a sentence in the active voice. "Die" is
| an intransitive verb and cannot be passivized in English.
| slacktivism123 wrote:
| Please don't do this kind of tangential grammar nitpicking
| here. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive,
| not less.
| foldr wrote:
| I'm not nitpicking the poster's grammar, I'm nitpicking the
| claim about the grammatical structure of a particular
| sentence that's the factual basis of their criticism of the
| article.
| rolandog wrote:
| > Some glitches were of their time and wouldn't occur these
| days, e.g. malfunctions in resistive touch screens that caused
| random clicks on POS screens to occur overnight.
|
| These still occur on modern touchscreen laptops (work-provided
| Dell Latitude 7450 and mandated to use Windows with a lot of
| restrictions). It's not an everyday issue, but a once a month
| one.
|
| Other than that, completely agree with your assessment: the
| ruining of those lives was a completely avoidable tragedy that
| was grossly mishandled.
| whycome wrote:
| Arguably, it happens today on a modern iPhone capacitive
| screen. I've had issues where the UI performs a "bait and
| switch" and swaps a target that I inadvertently press. ios26
| is worse because of some lag at certain times.
| louthy wrote:
| > massive deep state cover-up
|
| Let's not use conspiracy-theory language.
|
| It was a coverup by Fujitsu and The Post Office.
|
| MPs and ministers (part of the state) used their parliamentary
| privilege to expose it after the campaign by the postmasters
| brought the issue to light.
|
| No 'deep state' conspiracy, it's just an arse covering cover-up
| (pared with outright incompetence) which had particularly
| devastating consequences.
| Joeboy wrote:
| "Deep state" is, or at least to be, a perfectly respectable
| political term for bodies that retain power across changing
| governments.
| louthy wrote:
| Or in other words: the state. No 'deep' needed unless
| you're trying to be emotive. Fujitsu is not part of the
| state and although the Post Office is owned by the state,
| it's a stand-alone company.
|
| > "Perfectly respectable"
|
| Maybe in some fringe circles, but this term is certainly
| attached to a huge amount extreme propaganda and conspiracy
| that attempts to undermine western democracy and
| institutions.
| Joeboy wrote:
| The point, I think, is that that The Post Office acted
| like part of the state, notably in that they acted like
| an unconstrained branch of the CPS in bringing
| prosecutions against thousands of people.
|
| > Maybe in some fringe circles
|
| I would say the fringe circles co-opted it over the last
| couple of decades, and the term's obviously become
| heavily associated with them in some people's minds (eg.
| yours). But it's an older term than that.
|
| Edit: Why would the loons have adopted it, if it was such
| a disreputable term?
| louthy wrote:
| > The point, I think, is that that The Post Office acted
| like part of the state
|
| I agree. The _are_ part of the state. They are a
| standalone company, but wholly owned by the state. But
| other aspects of the state (eventually) reacted to the
| injustice: MPs, select committees, ministers, the public
| inquiry, and hopefully next the legal system as some of
| these people should be in jail.
|
| > But it's an older term than that.
|
| Fine, I'm happy to accept that. Just like I'm happy to
| accept that R&B has nothing to do with BB King any more
| (well, actuality I still struggle with that).
|
| Definitions and usage change. The current usage is the
| one that matters. Not the legacy definition.
|
| When the original poster wrote "massive deep state cover-
| up" I think the implication is that shadowy figures
| throughout the state are pulling cover-up levers, when it
| was one privately owned company and one publicly owned
| company. The rest of the state moved (albeit slowly) to
| expose this and make it right.
| Joeboy wrote:
| I think your struggle with shifting meanings is a
| worthwhile one. At least, if you said BB King was an R&B
| artist, and somebody tried to correct you, you'd be
| within your rights to stand your ground.
|
| But particularly with regard to politics, I don't think
| you should let go of useful ideas because arseholes
| pollute them. At least, it feels uncomfortably like
| letting the arseholes win, to me.
| PaulKeeble wrote:
| The post office is a quasi quango, they are technically
| private but they maintain state functions like the ability to
| prosecute their post masters. So despite its private
| ownership it is a partially a state body and in the way in
| which it caused these deaths its the state quasi quango
| function that did it.
| louthy wrote:
| Not arguing against that at all. It is a function of the
| state. My issue was purely about the emotive language of
| "deep state", which is used (in my experience) to
| delegitimise all aspects of the state.
|
| The legacy of the Post Office having prosecution powers was
| clearly a big part of the problem.
| some_random wrote:
| I know the term "deep state" is now extremely political and
| you've only heard it in the context of conspiracy theorists
| but it's a real term that is completely appropriate here.
| watwut wrote:
| > please don't say they died by suicide. The passive voice
| makes it sound like some act of God, something regrettable but
| unavoidable that just somehow happened.
|
| I mean, common. Everyone knows what suicide is or means. No, it
| does not make it sound like an act of God for anyone who is
| above A1 level of English.
| dcow wrote:
| It's still suicide. The wrongfully imprisoned can be acquitted.
| That's part of the argument against the death penalty: if
| justice is imperfect then don't take actions that are
| permanent. You can't classify every instance of miscarriage of
| justice as state murder. I really don't see the issue you're
| trying to raise. It's more problematic to invent new language
| because it feels yucky than to be precise and accurate in our
| reporting.
| the8472 wrote:
| We are incapable of returning life-time taken. False
| imprisonment is still racking up centimorts instead of
| delivering 1 mort.
| some_random wrote:
| I don't think they're arguing that the headline should be "13
| UK postmasters murdered by the state", just that the
| extremely passive "died by suicide" lacks context and largely
| leaves out the UK Post Office's role in their death. I think
| they would prefer some thing along the lines of "At Least 13
| People Killed Themselves After False Accusations From U.K.
| Post Office, Report Says".
| dcow wrote:
| I'm fine with that. And I agree with the sentiment, just
| not the conclusion that we should be reporting these as
| not-suicide. If the original comment was indeed that
| tempered then I have no issue.
| sitkack wrote:
| It is the passive voice, not the word suicide that is the
| issue.
| rpdillon wrote:
| It's the lack of clarity in what happened. I think the
| rephrasing mike suggested is much clearer:
|
| > The postmasters killed themselves because the British
| state was imprisoning them for crimes they didn't commit,
| based on evidence from a buggy financial accounting
| system.
|
| That's just better writing!
| vintermann wrote:
| > You can't classify every instance of miscarriage of justice
| as state murder.
|
| It's literally what we call it in Norway. In English it's
| compared to miscarriage (i.e. spontaneous abortion),
| "miscarriage of justice". Here we call it murder of justice
| (justismord), whether anyone actually died or not.
|
| I do think it gets the seriousness across, and the focus on
| it as a deliberate act, rather than an accident as in
| English. Some people actually made a deliberate act to let
| innocent people take the blame.
| dcow wrote:
| Interesting.
|
| > Some people actually made a deliberate act to let
| innocent people take the blame.
|
| And those people are at fault and should be criminally
| prosecuted for the harm they caused.
| maweki wrote:
| The horizon post office scandal is the first thing I taught in
| my "database design" course, to show that we're not creating
| self-serving academic exercises. We are creating systems that
| affect people's lives.
|
| I try to give the legal and ethical perspectives. These systems
| should be auditable and help and not hurt people.
| sitkack wrote:
| Or, if you are designing software to kill people, that you
| actually do a good job.
|
| https://www.cnet.com/news/privacy/cia-allegedly-bought-
| flawe...
| barbazoo wrote:
| OT but what a shit site that is. A third of the page is
| taken up by a "best prime day deals" countdown banner. What
| a consumerist piece of shit website.
| sitkack wrote:
| You need adblock
| mike_hearn wrote:
| That's good to hear. I'm sure the story makes an impact!
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| There is no "deep state", just the state. Calling things "the
| deep state" tries to partition the state in two parts, a good
| one and a bad one.
|
| There is also no "deep Amazon" or "deep Meta". Amazon is
| Amazon, Meta is Meta and the state is the state. People working
| for or representing the state have their own agenda, have their
| cliques, have their CYA like people everywhere else. And the
| state as an organization prioritizes survival and self defense
| above all other goals it might have.
| mike_hearn wrote:
| Fair. I use the term to refer to the parts of the state that
| are somehow buried deep, beyond most people's awareness. In
| this case the problems started with a government contractor,
| and were then covered up by people inside the post office. It
| wasn't a top-down conspiracy of politicians, or of civil
| servants following their orders.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Indeed. "Deep" is a weasel word. "State" is all the
| operations of governance which don't change when the
| government changes.
|
| However, the state is not a monolith. It's an organization of
| all sorts of sub-organizations run by individuals with their
| own agendas. They have names, faces, and honors:
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67925304
|
| (The honors systems is deeply problematic because about half
| of them are handed out to insiders for complicity in god
| knows what and the other half are handed out to celebrities
| as cover for the first half)
| tw04 wrote:
| I'm not sure that's really fair. Within any organization
| there are subgroups. For instance there was an entire branch
| of AT&T that was dedicated to illegally spying on Americans
| for the NSA.
|
| Most employees of AT&T had no idea it was even going on, so
| to lump every AT&T employee into the same batch of "you're
| bad because th company you work for was doing X" when they
| had no idea the company was doing X isn't really fair.
|
| By the same vein, Stephen Miller trying to round up and cage
| innocent civilians just trying to live their life is a very
| different part of the government than Suzanne at NASA who's
| trying to better the future of mankind. To act as if there's
| no distinguishing between the two is just silly.
|
| Whether you have an issue with the specific term "deep state"
| I'll leave be. But please don't try to oversimplify large
| organizations. The higher up the chain the more
| responsibility you can place for what the organization as a
| whole does, but the reverse isn't true when speaking outside
| of their specific area of ownership.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| Me: "have their cliques" You: "I'm not sure that's really
| fair. Within any organization there are subgroups."
|
| "you're bad because th[e] company you work for was doing X"
|
| Which I didn't write.
|
| All the other parts about Suzanne, also not what I wrote.
|
| "But please don't try to oversimplify large organizations."
|
| I didn't, I feel your comment misrepresents what I've said.
|
| "The higher up the chain the more responsibility you can
| place for what the organization as a whole does"
|
| No. Al Capone killed no one himself. People did that for
| him. They share the responsibility. My boss made me do it
| is not an excuse.
| exiguus wrote:
| Deep State makes kind of sense here, because the U.K. Post
| Office, had there own Law Enforcement. They can act like the
| state in several ways. I think the correct term is "Private
| prosecution". And as fare as I understand it, the U.K. Post
| Office was able to have there own judge.
| foldr wrote:
| No, the Post Office doesn't have its own "law enforcement"
| (if you mean something like a police force) or its own
| judges.
|
| Any company has the right to bring a private prosecution
| under UK law, and this was the basis for the prosecutions
| in question. It just means that the company pays for some
| of the costs involved.
|
| Whether or not private prosecutions should be allowed is
| certainly a legitimate topic of discussion. Let's not muddy
| the waters with misinformation about the Post Office having
| some kind of parallel police and courts system. It just
| doesn't.
| exiguus wrote:
| Thanks for setting the record straight. For me, as a non-
| Brit, the movie and the term "prosecution" helped me to
| misunderstand.
| nwienert wrote:
| There's incredible utility to the term.
|
| It refers to people in the government with a lot of power and
| little public exposure, and perhaps some indication of using
| their power against the will of the general public, and yes
| there's tons of these people, and it's quite good to have the
| public generally worried about them.
|
| American political history is littered with deep state plots
| that turned out to be true - Iraq war being a big recent one,
| the insurance policy FBI agents another.
| tokai wrote:
| Iraq war was definitely not the work of any deep state, if
| you follow your definition. It was pushed by the president
| and his government, not faceless bureaucrats.
| nwienert wrote:
| Certainly the pressure on them and the "intel" they saw
| on WMD was in part the work of the deep state, that the
| president was captured by them is sort of the point.
| esseph wrote:
| You've got it backwards, at least in your description.
|
| They went after the intel they wanted to find to justify
| their position. It didn't matter if it was real or true,
| it just needed to come from the intelligence apparatus.
| michael1999 wrote:
| That's completely backwards.
|
| The CIA was very clear that there was nothing there, and
| the publicly appointed leadership (Rumsfeld, Feith,
| Cheney, etc) badgered them until they gave in and made
| some wishy-washy statement that Powell could pretend was
| real.
|
| The war was led from the top - Sec Def and VP. That Bush
| was a moron and appointed liars to Sec Def and VP is on
| him. Cheney and Rumsfeld had a long history of making
| things up, going back to the 70s.
| nwienert wrote:
| Source being that ridiculous fanfic Cheney movie? You're
| even further off than me, even high level CIA was
| divided, along many other orgs that supported it. Where
| did Colin Powell get his evidence from? And the OSP?
|
| Even if we agreed Iraq wasn't a good example, it's
| irrelevant to the point as I don't think anyone actually
| thinks there aren't powerful and largely behind the
| scenes figures - defense, lobbying, billionaires, and so
| on that aren't actively steering the government away from
| the will of the people.
| esseph wrote:
| They knew there were no WMD.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/18/panorama-
| iraq-...
| nwienert wrote:
| That shows some set of intelligence had some sources that
| told them they don't, far from proof of anything let
| alone anything relevant here. And we know several high up
| yet largely unknown to the public defense ops claimed the
| opposite, ie, the deep state.
| mr_toad wrote:
| > There's incredible utility to the term.
|
| It's a red flag, so there's that.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| When people say "deep state" they mean "invisible state". Not
| "bad state". If you realize this, suddenly you'll understand
| what people are talking about a lot more.
| fifteen1506 wrote:
| Surely the engineer wasn't acting alone, lying in court without
| some inside pressure?
| dagmx wrote:
| Well said. I really wish we had a better word for someone who
| is bullied into suicide. It's tantamount to manslaughter imho.
|
| Recently, a snark/bullying community on Reddit resulted in the
| suicide of their target (a woman responsible for rescuing
| foxes).
|
| That kind of targeting and bullying is horrific for any
| individual to process, let alone people who don't have the
| press teams and training that celebrities do.
| ImHereToVote wrote:
| This sets a bad precedent. There is a wide gamut of emotional
| resilience in people. What is a funny insult to one person,
| can be rope-fuel to another.
|
| Would you want to be called that if you make a light jab at a
| middle aged bald guy?
| koolala wrote:
| Sounds unrealistic they would blame it all on one remark
| like that.
|
| I'd be more afraid people would kill themselves just to get
| retribution on their tormentors and it would increase
| suicides.
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| A 90 year old is much more physically fragile than a 20
| year old. If you hit a 20 year old and they are bruised you
| get an assault charge, if you hit a 90 year old and they
| die you get a murder charge, despite using the same amount
| of force.
|
| I do agree with the sibling post that suicide would be
| weaponized which is the real problem.
| belter wrote:
| It's a surprising take to blame developers and software
| development for what is a prime example of corruption within
| the UK establishment, an uncaring and incompetent court system,
| and the lying senior managers of the UK Post Office. The faults
| were known and this is a case of cover-up.
|
| Software development was merely an accessory to the crime in
| this case.
| aenis wrote:
| Read the book, if you havent already. The senior technical
| staff was actively obfuscating and lying. Developers knew the
| system had synchronization issues, operations knew as well,
| as they were apparently routinely doing manual data fixes in
| production. Senior engineering staff are the most to blame.
| They messed up and then covered up. The fact that their
| management covered up some more can be partially excused by
| technical illiteracy.
| belter wrote:
| That explanation based on lies by the tech staff, is
| another variation of the Volkswagen explanation that the
| emissions scandal, were just some low level engineers.
|
| The essence of this story is how the UK establishment can
| lie, and be corrupt to levels that will shame big time
| criminals.
|
| [1] "...Vennells was the CEO of Post Office Ltd during the
| latter part of the Post Office scandal, which involved more
| than 900 subpostmasters being wrongly convicted of theft,
| false accounting and fraud between 1999 and 2015 because of
| shortfalls at their branches that were in fact errors of
| the Horizon accounting software used by the Post
| Office.Thousands of subpostmasters paid for shortfalls
| caused by Horizon and/or had their contracts terminated.
| The actions of the Post Office caused the loss of jobs,
| bankruptcy, family breakdown, criminal convictions, prison
| sentences and at least four suicides. In total, over 4,000
| subpostmasters would eventually become eligible for
| compensation..."
|
| "...In 2013, Post Office Limited hired forensic accounting
| firm Second Sight, headed by Ron Warmington, to investigate
| the Horizon software losses. Warmington discovered the
| system was flawed and faulty, but Vennells was unhappy with
| Warmington's report and terminated their contract. Prior to
| her role as CEO, Vennells was the Chief Operating Officer
| of Post Office Ltd, a position in which - according to the
| evidence of the then CEO, David Smith - she had
| responsibility for management of the "operational use" of
| the Horizon software...."
|
| "...During the case, the Post Office's conduct under
| Vennells's leadership was described as an instance of
| "appalling and shameful behaviour..."
|
| "...During her testimony, Vennells consistently stated she
| was unaware of the facts or, when confronted with documents
| that showed she had been made aware of them, said she had
| not understood them..."
|
| [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Vennells
| MaKey wrote:
| Why is she not in jail?
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > Horizon is the case that should replace Therac-25 as a study
| in what can go wrong if software developers screw up.
|
| Hum, no. Horizon had nothing to do with problems of software
| development.
|
| It's a case of unaccountable judges, lying attorneys, and the
| entire police system acting in a conspiracy to hide information
| and gaslight the society at large. The fact that there is a
| software error there somewhere isn't relevant at all.
| Vegenoid wrote:
| > Some glitches were of their time and wouldn't occur these
| days, e.g. malfunctions in resistive touch screens that caused
| random clicks on POS screens to occur overnight
|
| I think there's still a lesson to be learned here about
| computers needing to be locked when not in use. I find it
| utterly bizarre how many experienced technical employees will
| leave their computer unlocked when they step away from it for
| extended periods of time.
| Horffupolde wrote:
| Suicide is a verb and result by itself. Would the author also say
| "he died by murder"?
| ellisv wrote:
| They are simplify avoiding using the word "committed" using a
| well accepted alternative because of the connotation with
| criminal behavior.
|
| But no they would say "died by homicide" not "died by murder".
| docdeek wrote:
| Would they not say "was killed" and so allow "killed
| himself/herself"?
| Tostino wrote:
| Maybe "were driven to suicide by..." to properly describe the
| situation?
| cjs_ac wrote:
| This trend for commenting on news articles with nothing to say
| but a complaint about the wording of the headline is tedious.
| The right to free speech does not impose a responsibility to
| say something about everything you see.
| thoroughburro wrote:
| Your argument is that the wording of headlines is so
| meaningless as to always be beneath comment? Seems silly.
| bendigedig wrote:
| I think you're missing the point by a mile. The point isn't
| some tedious debate over grammar; it's about the choice of
| language that perpetuates the idea that suicide is a tragedy
| that happens passively 'to people' in some kind of tragic,
| medicalised, incomprehensible way which is severed from any
| socio-political context.
|
| In this case, these people were driven to suicide. I would
| argue that those responsible for the Horizon scandal are
| guilty of at minimum manslaughter of these poor people.
| cjs_ac wrote:
| It's a headline. It's not supposed to convey any nuance,
| it's just there to encourage you to read the article.
|
| I agree that the wording isn't ideal, and I agree that the
| headline fails to capture the nuance of the circumstances
| that lead to suicide, but I disagree that subeditors who
| write headlines need to encapsulate that nuance. _That 's
| what the article is for._
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| Language evolves, like it or not.
|
| In 2025 English, suicide is most commonly a noun.
| whycome wrote:
| There's probably a near future where "unalived" becomes an
| unironic and accepted descriptor.
| giingyui wrote:
| They have unalived themselves.
| foldr wrote:
| > Suicide is a verb
|
| No it isn't. You can't say "He suicided."
| arrowsmith wrote:
| > Suicide is a verb
|
| Not in English. Although it's a verb in many languages, which
| is why "he suicided" is a common ESL mistake.
| throw_m239339 wrote:
| What a horrible story.
|
| What can you do when you know you are innocent but the court
| trusts the software more than it trusts people? And you are asked
| to repay something you never stole which off course leads to your
| financial ruin/divorce/... your kids bullied because you as a
| parent were deemed a thief... Imagine your spouse leaving you
| because of something you didn't even do...
|
| Someone absolutely needs to go to jail over this. This kind of
| software is supposed to go through a lengthy compliance and
| certification process, so clearly whatever person put their
| signature on that "certified" document is responsible for these
| death.
| throw0101c wrote:
| The four-part mini-series _Mr Bates vs The Post Office_ is worth
| checking out:
|
| > _A faulty IT system called Horizon, developed by Fujitsu,
| creates apparent cash shortfalls that cause Post Office Limited
| to pursue prosecutions for fraud, theft and false accounting
| against a number of subpostmasters across the UK. In 2009, a
| group of these, led by Alan Bates, forms the Justice for
| Subpostmasters Alliance. The prosecutions and convictions are
| later ruled a miscarriage of justice at the conclusion of the
| Bates & Others v Post Office Ltd judicial case in 2019.[4][5]_
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr_Bates_vs_The_Post_Office
| ThisNameIsTaken wrote:
| What is particularly striking about the scandal is the impact
| of the mini-series. From what I understand (as a foreigner to
| the UK) is that it was the mini-series that sparked national
| interest in the case. Without it, those involved would still be
| in a bureaucratic and legal nightmare, in which all
| institutions rejected their innocence claims, and hardly anyone
| would have been held accountable. See also the "Impact" section
| on the linked wiki page.
|
| It leaves me wondering how the situation would have been if it
| would have been a (dramaturgically) 'bad' series. It might have
| left those involved even worse of.
| duncans wrote:
| It's worth pointing out that Mr Bates vs The Post Office
| screened in early 2024. The Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry
| was set up in 2020/2021 and the public hearings started in
| 2023.
|
| So it may have looked like "it was TV what done it" but the
| wheels of justice were turning long before the show came out.
| penguin_booze wrote:
| Wheels; justice: all these are just weasel words.
| Litigation is an exclusive privilege of the rich. And
| prison, of the poor(er).
| worik wrote:
| The Guardian was reporting this for years, that I saw
|
| Private Eye too, I hear
|
| The TV programme made it a political football
| PaulKeeble wrote:
| The people are still waiting for their money back and their
| names to be cleared. The scandal continues.
|
| I first saw news about this scandal and the early evidence of
| wrong doing by the Post Office in 2008.
| whycome wrote:
| > It leaves me wondering how the situation would have been if
| it would have been a (dramaturgically) 'bad' series. It might
| have left those involved even worse of.
|
| Holy shit. You might see big corps like the post office fund
| big dramas as a way to sway public opinion. A tool in the pr
| playbook.
| aspenmayer wrote:
| I suspect it's a deliberate strategy in other venues. I see
| a lot of comments on HN that seem like they're
| rage/troll/flame bait to cause a line of inquiry they are
| advancing to be flagged/downvoted, but if done as intended,
| their reply will be divisive enough that the troll trigger
| man isn't identified as a troll, but they induce trolling
| in others.
|
| Anyone Can Become a Troll: Causes of Trolling Behavior in
| Online Discussions
|
| Justin Cheng, Michael Bernstein, Cristian Danescu-
| Niculescu-Mizil, Jure Leskovec
|
| > In online communities, antisocial behavior such as
| trolling disrupts constructive discussion. While prior work
| suggests that trolling behavior is confined to a vocal and
| antisocial minority, we demonstrate that ordinary people
| can engage in such behavior as well. We propose two primary
| trigger mechanisms: the individual's mood, and the
| surrounding context of a discussion (e.g., exposure to
| prior trolling behavior). Through an experiment simulating
| an online discussion, we find that both negative mood and
| seeing troll posts by others significantly increases the
| probability of a user trolling, and together double this
| probability. To support and extend these results, we study
| how these same mechanisms play out in the wild via a data-
| driven, longitudinal analysis of a large online news
| discussion community. This analysis reveals temporal mood
| effects, and explores long range patterns of repeated
| exposure to trolling. A predictive model of trolling
| behavior shows that mood and discussion context together
| can explain trolling behavior better than an individual's
| history of trolling. These results combine to suggest that
| ordinary people can, under the right circumstances, behave
| like trolls.
|
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5791909/
| varispeed wrote:
| There are other scandals in the UK, like IR35 that basically
| prevents worker owned businesses from making profit, then
| resulting cottage industry of parasitic "umbrella companies"
| and tumbling economy. But directly affected people are easily
| generalised as those with broader shoulders so the public
| couldn't care less if they cannot run their little
| businesses. Meanwhile big consultancies that lobbied for it
| are getting minted on public sector contracts, they have very
| much a monopoly now. Things are more expensive and shittier.
| Oh and then Boriswave - as if captive services market wasn't
| enough for big corporations - they also got to import the
| cheapest available workers instead of hiring locals.
| varispeed wrote:
| The propaganda that was manufactured by the government
| around this was particularly clever. Most people believe
| the captive labour market that has been created was for the
| benefit of the tax payer - see the downvotes and no
| comments - and reject the idea that it is actually the
| opposite and only benefactors are big corporations. The
| idea that subsequent governments could be so corrupt,
| doesn't compute.
| throw0101c wrote:
| > _From what I understand (as a foreigner to the UK) is that
| it was the mini-series that sparked national interest in the
| case._
|
| The case was done with by 2019:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bates_%26_Others_v_Post_Offic
| e...
|
| The mini-series aired in 2024. Perhaps it was a bit more
| obscure pre-airing, but things were sorted out already.
| SCdF wrote:
| Sort of.
|
| We were in the middle of an election cycle. If you were
| paying attention you were aware of the scandal slowly
| grinding its way through legal slop, but most people probably
| weren't that clued in (as per normal).
|
| But that mini-series threw it into the current public
| consciousness, and so suddenly it wasn't just the judicial
| system working through it but the Tories now gave a shit
| (briefly), because they thought showing that they care might
| save them (it didn't).
| evanb wrote:
| I learned a lot from The Great Post Office Trial podcast by BBC
| Radio 4
|
| https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-great-post-office-...
| lboc wrote:
| A good summary from the UK IT trade publication that broke the
| story:
|
| https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Post-Office-Horizon-s...
|
| Not sure if this requires sign-in/subscription, so apologies in
| advance. I did neither and have access to the full article.
| comprev wrote:
| Paywall removed: https://archive.ph/OZeED
| mrkramer wrote:
| I thought British legal system and computer forensics were
| serious but this case is just a travesty of justice.
| closewith wrote:
| The British legal system is and always has been a litany of
| injustices dressed up in formal attire. To be avoided at all
| costs.
| mathiaspoint wrote:
| That mess inspired the American legal system though, which is
| probably one of if not the best in the world.
|
| IMO common law is still better than case law at least.
| closewith wrote:
| > That mess inspired the American legal system though,
| which is probably one of if not the best in the world.
|
| Poe's Law strikes again.
|
| The American legal system isn't even the best legal system
| in the US.
| nusaru wrote:
| > in the US
|
| Huh? What does this mean? Are there other systems in the
| US that I'm not aware of?
| closewith wrote:
| Yes, the indigenous domestic nations.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Indeed, and science can't account for the wonders of
| indigenous ways of thinking either.
| whycome wrote:
| How dare you. Do you want to get sued?
|
| /s
| zapzupnz wrote:
| I'm curious to know how American legal system is better
| than any other country's. From the outside looking in, it
| looks just as broken if not worse.
|
| You may have been kidding, but I'm sure someone will
| genuinely think so and have some decent arguments for it.
| tialaramex wrote:
| My favourite inspiration goes the opposite direction. The
| United States has this Supreme Court, a final Court of
| Appeal, politically independent and empowered even to
| decide that the government's actions are illegal. Sounds
| great.
|
| The UK had this rather antique thing called the "Lords of
| Appeal in Ordinary" aka "Law Lords" who were in theory
| just some Lords (ie people who are arbitrarily in the
| upper chamber of the Parliament, maybe because their dad
| was) but served the same purpose as a final court of
| appeal in practice and so had for a very long time all
| been Judges because duh, of course they should be judges,
| that's a job for a judge, just make some judges Lords and
| forget about it. They met in some committee room in the
| Palace of Westminster, because they're Lords and that's
| where the Lords are, right? So, there was _practical_
| independence, but the appearance was not here.
|
| About 15 years ago now, the dusty Law Lords were in the
| way of an attempted reform of parliament. A Supreme Court
| sounds like a good idea, so the UK got a Supreme Court.
| It fixed up a nice building nearby, gave the exact same
| people a new job title and sent them over the road. Done.
|
| But the UK version does what it says on the tin. It said
| on the tin they're politically independent. In the US of
| course this "independence" is bullshit, but in the UK
| since there's already a politically independent process
| to pick judges the same process continues for the Supreme
| Court. So a Prime Minister might _hate_ the supreme court
| but they can 't pick the judges.
| PaulRobinson wrote:
| The Prime Minister can influence earlier in the chain
| though: they get to approve appointments to the Lords as
| a whole. Who then gets appointed to positions within the
| Lords is none of their business, but they can tip the
| scale if they need to.
|
| It's actually for this reason that for hundreds of years
| until the early 21st century there was real concern about
| having a Catholic prime minister. There was even hand-
| wringing over PMs of other denominations, but the history
| of Catholicism in the UK in particular raised concern.
| Why? The PM has final approval of the Lords Spiritual -
| the bishops from the Church of England who are there to
| provide a protestant spiritual dimension to all debates
| before that House.
|
| It's allegedly for this reason that Tony Blair (married
| to a Catholic) waited until after he left office to
| convert. I think it was either Brown or Cameron who then
| got the law explicitly changed to not bar Catholics and
| other religions to serve as PM.
| tialaramex wrote:
| The Prime Minister could, in principle, instruct the
| Queen (this whole arrangement was abolished before Brian
| got his mum's old job as we'll see shortly) not to issue
| the Letters Patent for a new Lord, but Parliament has
| explicitly laid out the rules for this, so, he is in
| contempt of Parliament. This seems like an unwise course
| of action as of course he serves only at their pleasure
| and even Sir Keir, who has an unusually large majority,
| has discovered that if they don't like what he proposes
| they can just ignore him.
|
| None of this matters for the Supreme Court, and thus for
| about 15 years now. It's true that the Supreme Court's
| justices are made life peers (its original members were
| of course already peers having previously constituted the
| Law Lords, but new members are granted a peerage) -
| however that's merely a convention, if you don't make
| them a life peer it makes no difference to their job on
| the court, it just makes you look petty. I don't even
| think it's contempt now, because the law saying they
| should be elevated was repealed - unless the new law
| _also_ says they must be given a peerage when they get
| the job, I glanced through it and didn 't find that, but
| it's a huge law because making a Supreme Court was not
| its main purpose.
| penguin_booze wrote:
| Politically independent?! Between an extremely dry sense
| of humour and sarcasm, I can't tell which.
| tialaramex wrote:
| I know I'm long winded, but, you did see there's a lot
| more text right?
|
| The US Supreme Court _says_ it 's politically
| independent. And so the UK's Supreme Court just did that.
| It wasn't difficult, unlike the US the rest of our court
| system, including the predecessor "Law Lords" were in
| fact chosen by an independent non-political process
| already, the law making a Supreme Court more or less says
| "Oh, when we need more Supreme Court justices do the
| thing for judges again, only more so"
| LtWorf wrote:
| Isn't the american legal system the one who famously killed
| Sacco and Vanzetti?
| sparsely wrote:
| Indeed. The goal of the British legal system is to appear
| serious. Justice is an occasional byproduct.
| penguin_booze wrote:
| Just say British system; 'Legal' is extraneous. But boy
| does it appear serious.
| tialaramex wrote:
| Compared to?
|
| I mean, it's no Norway, but to remind you the United States,
| which has continued just straight up executing people who may
| not have committed any crime, is currently trying to make
| some of its own citizens stateless, then ship them to a
| foreign oubliette. Russia doesn't bother with courts and
| people who are out of favour just have deadly "accidents"
| there.
| mystraline wrote:
| The stuffy 17th c clothes and powdered wigs were a warning
| that you are entering the Clown Zone (not the Twilight Zone).
| duncans wrote:
| The thing here is that the Post Office as the "victim" could
| also act as its own investigator and prosecutor, due to
| historical reasons going back to the 17th century when it
| effectively functioned as part of the state and as such, had
| the authority to investigate and prosecute crimes related to
| its operations (like mail theft or fraud).
| cedws wrote:
| The failing is as much with the court as it is with Fujitsu. Why
| did they blindly accept Horizon's data as evidence? What if the
| computer said the Queen stole all the money and ran off to
| Barbados, would they have thrown her in jail? Why was the output
| of a black box, which may as well have been a notebook Fujitsu
| could have written anything they wanted into, treated as gospel?
| rwmj wrote:
| The actual answer to this is terrible. Courts _had to_ trust
| the computer was correct. There was a common law presumption
| that a computer was operating correctly unless there is
| evidence to the contrary (and getting that evidence is
| basically impossible for the individuals being charged who were
| post office workers, not computer experts, and the source code
| was a trade secret).
|
| This might change, partly in response to this case:
| https://www.gov.uk/government/calls-for-evidence/use-of-evid...
|
| Quite interesting article about this:
| https://www.counselmagazine.co.uk/articles/the-presumption-t...
| imtringued wrote:
| The emperor has no clothes. Oxford is the worlds AI Safety
| research hub and yet they didn't think about campaigning to
| overturn a law which negates their entire reason for
| existing?
| PaulRobinson wrote:
| This happened a long time before the current resurgence in
| AI.
| silon42 wrote:
| Imagine how much will "machine is right and can't be
| changed" happen with AI.
| nightpool wrote:
| Oxford is the world's what? If you believe that then I have
| a bridge to sell you.
| jen20 wrote:
| Arguments made towards right-wing government (which the UK
| had for the past decade) from higher education are unlikely
| to be well received. Perhaps somewhat by Cameron, certainly
| not in the post-Brexit idiocracy of May, Johnson, Truss or
| Sunak.
| noisy_boy wrote:
| > The actual answer to this is terrible. Courts had to trust
| the computer was correct. There was a common law presumption
| that a computer was operating correctly unless there is
| evidence to the contrary
|
| That is just mind bogglingly stupid - who the hell are the
| idiots who wrote a law like that? Any of them wrote a line of
| code in their life?
| whycome wrote:
| Isn't it a similar case in the USA where intoxication
| breath test computers are similarly obscured from scrutiny?
| People have argued that they have a right to "face their
| accuser" and see the source code only to have that request
| denied. So, black box.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| Breathalyzers aren't typically considered sufficient
| evidence in of themselves to convict ( _or_ exonerate),
| iirc many PDs have a policy of treating a breathalyzer
| hit as probable cause more than anything and then either
| they throw you in the drunk tank if you don 't demand a
| blood test to verify, or, if they want to actually
| prosecute you, they get a warrant for a blood test.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| AIUI breath test only establishes probable cause. If you
| fail a breath test you are taken for a blood draw.
|
| Breath test results are routinely challenged (sometimes
| successfully) by demanding records showing that the
| device has been tested and calibrated according to the
| required schedule.
| worik wrote:
| In my country (Aotearoa) the breath tests are "strict
| viability ", so proof
|
| You can demand a blood test, but you have to know. Most
| people do not know
| arrowsmith wrote:
| > who wrote a law
|
| That's not what "common law" means.
| michael1999 wrote:
| It's incremental, and goes back to things like clocks.
|
| Imagine a witness says "I saw him go into the bank at
| 11:20. I know the time because I looked up at the clock
| tower, and it said 11:20".
|
| Defence argues "The clock must have been wrong. My client
| was at lunch with his wife by 11:15".
|
| Clocks are simple enough that we can presume them to
| correct, unless you can present evidence that they are
| unreliable.
|
| This presumption was extended to ever-more complicated
| machines over the years. And then (fatally) this
| presumption was extended to the rise of PROGRAMMABLE
| computers. It is the programmability of computers that
| makes them unreliable. The actual computer hardware rarely
| makes an error that isn't obvious as an error.
|
| The distinction of software and hardware is a relatively
| recent concept for something as old as common law.
| ginko wrote:
| Maybe Napoleon should have conquered Britain after all.
| hungmung wrote:
| Yeah but then every criminal case would presume guilt.
| ginko wrote:
| What makes you think presumption of innocence is not a
| thing in civil law?
| mystraline wrote:
| Governments should have access to all the source of code they
| buy licenses to (and provided at sale), as a precondition of
| selling to a government.
|
| When these sorts of things happen, the source can be
| subpoena'd with the relevant legal tool, and reviewed
| appropriately.
|
| Why governments don't do this is beyond me. It greatly limits
| liability of gov procurement, and puts the liability on the
| companies selling such goods.
| varispeed wrote:
| > Why governments don't do this is beyond me.
|
| Brown envelopes most likely and de facto non functioning
| SFO.
| gnfargbl wrote:
| Governments don't do get source code for the same reason as
| every other customer doesn't get source code: software
| vendors are incentivized to refuse the request.
|
| Why are the vendors so incentivized? Well, coming back to
| Fujitsu and the Post Office, the answer is that refusing to
| share the source was worth _about a billion dollars_ :
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgm8lmz1xk1o
| flir wrote:
| Then they shouldn't get the contract.
|
| I hope lessons are learned, but I doubt it.
| ChromaticPanic wrote:
| This is why it's unethical for governments to use closed
| source software. Anything related to government
| functioning should be auditable.
| daveoc64 wrote:
| Governments (certainly in the UK) aren't willing to pay
| enough to make this work for vendors.
|
| An escrow approach is quite common to protect the
| government in the event of a vendor going bankrupt or
| similar.
| bauble wrote:
| Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/2030/
| cedws wrote:
| I was not aware of this. Wow.
|
| I hope they're taking a hard look at past cases where they've
| done this.
| masfuerte wrote:
| No chance. The article concludes with the depressing
| statement that the government has no plans to reform the
| law, so the injustices will continue. They certainly won't
| be spending money on digging up old injustices.
| mbonnet wrote:
| > There was a common law presumption that a computer was
| operating correctly unless there is evidence to the contrary
|
| This is horrifying. I presume software is working
| _incorrectly_ until proven otherwise.
| blipvert wrote:
| Part of the answer is that the Post Office had (has?) special
| legal status in that it can prosecute cases by itself - no need
| to present a convincing case to the CPS like the police do.
|
| Many people were scared into pleading guilty just to avoid the
| upfront legal costs and the ruinous fines if contesting and
| found guilty ("the computer is always right").
|
| Often the PO knew that they didn't have much of a case but just
| used their special status to bully them into submission.
| foldr wrote:
| This is a myth as far as I've been able to determine. The
| prosecutions were ordinary private prosecutions. The Post
| Office didn't need any kind of special legal status in order
| to prosecute.
| RedShift1 wrote:
| What was the actual bug in the software that caused the
| accounting errors?
| renewiltord wrote:
| From the wording of the description of the programmer who
| failed to debug and labeled it user error it appears that it is
| fairly typical Accenture-grade software where there is no
| single bug so much as the program itself approximates the
| correct result.
|
| Their data model appears to have been akin to having a single
| accumulator sum up things rather than to use something like
| double-entry bookkeeping or an account graph so that the source
| of errors could be traced.
|
| It's less "a bug" and more a coincidence that the application
| worked when it did.
| RedShift1 wrote:
| So the errors could be down to using floats instead of
| decimal types?
| renewiltord wrote:
| It could be that. It could be that they just have separate
| code paths for measuring "amount in" and "amount reported"
| with an if-clause missing in one and present in the other.
| From the description the debugging programmer provides, it
| doesn't look like they had any sort of coherent design.
| hyperman1 wrote:
| I'd love to see a technical analysis of what went wrong with the
| software and what to do about it. Similar to when airplanes crash
| etc... This is another case like Therac-25 that should be tought
| in every IT master class.
| rwmj wrote:
| I did read a very technical report about this which obviously
| now I can't find :-( My takeaways were: (1) They didn't bother
| with double-entry bookkeeping. (2) It was a distributed system
| which no one fully understood and was not based on any normal
| distributed system principles. (3) Developers made ad hoc
| changes to the code and even database to temporarily patch
| things up, even going so far as to hard-code database ids into
| special cases throughout the code.
|
| Edit: I think this one: https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-
| content/uploads/2019/12/bates-v-... Also related article:
| https://www.benthamsgaze.org/2021/07/15/what-went-wrong-with...
| secondcoming wrote:
| The inquiry into this scandal was live streamed on Youtube.
|
| You had lawyers quizzing people from all ranks of the Post Office
| and Fujistu; very interesting.
|
| Ever since, I've worded my work related electronic communications
| with the supposition that a lawyer may read them at some point in
| the future.
|
| If I'm ever asked to do something seemingly unusual or 'out of
| the box', it must be put to me in writing.
| parados wrote:
| Here is the original source for this article. Warning: it is a
| tough read, particularly section 3.c "Case Illustrations":
| https://www.postofficehorizoninquiry.org.uk/sites/default/fi...
| throwawayHpCvfn wrote:
| As someone who attempted suicide almost ten years ago, I'm
| disheartened by how cold-hearted the comments on this article
| are. Accusations of certain wording being "woke" or "PC" and
| completely ignoring the substance of the article itself, as if
| the wording were the tragedy here. If we must have this
| discussion, I stopped using the phrase "committed suicide" when I
| found out it was a relic of when it was illegal and stigmatized
| by the justice system. I prefer "died by suicide", and I
| appreciate when others use it too. Not in the sense that I will
| correct people when they say committed (because most people, the
| ones in this comment section excepted, don't know the origins),
| but rather "oh hey, that person knows about this, and they care
| too."
| whycome wrote:
| I think the discussion is that "driven to suicide" would be a
| more appropriate term. Their deaths were not coincidental or
| incidental. It is an attempt to acknowledge that their act was
| the result of the actions of the post office and others.
| throwawayHpCvfn wrote:
| A few comments are like that, yes, and I have no objections
| to that description. Most of the discussion though seems to
| be more like this:
|
| > I guess some people take comfort in the idea that suicide
| is thrust on people and they take no responsibility for their
| actions.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44531844
| cletus wrote:
| People should go to jail for this.
|
| Anyone who has worked on a large migration eventually lands on a
| pattern that goes something like this:
|
| 1. Double-write to the old system and the new system. Nothing
| uses the new system;
|
| 2. Verify the output in the new system vs the old system with
| appropriate scripts. If there are issues, which there will be for
| awhile, go back to (1);
|
| 3. Start reading from the new system with a small group of users
| and then an increasingly large group. Still use the old system as
| the source of truth. Log whenever the output differs. Keep making
| changes until it always matches;
|
| 4. Once you're at 100% rollout you can start decomissioning the
| old system.
|
| This approach is incremental, verifiable and reversible. You need
| all of these things. If you engage in a massive rewrite in a silo
| for a year or two you're going to have a bad time. If you have no
| way of verifying your new system's output, you're going to have a
| bad time. In fact, people are going to die, as is the case here.
|
| If you're going to accuse someone of a criminal act, a system
| just saying it happened should NEVER be sufficient. It should be
| able to show its work. The person or people who are ultimately
| responsible for turning a fraud detection into a criminal
| complaint should themselves be criminally liable if they make a
| false complaint.
|
| We had a famous example of this with Hertz mistakenly reporting
| cars stolen, something they ultimately had to pay for in a
| lawsuit [1] but that's woefully insufficient. It is expensive,
| stressful and time-consuming to have to criminally defend
| yourself against a felony charge. People will often be forced to
| take a plea because absolutely everything is stacked in the
| prosecution's favor despite the theoretical presumption of
| innocence.
|
| As such, an erroneous or false criminal complaint by a company
| should itself be a criminal charge.
|
| In Hertz's case, a human should eyeball the alleged theft and
| look for records like "do we have the car?", "do we know where it
| is?" and "is there a record of them checking it in?"
|
| In the UK post office scandal, a detection of fraud from
| accounting records should be verified by comparison to the
| existing system in a transition period AND, moreso in the
| beginning, double checking results with forensic accountants
| (actual humans) before any criminal complaint is filed.
|
| [1]: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/06/1140998674/hertz-false-
| accusa...
| akudha wrote:
| This was depressing to read. Failures at so many levels.
|
| 1. Immediately after Horizon was rolled out, issues were
| reported. But ignored
|
| 2. Prosecutors didn't bother to verify if there is another
| explanation before accusing thousands of people of stealing?
| Isn't it common sense to pause for a second and think, "could we
| please double check the evidence? how can thousands of postal
| workers suddenly turn into thieves?"
|
| 3. _local newspaper had published a photo of her and labeled her
| the "pregnant thief."_ - of course, UK tabloids. Click baits and
| write whatever the fuck they want, no matter whose lives are
| destroyed
|
| 4. _post office has said that it does not have the means to
| provide redress for that many people_ - so they have the means to
| falsely prosecute and destroy the lives of thousands of people,
| but they don 't have the means to correct their blunders?
|
| This happened more than a decade ago. Citizens are expected to do
| everything on time (pay taxes, renew drivers license...) or get
| fined/jailed, but the government can sit on their butt for _10
| YEARS_ and do nothing about a blunder they caused?
|
| What about Fujitsu? Why can't the government make _Fujitsu_ pay
| for the destruction caused by their shitty software?
|
| Jeez. This is just fucking nuts
| PaulRobinson wrote:
| I suggest you keep an eye on what's being published in _Private
| Eye_ and _Computer Weekly_ if you have access to those where
| you are. They 're holding feet to the fire on all these points.
|
| One thing I would say is that if somebody is convicted in the
| UK, it's acceptable legally and culturally to call them by the
| crime they committed.
|
| The problem is that in this case the Post Office had unique
| legal powers, and was being run by people who did not want to
| "harm the brand" by admitting they had made mistakes, so kept
| digging.
|
| There is also a fundamental flaw in how the courts - and the
| Post Office prosecutors - were instructed to think about the
| evidence in common law.
|
| Bizarrely, it was not (and may still not), be an acceptable
| defense to say that computer records are wrong. They are
| assumed correct in UK courts. IT systems were legally
| considered infallible, and if your evidence contradicts an IT
| systems evidence, you were considered a liar by the court, and
| a jury might be instructed accordingly.
|
| Yes, that's awful. Yes, it's ruined lives.
|
| But also, I think all involved have realised pointing fingers
| at one or two individuals to blame hasn't really helped fix
| things. Like an air accident, you have to have several things
| go wrong and compound errors to get into this amount of
| trouble, normally. There were systemic failing across
| procurement, implementation, governance, investigations,
| prosecutions, within the justice system and beyond.
|
| I already know people who have worked for Fujitsu in the UK are
| not exactly shouting about it. And yet, they're still getting
| awarded contracts before the compensation has been paid out...
| akudha wrote:
| Lets ignore everything else for a second. Isn't it common
| sense, common decency to ask how can thousands of postal
| workers become thieves overnight? We're talking about postal
| workers for fuck's sake, not a bunch of mafia dudes. Is there
| some kind of perverse incentive for the prosecutors to send
| as many people to jail as possible, guilty or not?
|
| _run by people who did not want to "harm the brand"_
|
| Oh well, now their precious brand has been harmed, how
| exactly do they expect to gain the trust, respect of the
| people back? Maybe they think the public will forget and move
| on? These people suck...
| Akronymus wrote:
| afaict, the assumption was they already were, and were just
| uncovered.
| mxfh wrote:
| Related case in the Netherlands: if you just think all dual
| citizens are up for no good as the pretext a lot of law
| abiding people's lifes will just get upended.
|
| If legislation, jurisdiction and law enforcement forget
| about basic principles and human rights in favour of
| looking productive, collateral damage is pretty much more
| or less expected.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_childcare_benefits_scan
| d...
| worik wrote:
| Means tested benefits, all sorts of problems
|
| There are incentives to cheat
|
| There is moral panic about "undeserving poor"
|
| Increase taxes and make services and benefits free,
| including a UBI.
|
| Increase and collect taxes.
| nullc wrote:
| > Isn't it common sense, common decency to ask how can
| thousands of postal workers become thieves overnight
|
| The whole privatized postoffice setup was a profoundly
| unattractive investment-- at least to those who thought of
| it on investment grounds (e.g. return on
| investment+costs)-- and so there was a presumption before
| the computer system went in that many must have been in it
| to steal.
|
| > Is there some kind of perverse incentive for the
| prosecutors
|
| One of the broken things here is that the postoffice
| themselves were able to criminally prosecute-- so the
| criminal cases lacked "have to deserve the state
| prosecutors time" protection.
| justin66 wrote:
| > One thing I would say is that if somebody is convicted in
| the UK, it's acceptable legally and culturally to call them
| by the crime they committed.
|
| Which certainly contributed to the suicides.
| arrowsmith wrote:
| > if somebody is convicted in the UK, it's acceptable legally
| and culturally to call them by the crime they committed.
|
| Is this not the case in other countries?
| helloguillecl wrote:
| In Germany, calling someone by a crime they have been
| sentenced of, constitutes defamation.
| arrowsmith wrote:
| What? That makes no sense whatsoever.
| akudha wrote:
| Why does it not make sense? If I was involved in a
| robbery at age 18, as a dumb kid, should I still be
| called "robber xyz" for the rest of my life? Especially
| if I turned my life around?
| arrowsmith wrote:
| I agree that we should be forgiving, give people second
| chances etc, but that doesn't change the meaning of
| words. "Defamation" is when you damage someone's
| reputation by saying things about them that aren't true.
| If you were convicted of a crime long ago and someone
| draws attention to that fact, they're not defaming you.
| The truth isn't defamation, by definition.
| mkehrt wrote:
| > The truth isn't defamation, by definition. This is a
| famously American position.
| arrowsmith wrote:
| I'm not American, and we're discussing a UK news story.
|
| But I genuinely didn't know that other countries do
| things differently. What does defamation even mean if it
| doesn't include the concept of untruth?
| arh68 wrote:
| Previously, [1]
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40682485 (obviously,
| it means different things to different folks; I can't
| properly answer your question)
|
| FWIW I'm only really familiar with the American usual.
| jolmg wrote:
| > but that doesn't change the meaning of words.
|
| Words can have multiple similar definitions with small
| variations. If I look up "defamation" I get:
|
| > Defamation is a legal term that refers to any statement
| made by a person, whether verbal or printed, that causes
| harm to another person's reputation or character. ---
| https://legaldictionary.net/defamation/
|
| > Defamation is a communication that injures a third
| party's reputation and causes a legally redressable
| injury. The precise legal definition of defamation varies
| from country to country. It is not necessarily restricted
| to making assertions that are falsifiable, and can extend
| to concepts that are more abstract than reputation - like
| dignity and honour. ---
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation
| arrowsmith wrote:
| I stand corrected.
| amiga386 wrote:
| Truth (in English law) is merely a _defence_ to an
| accusation of libel or slander, and it is not an
| _absolute_ defence. If you say or print _true_ things
| about a person, that lowers their reputation in the eyes
| of an ordinary person, and you are _motivated by malice_
| , then you have still committed the crime of defamation.
|
| English libel law is an evolution of the former English
| law known as _scandalum magnatum_ -- "scandalizing the
| mighty". Basically, if you say bad things about powerful
| people, those powerful people will crush you with the
| law.
|
| As an example, Robert Maxwell embezzled millions from his
| company's pension fund, and also used that money to sue
| anyone who slighted him - including anyone who said he
| was embezzling from his company's pension fund. He was
| never prosecuted for embezzling millions from his
| company's pension fund.
| worik wrote:
| > He was never prosecuted for embezzling millions from
| his company's pension fund.
|
| He escaped that. By dying. Probably suicide.
|
| The walls were closing in
| burkaman wrote:
| Calling someone a robber means they are currently a
| robber. It can be inaccurate and untrue in the same way
| that calling someone a bartender would be inaccurate and
| untrue if they are a lawyer who hasn't tended a bar in 20
| years.
|
| I don't like the idea of prosecuting people for this, but
| I don't think it's illogical.
| veeti wrote:
| Would you extend the same courtesy to a murderer or child
| rapist?
| burkaman wrote:
| Honestly I don't know, I think it would depend on how
| long ago the crime was and if there's a credible reason
| to believe they won't do it again. I do think there's a
| meaningful difference between "they murdered someone" and
| "they're a murderer", and in general I do prefer to
| describe people's actions as opposed to using "they're a
| ___" labels.
| nothrabannosir wrote:
| Just in case this is a leading question: there are many
| courtesies we extend some but not all people convicted of
| a crime. Bail, parole, etc.
| nilamo wrote:
| Why is such a person wandering around free if they were
| convicted? Do you think prison sentences are not harsh
| enough?
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| > The truth isn't defamation, by definition.
|
| Perhaps you mean slander/libel?
| arrowsmith wrote:
| Slander and libel are subcategories of defamation.
|
| Libel = defamation in writing. Slander = defamation in
| speech.
| jen20 wrote:
| > They are assumed correct in UK courts. IT systems were
| legally considered infallible
|
| This will change when elected officials start getting hoisted
| by their own electronic petards.
|
| The Venn diagram of midwit enterprise developers who build
| systems with audit trails yet could not swear under penalty
| of perjury that the audit trail is absolutely correct in
| every case is almost a circle.
| Jooror wrote:
| Show me a system for which you believe the audit trail is
| absolutely correct in every case and I'll show you a
| midwit...
| jen20 wrote:
| It is straightfoward to build systems which derive their
| state from the audit trail instead of building the audit
| trail in parallel. That is what event sourcing is.
| Jooror wrote:
| TIL, thanks!
|
| I was attempting to emphasize the absurdity of any
| software system being "absolutely correct at all times".
| I don't believe such a system can exist, at least not in
| such strong terms.
| jen20 wrote:
| What's important is that the audit trail can be replayed
| to derive the state of the system - and preferably in
| such a way that investigators can determine what _would_
| have been seen by someone using it on a specific day at a
| specific time. Whether the system is free from bugs is a
| different matter - no system is, which is why deriving
| state from the audit trail instead of a parallel process
| which is guaranteed to diverge is so important!
| whycome wrote:
| It's fucking nuts because it's worse than that too.
|
| Fujitsu falsely claimed that they couldn't remotely modify
| data.
|
| They used technical info to obfuscate things for the accused
| and the judges.
| Anthony-G wrote:
| I haven't followed this issue closely but would lying in
| court about their ability to remotely modify data not be
| perjury?
| s_dev wrote:
| >2. Prosecutors didn't bother to verify if there is another
| explanation before accusing thousands of people of stealing?
| Isn't it common sense to pause for a second and think, "could
| we please double check the evidence? how can thousands of
| postal workers suddenly turn into thieves?"
|
| They genuinely thought that the new software was uncovering a
| lot of theft that previously went undetected. This actually
| spurred them on even further thinking that the software was a
| godsend.
|
| The sickening part is the people responsible won't ever see the
| inside of a prison cell despite sending many to prison for
| their failures.
| wat10000 wrote:
| Rationalization is a powerful force. People rarely come to
| objective beliefs based on evidence. They come to beliefs and
| then search for evidence. In law enforcement, people tend to
| decide on a suspect and then look for proof. Hence why you so
| often see prosecutors and police fighting to punish innocent
| people, sometimes even after they've been proven to be
| innocent.
| akudha wrote:
| _In law enforcement, people tend to decide on a suspect and
| then look for proof._
|
| Yikes, such people shouldn't be in working in law
| enforcement then
| flir wrote:
| Everyone does it. You and me too. It's just how brains
| work. First the opinion, then the evidence to back up the
| opinion.
| akudha wrote:
| Maybe everyone does it at some level, but not everyone
| works in a job that has the potential to wreck other
| people's lives and freedoms. There should be a higher
| standard for doctors, prosecutors, cops, judges etc than
| someone writing a todo CRUD app or a cashier at a bodega.
|
| It is not too much to ask for prosecutors to be a bit
| more careful, bit more factual, understand the powers
| that come with their position and use it wisely. If they
| are not able to do that, they should pick some other
| profession which has lesser potential to cause damage
| than law enforcement.
|
| Also - now that the software has proven defective, are
| they doing to go after Fujitsu or those who tested/signed
| off on the software? Probably not, maybe they will find a
| scapegoat at best.
| wat10000 wrote:
| Law enforcement could definitely do better here. The
| nature of the job tends to attract people who like
| exerting power over others, and I imagine that correlates
| with deciding people are guilty first, and finding
| evidence later.
|
| But everybody is like this to an extent, so you need to
| fix this in other ways too. This is why reasonable
| countries have a whole bunch of process around legal
| punishment, and don't just throw someone in prison after
| a police officer says so. All the restrictions on how
| evidence is gathered and what kind of proof needs to be
| provided are ways to work around this problem. The police
| and prosecutor might decide someone is guilty, but they
| still have to convince twelve ordinary people. (Or
| whatever the process is in your country of choice.)
|
| It sounds like this is where things really fell apart
| with the postal scandal, and the courts were willing to
| convict with insufficient evidence.
| rlpb wrote:
| ...and this is perfectly fine as long as one is willing
| to change one's opinion should the evidence demand it.
| dagmx wrote:
| I really wish someone had the political capital to do something
| about the tabloids. They're really a detriment to society.
| johnnyApplePRNG wrote:
| Politicians love the tabloids. They distract from the real
| goings-on.
| arrowsmith wrote:
| I don't like the tabloids either but what exactly do you
| propose we do? Are you sure it's a good idea to undermine the
| freedom of the press?
|
| A government with the power to censor the tabloids is also a
| government with the power to censor the news outlets that you
| _do_ like. I 'd be careful about opening that can of worms.
| junon wrote:
| When tabloids circumvent due process to commit slander and
| get away with it there should be penalties, yes.
| arrowsmith wrote:
| Defamation is already illegal. People sue each other for
| defamation all the time - in fact UK libel law is
| notoriously weighted in favour of the plaintiff. If these
| men were defamed they can sue the tabloids and they'll
| probably win.
|
| GP was saying the _government_ should do something. What
| more can the government do?
| rwmj wrote:
| If they have a ton of money, which these postmasters do
| not.
| jedimastert wrote:
| Aren't defamation laws in the UK almost shockingly
| restrictive? How the hell are they able to operate?
| skywhopper wrote:
| No other country has as toxic a press culture as the UK.
| Addressing that doesn't have to mean restricting press
| freedom. If something is a destructive cancer on society,
| you can't just ignore it, or eventually it will destroy
| those freedoms for everyone else.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| The United States (famously) has stronger free speech
| protections and weaker libel/slander laws, yet seems to
| have less of an issue with tabloids. Is there maybe more of
| a divide between what's alloweable for "public figures"
| versus private citizens? Or maybe even our right-wing rags
| are more skeptical of the government? I don't know what the
| difference is, but you seem to see less of this sort of
| thing, gross as our tabloids still are. Maybe it really is
| just a cultural difference somehow.
| esseph wrote:
| The US tabloids are awful. Any checkout isle at a
| Walmart, Dollar General, etc is just littered with them,
| right next to the disposable lighter packs and chewing
| gum.
| ToValueFunfetti wrote:
| But nobody reads them in the US[1], and many are about
| celebrities or cryptids or what-have-you rather than
| current events or private citizens. There's definitely a
| cultural difference here.
|
| [1] UK has 1/4th of the population of the US but The Sun
| has 4x the circulation of The New York Post. The Daily
| Mirror every day puts out 4x the number of papers that
| The National Enquirer puts out in a week.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| Sure, I did say they were gross, but they just seem to
| mostly cause less concrete damage. Not sure why.
| umbra07 wrote:
| they aren't nearly as toxic as the UK tabloids.
|
| Also, I never hear _anybody_ talk about what the tabloids
| are reporting. There 's a lot of social stigma attached
| to them in the US.
| cgriswald wrote:
| Civil defamation laws could equally be used to undermine
| freedom of the press. In any case, the 'can of worms' you
| are talking about was the state of affairs in the UK until
| 2009 and is currently the case in several US states and yet
| somehow we still have people in those states openly
| criticizing a sitting president.
|
| Rather than throwing our hands in the air, maybe we could
| expect our governments to craft laws in such a way that we
| can punish people for willful lies resulting in death while
| still preserving our right to free speech and the press.
| arrowsmith wrote:
| The UK already has extremely strong defamation laws, to
| the point where we attract "libel tourism" - foreigners
| find dubious excuses to bring their libel cases to the UK
| courts so that they have an easier chance of winning.
|
| Lots of people in my replies are telling me that I'm
| wrong, but no-one has yet answered my question: what
| specifically should the government do?
| cgriswald wrote:
| That's because your question appears rhetorical. You had
| already come to the conclusion that governments couldn't
| or shouldn't do anything.
|
| What could be done: (1) Stronger penalties, perhaps tied
| to proportionate burdens of proof. (2) Criminal
| penalties.
|
| A weak burden of proof with mediocre penalties is just a
| cost of doing business.
| flir wrote:
| Think that would be solving the last century's problem. I
| think you'd get more bang for your buck by reining in social
| media.
| rossant wrote:
| Read about this [1, 2]. This is not yet a well-known scandal,
| but I expect (and hope) it will surface in the coming years or
| decade. It is on an even bigger scale, not limited to a single
| country, and it has been going on not just for 10 years but for
| many decades.
|
| [1] https://cambridgeblog.org/2023/05/a-journey-into-the-
| shaken-...
|
| [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37650402
| fn-mote wrote:
| Incredible. Reading HN pays off again. Thank you for sharing.
|
| The link is to a book by a PhD neuroscientist investigation
| the scientific basis for shaken baby syndrome.
| rossant wrote:
| Yes, that's me.
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| Wow, that _is_ you.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Wow that's crazy. Good work! I guess this is a less
| "compelling" scandal than Horizon because there isn't one or
| two entities that are responsible.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Reminds me somewhat of the child sex abuse hysteria in the
| 80s/90s involving daycare centers and the many horrific
| accusations that people took at face value and without
| question, being (rightfully) concerned for the wellbeing of
| the children. It was finally understood that it was
| relatively easy to plant false memories in young children
| through suggestive questioning. People went to jail for years
| before their convictions were overturned, and the impact on
| society lives on.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-care_sex-abuse_hysteria
|
| [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/10/us/the-trial-that-
| unleash...
| TechDebtDevin wrote:
| fortunately, (most) governments will let you leave.
| arp242 wrote:
| > What about Fujitsu? Why can't the government make Fujitsu pay
| for the destruction caused by their shitty software?
|
| Because the software didn't cause it.
|
| Look, by all accounts the software was/is a piece of piss, but
| what made it such an egregious scandal is how the Post Office
| leadership dealt with things. There was really no good reason
| for that to happen. They just ignored reports of problems
| (proper reports written by auditors, not vague rumours). They
| lied to postmasters by saying that no one has problems (when,
| in fact, there were hundreds of people). Lots has been written
| about all of this and I won't repeat it all here.
|
| So I must object to the phrasing of "caused by their shitty
| software". Of course lots can be said about the failings of the
| software itself and Fujitsu also lied and covered their tracks
| so they are not entirely blameless. But they emphatically did
| not "cause" any of this: it was the Post Office leadership who
| primarily caused this mess.
|
| Lots of things go wrong in the world, lots of things are
| defective. What often matters the most is not so much the
| mistake or defect itself, but what the response to that is.
| gowld wrote:
| It's not a crime when the government does it :-(
| amiga386 wrote:
| I'm going to have to pull you up on this detail, as you seem
| to care about the details.
|
| Fujitsu/ICL won the contract to develop and run Horizon. They
| got a commission on every EFTPOS sale. They paid for all the
| computers, all the network setup, all the staff training.
| They literally ran the helpline. If you were a sub-postmaster
| and had a problem with Horizon, _you called Fujitsu._
|
| It was _Fujitsu_ that then told you that the bug you found in
| Horizon wasn 't a bug and nobody else was experiencing it, at
| exactly the same time their internal IT tickets had fully
| documented the bug and their staff were trying to patch up
| that bug before it happened to anyone else.
|
| Fujitsu also claimed, in many court cases, that they had no
| remote access to Horizon. But they did. They also let
| engineers use it, and push one-off code fixes, to "fix-up"
| known errors that had been made in ledgers on the computer in
| your Post Office, so there was no source of truth anywhere in
| the system. If courts had known this, almost every Post
| Office private prosecution would have been thrown in the bin
| for unreliable evidence. Instead, courts ran on the belief
| that computers were like calculators, and can be assumed to
| be reliable unless proven faulty.
|
| It was Fujitsu not volunteering this fact, and indeed
| _barristers_ coaching Fujitsu expert witnesses on what to say
| and what _not_ to reveal, ignoring procedural rules _that the
| barristers knew had to be followed_ that say you have to
| reveal pertinent facts to the defence.
|
| Fujitsu were in it up to their necks along with the Post
| Office. They made material gains by denying bugs existed,
| denying they had remote access, falsely claiming their system
| was reliable, and having their staff perjure themselves in
| prosecutions brought by the Post Office.
|
| Without Fujitsu's complicity and mendacity, the Post Office
| might not have succeeded in prosecuting anyone - and of
| course, without the phantom losses caused by their broken
| software, they'd have no cases to prosecute.
| akudha wrote:
| Fujistu is a business - they're gonna lie and do all kinds
| of shady things to maximize profits, avoid litigation etc.
| Nobody expects a big business to be ethical or even do only
| legal things at this point.
|
| It is the prosecutors conduct that is maddening here. They
| need to have higher standards - it is their job to
| prosecute _actual_ criminal behavior, and not be lazy in
| fact checking
| borosuxks wrote:
| It's mad we let such organizations run systems for us,
| let alone exist in the first place. If they were humans,
| they'd be labeled sociopaths.
| amiga386 wrote:
| Firstly, no, people _do_ expect big business to act
| legally. Businesses should not "lie and do all kinds of
| shady things", and it's up to regulators (and those they
| harm, using the courts) to hold them to account.
|
| Secondly, I don't think you understand the situation if
| you talk about the "prosecutors conduct". The Post Office
| itself - a private company (owned by the government at
| arms length) - was the entity doing the prosecuting.
| These were _private prosecutions_.
|
| You're hearing it right. The aggrieved party is also the
| prosecutor, in the criminal courts. They are not a
| claimant in the civil courts.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prosecution#England
| _an...
|
| The Crown Prosecution Service (who work with the police,
| act for the government and prosecute most criminal cases
| in England and Wales) were not involved. In fact, much of
| the criticism of the CPS in the Post Office scandal is
| that they _could have been_ involved; they had the
| statutory right to take over a prosecution, and if
| appropriate, discontinue it due to lack of evidence. But
| they did not intervene.
| williamscales wrote:
| Thank you for the added detail.
| EngineeringStuf wrote:
| I really do agree.
|
| I was a lead Technical Architect and authority on behalf of HM
| Treasury for a while, and I will tell you this: this is just
| the tip of the iceberg in government procurement.
|
| I've witnessed faulty systems in DVLA, DEFRA, DWP, Home Office,
| MOJ and Scottish Government. Systems that have directly
| resulted in suicide, false convictions, corruption and loss of
| money to the public purse.
|
| The problem with Horizon and Fujitsu is that in the end the
| government has to sign it off, and there will be someone who is
| the Accountable Officer (AO). More often than not, all parties
| (customer and supplier) become incredibly motivated to protect
| the AO because it protects profits, protects reputational
| damage and essentially builds a good news story around the
| whole thing.
|
| It's just elitism, wrapped up in cronyism, veiled in lies so
| that AOs can fail upwards into positions with suppliers. I've
| seen it too many times and I'm fed-up with it. Government is
| completely and utterly corrupt.
| duncans wrote:
| What is amazing is the engineers the Fujitsu employed would
| testify in court against some of the subpostmasters saying "there
| were no faults" where in unearthed evidence of their support logs
| they could be clearly acknowledging bugs that could create false
| accounts, manually updating records and audit logs to balance it
| out (and also sometimes screwing that up).
|
| See Nick Wallis' coverage: *
| https://www.postofficetrial.com/2019/03/the-smoking-gun.html *
| https://www.postofficescandal.uk/post/ecce-chambers/
|
| > [Anne] Chambers closed the ticket with a definitive: "No fault
| in product".
|
| > The cause of the defect was assigned to "User" - that is, the
| Subpostmaster.
|
| > When Beer asked why, Chambers replied: "Because I was rather
| frustrated by not - by feeling that I couldn't fully get to the
| bottom of it. But there was no evidence for it being a system
| error."
|
| ...
|
| > Chambers conceded: "something was obviously wrong, in that the
| branch obviously were getting these discrepancies that they
| weren't expecting, but all I could see on my side was that they
| were apparently declaring these differing amounts, and I
| certainly didn't know of any system errors that would cause that
| to happen, or that would take what they were declaring and not
| record it correctly.... so I felt, on balance, there was just no
| evidence of a system error."
|
| > No evidence. [Sir Wyn] Williams pointed out that it surely was
| unlikely to be a user error if both trainers and auditors had
| recorded the Subpostmaster as inputting information correctly.
| Chambers replied:
|
| > "Well, yeah, I... yes, I don't know why... I'm not happy with
| this one. But I still stand by there being no indication of a
| system error and the numbers that they were recording just didn't
| make a lot of sense."
| justin66 wrote:
| Pretty sure I can guess the answer, but: does the UK have
| professional licensure for "software engineers?"
| petesergeant wrote:
| Yes, software engineers can become Chartered Engineers via
| the BCS:
|
| https://www.bcs.org/membership-and-registrations/get-
| registe...
|
| Has anyone, ever? I've met precisely one.
| whycome wrote:
| I'm really surprised the post office didn't do more of a job to
| frame it as the "Fujitsu Scandal". They could have made the
| public think it was a foreign Japanese issue
| VagabundoP wrote:
| Absolutely scandalous. What kind of engineer is she?
| oc1 wrote:
| Hopefully an unemployed one. She deserves to be thrown into
| jail.
| SCdF wrote:
| Effectively tortured to death.
|
| One of the things that frustrates me with how ethics is taught in
| computer science is that we use examples like Therac 25, and
| people listen in horror, then their takeaway is frequently "well
| thank god I don't work on medical equipment".
|
| The fact that it's medical equipment is a distraction. All
| software can cause harm to others. All of it. You need to care
| about all of it.
| whycome wrote:
| That's why the "died by suicide" language can be problematic.
| These people were driven by several factors and they were left
| with no choice.
| arrowsmith wrote:
| "Driven to suicide" may be more accurate. And damning.
| jedimastert wrote:
| Jesus I desperately wish real ethics classes were required for
| computer science degrees
| UK-AL wrote:
| In the UK they are I think? Well if they want to be BCS
| accredited.
| izacus wrote:
| Ethic classes are pointless without ethical liability and
| accountability of people causing suffering. Yes, even the
| Jira javascript ticket punchers hould be accountable for what
| they do.
| jedimastert wrote:
| "ethics classes are useless because no one would willingly
| choose to act ethically" is an interesting stance to
| take...
| gblargg wrote:
| Therac 25 is exactly what I thought of when reading this story.
| The software didn't have direct hardware control to kill
| patients with radiation, but it still resulted in thousands of
| victims.
| mbonnet wrote:
| I work on satellites that are intended for use in missile
| tracking. If I fail in the software, it might not "kill
| people", but people will die due to the failures.
|
| Though, I used to work on fighter jets and SAMs. People _do_
| die due to my work.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44499498
| exiguus wrote:
| I became aware of this fraud involving Fujitsu/Horizon and the UK
| Post Office at the beginning of this year because I watched the
| movie 'Mr. Bates vs The Post Office.' I can recommend it.
|
| It's sad to see all these people losing their livelihoods and
| beliefs. And it gives me hope to see how they fought back and
| started to help each other over the decades.
| jordanb wrote:
| I went on a deep dive on this scandal about a year or so ago. One
| thing that struck me is the _class_ element.
|
| Basically, the Post Office leadership could not understand why
| someone would buy a PO franchise. It's a substantial amount of
| money up front, and people aren't allowed to buy multiple
| franchises, so every PO was an owner/operator position.
| Essentially people were "buying a job".
|
| The people in leadership couldn't understand why someone would
| buy the opportunity to work long hours at a retail position and
| end up hopefully clearing a middle class salary at the end of the
| year. They assumed that there must be a _real reason_ why people
| were signing up and the real reason was to put their hands in the
| till.
|
| So they ended up assuming the postmasters were stealing, and the
| purpose of the accounting software was to detect the fraud so it
| could be prosecuted. When the accounting software started finding
| vast amounts of missing funds, they ignored questions about the
| software because it was _working as intended._ I bet if the
| opposite had happened, and it found very little fraud, they would
| have become suspicious of the software because their priors were
| that the postmasters were a bunch of thieves.
| hnfong wrote:
| Fascinating. Do you have references for the motives/biases of
| the PO leadership?
| jordanb wrote:
| My entry-point was listening to this podcast, it's pretty
| long but it goes into the fact that the purpose of horizon
| was to detect fraud and reduce shrinkage, that the leadership
| and their consultants were coming up with outsized estimates
| for the amount of fraud and using that as financial
| justification for the project.
|
| They also talk about postmaster's motivations for buying a
| franchise and how sitting behind a retail desk in a small
| town with a modest but steady income is actually one of the
| best outcomes available to the type of working-class Briton
| who was buying the franchise.
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jf7j
| amiga386 wrote:
| I haven't listened to the podcast, but I think you may be
| oversimplifying.
|
| The _origin_ of Horizon is that ICL won the tender for a
| project to computerise the UK 's benefits payment system --
| replacing giro books (like cheque books) with smart cards
| (like bank cards):
|
| https://inews.co.uk/news/post-office-warned-fujitsu-
| horizon-...
|
| https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199899/cmselect/cmt
| r...
|
| Sure, it was _also_ expected to detect fraud, but overall
| it was a "modernising" project. The project failed
| disastrously because ICL were completely incompetent at
| building an accounting system, the system regularly made
| huge mistakes, and the incoming government scrapped it.
|
| ICL was nonetheless still very chummy with government, as
| it was concieved of by 1960s British politicians who
| basically wanted a UK version of IBM because they didn't
| want Americans being in control of all the UK's computer
| systems. ICL used to operate mainframes and supply
| "computer terminals" to government and such, which is why
| they needed a lot of equipment from Fujitsu, which is why
| Fujitsu decided to buy them.
|
| ICL/Fujitsu still kept the contract to computerize Post
| Office accounting more generally -- Horizon. Post Offices
| could literally have pen-and-paper accounting until this!
| Yes, the project was also meant to look for fraud and
| shrinkage, but at its heart it was there to modernise,
| centralise and reduce costs. If only it wasn't written by
| incompetent morons who keep winning contracts because
| they're sweet with government.
| jen20 wrote:
| I suspect there's more to it in than that.
|
| I'd wager there was a solid amount of general incompetence
| involved at the PO "corporate" - management politically
| couldn't admit that their consultingware could be anything
| other than perfect, because they signed off on the decision to
| buy it, and probably on all the work orders that got them to
| that point.
|
| If anyone from PO management or that of the consulting firm
| (Fujitsu, I believe?) ever get any work again, it will be a
| travesty of justice.
| jordanb wrote:
| Yes at some point it turned into CYA. When the leadership
| started realizing that there were problems with the software
| they started doubling down, getting even more aggressive with
| prosecutions, because they were trying to hide their own
| fuckups.
|
| But when the ball started rolling, as the software rolled out
| and was finding missing funds _everywhere,_ you 'd think a
| normal person would have asked "are we sure there are no bugs
| here?" That was never done, I believe, because the software
| was matching the leadership's priors.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > That was never done, I believe, because the software was
| matching the leadership's priors.
|
| That has to be the most egregious confirmation bias I've
| heard about.
| Maxious wrote:
| I regret to inform you that not only is Fujitsu not banned
| from UK government work, they're not even banned from
| continuing the same project
| https://www.publictechnology.net/2025/03/17/business-and-
| ind...
| jen20 wrote:
| Wow. That is the kind of thing that every reasonable person
| should be calling their MP's office about daily.
| spwa4 wrote:
| What do you mean? The government very strongly responded
| to this scandal, including having the person directly
| responsible, who instructed the post office to hide proof
| of the postmaster's innocence, appointed Commander of the
| Order of the British Empire.
|
| She has since been thrown under the bus, though, of
| course, not prosecuted or imprisoned (despite ordering
| wrongful prosecutions of over 900 others)
|
| The politician responsible for her was Vince Cable, who
| since became leader of the Liberal Democrats, and holds
| 10 positions, most of which are either funded by the
| government or related to it.
| jen20 wrote:
| Indeed - the accepted mechanism to influence the range of
| issues MPs care about (outside of election times) is to
| bombard their office with communication until they have
| no choice but to care. That is what needs to happen here.
| wood_spirit wrote:
| There has been a lot of questions just in the last few days
| about Fujitsu continuing to bid for government contracts
| even when they said they wouldn't. A random google result
| https://www.politico.eu/article/post-office-scandal-hit-
| fuji...
| XTXinverseXTY wrote:
| Forgive my indelicate question, but why _would_ someone buy a
| PO franchise?
| trollbridge wrote:
| People buy into all kinds of money-losing businesses...
| Edible Arrangements, Nothing Bundt Cakes, various multi-level
| marketing type of schemes.
|
| And yes, a lot of people are willing to go into debt to
| effectively pay to have a job.
| rwmj wrote:
| Running a pub is a time-honoured way to lose money in the
| UK. They're essentially scams to steer the life savings of
| the working class into the accounts of large breweries.
|
| Edit: A timely news article:
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg8llxmnx7o
| skywhopper wrote:
| Some folks like running a small shop, being their own boss,
| and serving their neighborhood community.
| loeg wrote:
| Nevermind sibling comment about money-losing businesses,
| there are many small business operations like this where a
| substantial amount of capital buys a relatively moderate
| paying retail job. Think things like Subway franchises, or
| gas stations.
| jordanb wrote:
| 1) The franchise actually does represent a decent amount of
| stability and financial security for the franchisee. Well-run
| locations typically could clear a modest profit for the
| owner. These were not money losing franchises for the most
| part (until the prosecutions started of course).
|
| 2) The post offices were geographically distributed pretty
| evenly throughout the UK so there were positions in far-flung
| locations well outside London. In many of these communities
| it was a good and stable job compared to what else was
| available.
|
| 3) Many of the postmasters reported liking working retail
| positions where they get a lot of face time with customers.
| In many small towns the post office was a central part of the
| community.
| OskarS wrote:
| I bet number 3 on your list there is super-appealing to
| many people. It sounds lovely to be the kind of person in a
| smaller community that everyone knows and says hi to, that
| helps you out with paying your bills or whatever it is. I'm
| guessing you're also often the closest contact to the state
| in a smaller village, so there's probably all sorts of
| applications and permits you're asked to help out with.
|
| Especially if you're on the older side, it sounds like an
| absolutely wonderful way to spend your time. Assuming the
| post office doesn't try to ruin your life afterwards.
| mgkimsal wrote:
| My inlaws ran a rural UK post office for a time (70s, maybe
| early 80s?). I'm not sure how they got in to it, but seemed
| to enjoy it while they did it. Small village, low volume of
| foot traffic, etc. I got a sense it almost felt like a
| civic duty, but I may be reading too much in to the earlier
| conversations.
| zerkten wrote:
| It might not be fully clear to the reader, but many of
| these Post Office franchises are co-located with a Spar, or
| other shop. People have to go to the Post Office (IME to a
| greater extent than here in the US where I now live) and
| they then shop for other items. Obviously, other businesses
| tend to cluster around as well.
|
| There are situations where franchisees don't offer other
| services. These folks tend to be older and for most of the
| life of the franchise haven't had the need for additional
| income earlier in the life of the franchise. They don't
| have the energy and don't want to take on the risk of
| expanding now. When they retire, they'll probably close up
| shop as their children have other jobs.
|
| The rural Post Office where I grew up in the 80s and 90s
| was accessible to a wide area just off the main road. It
| served a wider area than the current one. The Postmistress'
| family also farmed. When that closed the natural place to
| setup was in the closes village because that was projected
| to grow in population. That development would result in the
| old Post Office building being knocked down to make way for
| a dual carriageway. Eventually a few more Post Office
| franchises appeared with their shops in that part of the
| county.
|
| People can read more at https://runapostoffice.co.uk/.
| swarnie wrote:
| Its in OPs comment
|
| > a retail position and end up hopefully clearing a middle
| class salary
|
| Normal retail work is below the poverty line.
|
| Beyond that i think it might be the social/community aspect.
| I simply can't use the post office in my town as its used as
| a social club for everyone over 70. Some people are just in
| to that kinda thing i suppose.
| carstout wrote:
| Historically it wasnt a bad thing since it was an add on to
| an existing shop. The general idea being that I would come in
| to pick up my pension/tv licence or various other things the
| PO used to be the source for and then spend it in the other
| part of the shop.
| gowld wrote:
| Pick up a TV license! Something else no sane person would
| do.
| vkou wrote:
| Why would someone buy a Subway franchise?
|
| Demand for postal services is, on a long horizon, generally
| more consistent than demand for any particular junk food.
|
| The better question is: why the hell would the government
| _sell_ a PO franchise?
| ionwake wrote:
| I found this comment insightful but I feel I must itirate (
| maybe its not needed), that it is not "clear" if leadership
| were ignorant, as you said, ( though Im sure you are part right
| ), I have read that it was malicious leadership trying to
| protect their own asses as per another comment.
| jordanb wrote:
| I don't mean to let the leadership off the hook. What they
| did was profoundly wrong and they have blood on their hands.
|
| There were two phases though: the initial rollout, and
| sometime later the coverup.
|
| If they had asked very reasonable questions about the
| software during the rollout there would have been no need for
| a coverup. No software rolls out without any bugs and it's
| really reasonable to ask why so many post offices had missing
| funds and if they were sure if it was real or not. The PO
| leadership basically ignored all evidence that there were
| bugs from the very beginning, and that makes no sense until
| you realize that they were starting from the premise that the
| postmasters are thieves and this software is going to catch
| them.
| shkkmo wrote:
| > No software rolls out without any bugs and it's really
| reasonable to ask why so many post offices had missing
| funds and if they were sure if it was real or not.
|
| It would be reasonable, but that also assumes the ass-
| covering started post rollout rather than pre rollout.
| I_dream_of_Geni wrote:
| >What they did was profoundly wrong and they have blood on
| their hands.<
|
| This, so much this. Not ONLY that but they kept DOUBLING
| DOWN for YEARS.
|
| I SO SO wish they would be held accountable for the pain,
| suffering, Chapter 11's, AND the suicides.
| horizion2025 wrote:
| What I've seen so far suggest they were just ignorant and
| victims of confirmational bias etc. You can see that when
| they won some cases they wrote internally something to the
| effect of "Final we can put to rest all those concerns about
| these cases blablabla". So it became self-validating. Also
| the courts and defense lawyers didn't manage to the see the
| pattern and in the huge numbers of such cases. Each defendant
| was fighting their own battle. Also, a mathematician from
| Fujitsu gave "convincing" testimony they didn't have any
| errors. A lot was down to lack of understanding of how
| technology works. The fact that xx millions of transactions
| were processed without errors doesn't preclude that there
| could be errors in a small number, as was the case. In this
| case sometimes coming down to random effects like if race
| conditions were triggered.
| ionwake wrote:
| You're probably right--I just wanted to share a few
| thoughts and would welcome any corrections or
| clarification.
|
| If I were in leadership, I'd assume there are edge cases
| I'm missing and take responsibility accordingly. Id just
| assume that is my job, as the leader, that is why I am
| paid, to make important decisions and stop the company from
| making big mistakes.
|
| This isn't a critique of your view--just an observation:
| there's a recurring theme on HN that leadership shouldn't
| be held responsible when things break down, as if being a
| CEO is just another job, not a position of accountability.
|
| Where does this come from? Is it a uniquely American or
| capitalist norm?
|
| I recall ( i dont think incorrectly) 1980s Japanese
| leadership--tech/auto who took failures so seriously they'd
| resign or even mention/think of sudoku.
| Anthony-G wrote:
| Well, resigning to play sudoku is certainly preferable to
| seppuku. :)
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| "victims of confirmational bias"
|
| dude
| ionwake wrote:
| tbh thats what bothered me
| 7952 wrote:
| Organisations can be fiendishly good at cultivating this
| kind of unaccountability. The software is managed by a
| contractor, maybe a project management company, a local PM
| team all of which focus on the performance of management
| and maybe budgets and timelines. Then you have some
| internal technical experts who just focus on the detail but
| have no influence on the whole. When things go wrong it is
| sent down a tech support ticketing system with multiple
| tiered defenses to deflect complaints. At some point it
| maybe gets to the point that an investigation is started.
| But obviously it needs to be done by someone neutral and
| independent who doesn't actually know the people involved
| or necessarily the technical details. And they are
| accountable not for outcomes but how closely they follow
| policy. A policy written by people outside the normal chain
| of command and no real skin in the game. At some point it
| reaches a legal team and then everyone else takes a step
| back. No one ever takes any responsibility beyond.an
| occasional case review conducted in a collegial atmosphere
| in a stuffy conference room by bored people. All the
| structures are put in place with good intentions but just
| protect people from actually having to make a decision and
| accept consequences. Except for the poor soul on the front
| line who only ever has consequences.
| LightBug1 wrote:
| Interesting insight. Thanks.
| duxup wrote:
| These kinds of assumptions about fraud always make me wonder
| about the folks in charge.
|
| I was at a company acquired by silicon valley company. Our tech
| support department was folded into another tech support
| department. Immediately the folks in the valley were upset that
| we closed more cases / had far higher customer satisfaction
| scores ... by far. They made no secret that they assumed that
| us mid-westerners doing the same job had to be inferior at the
| same job.
|
| Eventually a pool of managers in the valley developed a full
| blown conspiracy theory that we were cooking the books by
| making fake cases and so on. It just had to be that right? No
| other explanation.
|
| They finally got someone in an outside department to look into
| it. They found folks closing cases prematurely and even
| duplicating cases. The people doing it all worked for the
| managers pointing fingers at everyone else ...
|
| Sometimes the folks who talk about fraud think those things
| because that's how they work.
| partdavid wrote:
| Accusations are often confessions.
| njovin wrote:
| So the PO creates a franchise program that they later decide
| isn't suitable for any sane, good-faith actor, and instead of
| revising the terms of the franchise program to make it so, they
| assume that the participants are criminals and prosecute them?
| flir wrote:
| I see you've worked with a moribund bureaucracy before.
| LiquidSky wrote:
| > isn't suitable for any sane, good-faith actor
|
| I think this is the parent's point: this is the POV of the
| rich and powerful who lead the organization. They can't
| imagine someone in a different position seeing these
| franchises as a way to secure good (or at least decent),
| long-term, stable employment.
| lawlessone wrote:
| The same way many think about welfare/unemployment/disability
| schemes.
|
| Constant hoops to jump through to prove they're looking for
| work or still incapable.
|
| Or in the case of illness to prove they're still sick.
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59067101
| citizenpaul wrote:
| There is a rather famous book written on this subject.
|
| Catch-22.
|
| In order to be given disability you must jump through so
| many hoops that no one whom is actually sick could complete
| them. Or how in unemployment you must prove you must spend
| your time proving you are looking for a job so you cannot
| spend you time actually looking for a job. My personal fav
| because its almost universal is sick-day policies that
| codify 100% abuse of sick days because people are punished
| for not using them because some people were "abusing" their
| sick days.
|
| In the case of the book to be discharged from military
| service they must prove they are insane which no insane
| person could complete.
| viciousvoxel wrote:
| Minor correction, but in the book the act of asking to be
| discharged on account of insanity is taken as proof that
| one is sane, because no sane person would want to keep
| flying bombing missions day after day with low odds of
| survival.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Yeah but in the UK there actually _are_ lots of people
| claiming benefits that probably shouldn 't be. Especially
| Personal Independent Payments.
|
| It's enough of an issue that even Labour (left wing) is
| having to deal with it. Though as usual Starmer has
| chickened out (I think this is like the third thing that
| was obviously a good move that he's backed down on after
| dumb backlash).
| arranf wrote:
| Can you provide sources for your claim?
| IshKebab wrote:
| If you're looking for hard numbers on how many people
| shouldn't be getting them then you won't find it. Only
| the government has access to the details of individual
| claims.
|
| However you can infer a lot from a) the insane rise in
| claims, especially mental health related:
|
| https://obr.uk/docs/box-chart-3-f.png
|
| Has the mental health of the nation got _twice as bad_ in
| 2 years? Obviously not.
|
| And b) whenever the BBC does touchy feely profiles of
| people there are always some weird red flags:
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2gpl4528go
|
| PS400/month help with her bills because she struggles
| with time management? I'm sympathetic to her problems but
| that is a shit ton of money!
|
| Even some of the people receiving it agree:
|
| > "I was shocked by the ease with which it was granted. I
| was expecting to be interviewed, rightly so, but it was
| awarded without interview and he received backdated pay
| for the maximum amount." > > She was also surprised that
| her husband got mobility allowance for not having a car,
| even though she had a car and could drive him around.
|
| (This reminds me of WFA where plenty of people receiving
| _that_ also thought it was ridiculous.)
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn0ry09d50wo
|
| > Paul Harris, from Barnard Castle, gets PS72.65 a week
| in PIP payments to help with extra costs associated with
| his anxiety and depression - such as for specialist
| therapy apps and counselling.
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn4llx4kvv8o
|
| > Nick Howard, 51, from Cambridge, is neurodivergent and
| has been claiming Pip for five years. > > "Without Pip I
| would not be able to work as it pays for my transport to
| and from my workplace. > > "I'm currently buying an
| electric bike on credit, others I have had have been
| stolen or vandalised," he added.
|
| Great... but I don't think paying PIP for 5 years is a
| good way to buy someone a bike.
|
| Obviously not all cases are like this, but clearly
| something has gone wrong. And this isn't a partisan
| issue. Both parties agree that it has to change. The
| Tories just ignored the problem and Labour gave up after
| predictable "N people will die!" press.
|
| And to be clear I'm not anti-poor or anything like that.
| I also thing WFA is ridiculous and that mostly goes to
| the rich. Child benefit also goes to lots of people
| (myself included) who totally don't need it. They all
| need reform, but look what happens when the government
| tries...
| verall wrote:
| Nothing sounds wrong to me in any of the cases you
| mentioned?
|
| > PS400/month help with her bills because she struggles
| with time management? I'm sympathetic to her problems but
| that is a shit ton of money!
|
| PS4800/yr is a shit ton of money? Things must be pretty
| rough over there!
|
| > Child benefit also goes to lots of people (myself
| included) who totally don't need it.
|
| Is that a bad thing?
| knowitnone wrote:
| there is lots of welfare fraud. if you think money should
| just be handed out without question then you start handing
| your money out first.
| wagwang wrote:
| Well yes, you're trying to take money from other people, of
| course you need to prove that you need it.
| jacksnipe wrote:
| Sorry, but citation needed. Means testing might seem
| "obvious" from first principles, but from a policy point
| of view, it makes little to no sense.
|
| The macroeconomic effects of welfare programs create a
| society that is better for everyone to live in. Reducing
| the issue to a matter of personal responsibility is a
| reframing that allows you to completely lose sight of the
| big picture, and create programs that are destined to
| fail by not reaching many of the people they need to.
| stretchwithme wrote:
| Citation needed for the right to other people's money.
|
| Government running charity interferes with the normal
| feedback in society. And the need to ask politely,
| justify one's apparently bad decisions and change failing
| behavior.
|
| People become "entitled" to regular cash so a lot of the
| fear that ordinarily motivates the rest of us goes away.
|
| Any system that asks nothing of people is a bad system.
|
| I grew up on welfare. I've also seen how a lot of people
| on welfare actually live and how they spend their time.
| They don't spend it cleaning, I can tell you that.
| LocalH wrote:
| Administration of means testing is often more expensive
| than doing away with the means testing.
|
| How about UBI coupled with repealing the minimum wage?
| tenacious_tuna wrote:
| I would rather we have a system that is too generous and
| gets taken advantage of than one that is too parsimonious
| where people die for want of food and shelter that we
| could provide for them.
|
| We exist in a world where people can be unable to work or
| even advocate for themselves through no fault of their
| own. As we raise the bar for how people have to prove
| that they "need" help, there will be people who die
| because they don't have the capacity to prove that. In
| theory we have social workers (as a societal role) but in
| reality they're underfunded/don't have capacity for the
| same reasons.
|
| This feels like the same moral argument behind the
| presumption of innocence in the American legal system:
| far better to let criminals walk free than to falsely
| imprison an innocent person. Why do we not apply the same
| logic to welfare?
|
| I mean, I know why: we're worried the system would get
| taken advantage of and not serve the people it's "meant"
| to help.... but then, who does it help? How much effort
| is it worth making people spend to prove they need help
| when that effort comes with a blood cost?
|
| I agree with GP that welfare systems make for better
| societies--see also, public healthcare. I have several
| friends who are alive because of welfare systems. I grew
| up with people whose family squandered the welfare they
| got, but I don't view that as sufficient reason to
| withhold welfare from anyone else; I just accept that's
| the cost of a system that helps people.
| h2zizzle wrote:
| The general logic is that money is going to be taken from
| people no matter what (crime, expensive late
| interventions, etc.) and that relatively preventative
| measures are preferable because they cost less while
| preserving the social contract.
| forinti wrote:
| That's interesting. I read a lot about this case, but I don't
| recall anything along these lines.
|
| This does explain why the leadership was so stubborn.
| sarreph wrote:
| This is a salient observation that I don't think has been
| presented bluntly enough by the media or popular culture (such
| as Mr Bates Vs The Post Office).
|
| The UK is class-obsessed, which is not as immediately clear to
| the rest of the world (especially US). Lends a lot of credence
| to your theory.
| klik99 wrote:
| As a cultural mutt between US and UK, I think UK is "class-
| aware" and US is more obsessed with the idea that if we all
| wear jeans then class isn't a thing. I see the same class
| contempt in US as the UK, and not recognizing it for what it
| is keeps people divided.
| sarreph wrote:
| I agree that contempt arises in both cultures. My point
| about the UK was more around the phenomenon that the class
| "obsession" stems from the notion that somebody's class in
| the UK is ostensibly immutable from birth. (It is my
| impression that class in the US is much more about money;
| your status and class can be correlated / increased by your
| level of wealth).
|
| In the UK it doesn't really matter if you become a
| millionaire or billionaire, you still won't be able to
| perforate the perception of "where you came from". This
| leads to all kinds of baseless biases such as OP's
| observation / point.
| comprev wrote:
| From my experience living most of my life in the UK from
| birth there is an element of truth to class being
| immutable - being directly linked to money and the status
| of property ownership - for now anyway.
|
| The Thatcher years created an opportunity for working
| class (who traditionally lived in rent controlled
| properties due to low income) to purchase their houses
| for pennies on the dollar.
|
| Suddenly, millions of families felt they had moved up a
| class. They were no longer at the mercy of landlords and
| had moved up in society from a tenant to an owner.
|
| The traditional three tiers of lower, middle and upper
| class changed to lower, lower-middle, upper-middle and
| upper.
|
| From my observations the lower-middle class are still
| adjusting not to having money but rather _access_ to
| money previously denied. Having equity in a property as a
| guarantee of a loan opens up a world previously off
| limits by the banks.
|
| A bit like when someone turns 18 and they have access to
| credit cards - lots of cash easily available!
|
| I come from a family where (with the exception of a
| mortgage), if you can't pay for something in cash (and
| still have plenty in reserve), you can't afford it. My
| folks were very proud of raising a family with zero debts
| (minus the mortgage), and I'm forever thankful.
|
| The families I knew (and by extension others living on
| the typical "cookie cutter" UK housing estate) were
| swimming in debt. What surprised me the most was how
| "normal" it was - 3yr (or less) car on the drive; massive
| flatscreen TVs (in 2007); multiple cruise holidays per
| year; flying off to a warm destination mid-winter.
|
| Many of them said when they were younger they never
| experienced such things and told stories of growing up in
| near poverty. Going into debt for holidays and having a
| new car on the drive was normalised.
|
| These were nurses, postmen, truck drivers, retail staff,
| hospitality etc. all traditional working class jobs with
| low salary expectations.
|
| They were trying desperately to _appear_ like they were
| middle class at whatever cost.
|
| I'm of the belief it will still take a few generations
| before the wave of lower-middle class learn that it's not
| about having a new car on the drive but rather having
| that cash in the bank as savings - and a significantly
| cheaper (& older) car on the drive.
|
| And yet the UK school system doesn't teach pupils about
| sensible financial matters - we all rely on our parents
| to guide us - so escaping the "buy it now on credit"
| mentality will be easier said that done!
| klik99 wrote:
| Yes, this is mostly true - class is thought of as
| upbringing in UK and it's malleable in US. But you can
| still be rich and low class in the US, there are a ton of
| class signifiers in US but it's more like a club that you
| get inducted into, money just gets you the chance to try
| to enter that world. Increasingly though it's something
| you're born into.
| klik99 wrote:
| Someone brought this up in a previous HN comment section as an
| example of trust in software ruining peoples lives. But your
| explanation is far more human and recontextualizes it a bit for
| me - it just happened to be that this was done with software,
| but the real motivation was contempt for the lower classes and
| could have easily have happened 100 years ago with an internal
| investigation task force.
|
| Growing up half in England and US I feel British culture is
| more attuned to the class aspects to this kind of event.
| Traditionally America likes to pretend this kind of class
| contempt doesn't exist (think of, people on welfare angry at
| welfare queens, unaware they will be affected by legislation
| they support).
| AceJohnny2 wrote:
| > _Traditionally America likes to pretend this kind of class
| contempt doesn 't exist_
|
| It just manifests as racism.
| pipes wrote:
| I've been following this since the guardian wrote about it,
| maybe 2011 or 2013 (private eye was earlier) It was insane. I
| couldn't understand the lack of fuss. Maybe it is because as a
| programmer I guess that 95 percent of all software is complete
| shit and most of the developers don't know or don't care.
|
| You've hit the nail on the head "why would anyone want a middle
| class life" yeah they have never known anything less than that.
|
| The other factor to me is the careerism, all that matters is
| the project success, who cares if the riff raff end up
| committing suicide. Honestly listening to some of the tapes of
| those meetings makes me feel sick. Thing is, I think so many
| career orientated people I know wouldn't even consider that
| what went on in the meetings was beyond the pale. It's black
| mirror level.
|
| I'm from Ireland, but I live on "mainland Britain" the UK class
| system is mind boggling. I think the establishment here
| despises the "great unwashed". God help any working class
| person who ends up in the courts system.
|
| One final thing, Paula Vennells was an ordained church
| minister. She was preaching while she was overseeing the
| destruction of so many innocent hardworking people.
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Vennells
|
| I don't know why that makes this all worse but some how it
| does. Somehow it speaks to what the UK is or has become.
|
| I doubt she'll get the prison time she deserves. Actually I
| doubt she'll serve any time at all.
| boppo1 wrote:
| Where can I listen to these tapes, particularly the ones you
| describe as black-mirror level?
| dimal wrote:
| Interesting how supposed fraud from lower class people is a
| high priority that must be punished, but fraud from upper class
| people is almost always protected by the corporate veil.
| m101 wrote:
| Let's not even talk about the financial crisis
| thom wrote:
| The purpose of a system is what it does.
| jstanley wrote:
| Conversely, https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/come-on-
| obviously-the-purpo...
| Kinrany wrote:
| How good or bad of a decision was it in reality? E.g. what was
| the real salary on top of what one would earn from investing in
| index?
| cman82 wrote:
| For an excellent in-depth look at the scandal, I recommend Nick
| Wallis's book The Great Post Office Scandal. I read this soon
| after it came out and was wondering why it hadn't caused a
| national uproar. It was only the miniseries that prompted the
| required outrage.
| rossant wrote:
| Yes, many scandals stay under the radar until a good book, film
| or series reaches millions at once. I hope the same happens
| with another subject close to my heart [1, 2]. A Netflix film
| on a related topic a few years ago already had a huge impact
| [3]. It focused on one case, but by the end of the movie it is
| clear that many others are similarly affected.
|
| [1] https://cambridgeblog.org/2023/05/a-journey-into-the-
| shaken-...
|
| [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37650402
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Take_Care_of_Maya
| nickelpro wrote:
| The bug is hardly the problem here, it is necessary but far from
| sufficient for something like this to happen.
|
| The UK legal system's ability to prosecute and penalize people
| without anything more than circumstantial evidence makes it unfit
| for purpose. It should be an embarrassment to a country that
| considers itself a member of the developed Western world.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| >The UK legal system's ability to prosecute and penalize people
| without anything more than circumstantial evidence makes it
| unfit for purpose.
|
| This defect is present in all justice systems to some degree or
| another. For that matter, most crimes (serious or otherwise)
| rarely have the sort of smoking gun evidence that would satisfy
| us all that it wasn't circumstantial. Worse still, when the
| evidence isn't circumstantial, it's still usually testimonial
| in nature... some witness is on the stand at trial, describing
| what they saw. Or, perhaps more accurately, misinterpreting
| what they saw/remember.
|
| The only difference this time around is that they were
| misinterpreting what their software logic meant.
| nickelpro wrote:
| I recommend you read the report. The charges were brought
| solely on the claimed accounting shortfalls with no further
| evidence that the postmasters and sub-postmasters did
| anything wrong, not even an attempt to discover where the
| money had gone or anything resembling forensic accounting
| that would be required in similar US cases.
|
| In the most shocking case, with Martin Griffiths, there were
| attempts to hold him responsible for robbery loses he had
| absolutely nothing to do with:
|
| > On 2 May 2013 a robbery occurred at the Post Office which
| resulted in a net loss to the Post Office of PS38,504.96,
| which was reduced to PS15,845 after some of the money was
| recovered. Mr Griffiths was injured during the robbery; he
| was present in the branch when it occurred. The Post Office
| Investigator advised the Post Office that Mr Griffiths was
| partly to blame for the loss sustained by the Post Office and
| that he should be held responsible for part of the loss. [1]
|
| Such a claim wouldn't even be colorable in most
| jurisdictions.
|
| I disagree that anything similar could happen at this scale
| in the US or France. Individual cases might not be handled
| perfectly, but this is a _systemic_ miscarriage of justice
| where at every turn individuals were prosecuted without any
| evidence of individual wrongdoing. It was believed money was
| missing, no attempt was made to discover how it went missing,
| and the post-masters were held responsible without further
| inquiry. The legal system upheld these non-findings as facts
| and _convicted_ people based upon them.
|
| [1]: Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry, 3.49
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| >> On 2 May 2013 a robbery occurred at the Post Office
| which resulted in a net loss to the Post Office of
| PS38,504.96, which was reduced to PS15,845 after some of
| the money was recovered. Mr Griffiths was injured during
| the robbery; he was present in the branch when it occurred.
| The Post Office Investigator advised the Post Office that
| Mr Griffiths was partly to blame for the loss sustained by
| the Post Office and that he should be held responsible for
| part of the loss. [1]
|
| This is hilarious... in the land of "you can't defend
| yourself or especially your property", he was _partly to
| blame_. That one is hilarious.
|
| >I disagree that anything similar could happen at this
| scale in the US or France.
|
| In the US, the US Mail is sacred, so I agree it could never
| be attacked like this. But other industries, other
| scenarios? That level of prosecutorial malfeasance isn't
| unusual at all. I will concede that the _scale_ of it may
| differ, but only because I have no ready examples, not
| because I believe that there is some sort of safeguard that
| would prevent it.
| kypro wrote:
| I know this is only tangentially relevant, but as someone who
| lives in the UK the inhuman and process driven nature of the way
| the state operates today is terrifying to me.
|
| Several times in recent years I've had people significantly
| financially and emotionally affected by what amounts to just
| fairly minor errors of judgement that the state treats as
| deliberate criminal acts and will follow up on with absolutely no
| human judgement or compassion.
|
| An obvious example of this is tax law which despite being
| extremely complicated is followed by the state with no human
| consideration for individual circumstances. I guess upper-middle-
| class people must just know from osmosis every letter of UK tax
| code, but I've had so many people in my family not realise that
| they need to fill tax returns for certain things like Bitcoin
| disposals, OnlyFans earnings, eBay gains, income from helping
| neighbours with building/gardening work, etc... And the state can
| be absolutely fucking brutal when you make a mishap like this.
| They do not give a crap about intention or whether you've
| otherwise been a law abiding citizen. Case in point is HMRCs name
| and shame list which I believe was intended to name and shame
| high-profile tax evaders, but has basically just become a list of
| working class dudes who (perhaps stupidly in our eyes) didn't
| realise they had to manually file tax returns on their income.
|
| Even extremely mediocre things are treated with brutal
| enforcement... For example, a street by mine recently changed
| from 30mph to 20mph overnight and this resulted in literally
| thousands of people being caught exceeding the speed limit by
| 10mph. There was no understanding that these people obviously
| didn't expect the speed limit to randomly change over night,
| instead they were all sent a letter from the government stating
| the government's intent to prosecute them for their offence...
| Any human would have thought, hm, yeah the fact thousands of
| people were caught when we made this change might imply that
| people didn't deliberately exceed the speed limit but we didn't
| make it clear enough that it had changed.
|
| Obviously this is a totally different magnitude to what these
| people went through, but again I think it's all a result of
| overly systematic rule following that makes people feel
| completely powerless when the state decides they've done
| something wrong. There's absolutely nothing you can do to say,
| "hey, you know me... I wouldn't do this. You've made a mistake."
| Nope, sorry computer says no, and that's the end of it.
|
| I get what I'm suggesting here isn't practical and this is just a
| side-effect of a large state which must depersonalise and
| systematise everything, but when you're a person caught on the
| wrong side of that system it's fucking scary because no one will
| listen to you or relate to you as a human being. And everyone you
| talk to can ruin your life at the click of a button and you know
| it's their job to do it when the system tells them that's what
| they must do.
|
| Obviously these people had some legal assumption of innocence,
| but on a human level the assumption was always that they couldn't
| be trusted and were criminals. If you've ever experienced this
| before, where it's just assumed that you are guilty because of
| some faulty or misleading information it's psychologically
| brutal. You feel helpless, powerless and you're treated as if you
| lack humanity. It's horrible feeling and completely unsurprising
| to me these people decided to do the only thing they could
| reasonably do to take back control of their lives.
|
| Sadly we'll learn nothing from this.
| lysace wrote:
| I was curious so I looked into it: It looks like about 10x the
| average UK suicide rate (assuming "the worst case": all male, 40+
| over about a decade. In reality some percentage of the about 1000
| wrongfully accused will be female, of course).
| foota wrote:
| This is horrifying.
| bn-l wrote:
| There is something very rotten about this country. It's like the
| heart of it has rotted out totally.
| horizion2025 wrote:
| A big issue is that the British post office could itself act as
| the prosecutor. Other entities reporting a crime need to convince
| the public prosecutor before there even is a case, but due to
| hundred years old traditions the Post Office had the right act as
| its own prosecutor. Effectively the same problem as in the
| LLoyd's scandal where LLoyd's effectively was its own regulator.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| We've chased all of the smart people out of government. You're
| more likely to find a smart person working as a cook the local
| fried chicken restaurant than you are to find one in government.
| It has to be said. And you'll all find that it's true if you pay
| attention. Those of you who have been paying attention already
| noticed this.
| Nifty3929 wrote:
| What boggles my mind is that so many of us still thing more
| government is the way to address problems. The fact is, humans
| are human, and work in both government and in business. But a
| business cannot put you in jail or unilaterally freeze all your
| money.
|
| A business can accuse you of a crime, but they will be very
| careful before they do as the consequences of bring wrong are
| very severe - for a business. Corporations can fire you or sell
| your data or send you targeted adds. But the risks associated
| with government are far worse.
| monksy wrote:
| Don't forget her name: Paula Vennells (Royal Mail CEO). She went
| on record to state there was no issue despite reports.
|
| I'm sure we're see justice for her actions. /s
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Vennells
|
| Remember her: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPYo_gq329w
| martin-t wrote:
| Lying should be punishable according to max(expected harm,
| indended harm, actual harm).
|
| Making factual statements from a position of power without
| making sure they are correct is lying.
| game_the0ry wrote:
| Wow, that video was hard to watch.
|
| She needs to go to jail yesterday.
| patrickdavey wrote:
| I think that "Mr Bates vs the post office"
| (https://m.imdb.com/title/tt27867155/) should be required
| watching for software developers.
|
| It was an internal developer bearing witness that made a material
| difference here. If you're the developer logging in to fix errors
| and the postmaster scandal is in full swing, then it's time to
| look at being a whistleblower. If you're the developer writing
| code to hack emissions tests in cars, again, look at your ethics.
| lesser-shadow wrote:
| U.K gov try not to be hilariously evil challenge:impossible.
|
| But honestly I'm not even slightly surprised as this is coming
| from the same "people" who invented the window tax.
| rmk wrote:
| This is why there should be tort law in England and other common
| law locales.
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