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Those postmasters defending charges of theft against them in the 2000s should not have had to prove that the computer system they were forced to use had bugs. I

Those postmasters defending charges of theft against them in the 2000s should not have had to prove that the computer system they were forced to use had bugs. In order to prosecute them in the first place, the Post Office should have had to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt and without risk of bias, that the computer system was correct. So, independent review at the very least, not testimony from parties with a vested interest in the outcome. This mess was as much a failure of the UK legal system as it was of the active efforts of the Post Office and Fujitsu to deceitfully protect their own interests above the postmasters affected. It's like a murderer giving evidence against a random stranger and being believed at face value because they provided all the evidence first hand.

robk 5y ago
Computer said so and they blindly followed. Offshoring victims :(
- dd82 5y ago
  same with facial recognition. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/technology/facial-recognition-arrest.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/technology/facial-recogni...
  - lupire 5y ago
    An arrest based on (mechanical) eye witness evidence is not the same thing as a conviction, at all. The security photo is directly viewable by the police and the accused.
lbriner 5y ago
Unfortunately, that sounds straight-forward but isn't: Q) Did you or any of the people you got to examine the software found any way that what the defendents said was true? A) No Q) Then you are guilty beyond reasonable doubt. I think the bigger issue here is around the power that a large organisation wields to duck and dive and use corporate tricks to manipulate how it played out. For example, the fact that so many people had been accused could have been analyzed if it was known e.g. Last year 5 convictions, this year, 700!
- jjk166 5y ago
  No, that's still presumption of guilt. If you're going to convict someone of stealing £59,000, the very first thing you should have to show is that £59,000 actually got stolen. If there is reasonable doubt that the crime took place, no one can be guilty beyond that reasonable doubt. If the defendant claims the computer system got it wrong, it's not enough to say you are unaware of bugs, the prosecution should have to show that the computer's output was consistent with the results of doing the calculation by another method.
  - arethuza 5y ago
    Not only that £59,000 was actually stolen but that the accused received the money. There was no evidence that the post masters charged ever had the money in their possession!
    - lbriner 5y ago
      What you are both arguing doesn't match up with the facts. It was proved beyond reasonable doubt multiple times. The "proof", (which we now know was flawed) was that the system had shown that what they had sold didn't tally with what was sent to the Post Office, to refute that proof, the defence have to show another plausible explanation. Yes, if they could have proved they also received what was stolen, that would have been a slam dunk but there are enough plausible reasons why they can't find the money. Maybe it was given to friends and family as cash, maybe it was used to gamble or to pay off some criminal. It isn't much different than somebody saying, "you did it because we found your DNA". The Courts or Jury are inclined to believe it because "science" and if the defence are not on their game enough to show how "because DNA" is not always watertight, the defendent is seen as guilty beyond reasonbale doubt.
      - c3534l 5y ago
        > but there are enough plausible reasons why they can't find the money There is a strange presumption in here. It is true that lack of evidence doesn't always means there's evidence that there was no crime. But that shouldn't matter. A crime should only be prosecutable if it is demonstrable. We shouldn't say "oh, well the prosecution had a really hard case, we should just convict this person anyway because it wasn't fair to those lawyers." That's such a perverse way of reasoning about it.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
dignick 5y ago
As the post office is such an old organisation (350 years), it used to have its own armed guard, has its own investigations branch and conducts its own prosecutions. The police wouldn't get involved because the post office was considered to have jurisdiction. Taken from this, which is a great listen: https://soundcloud.com/privateeyenews/page-94-the-private-eye-podcast-going-postal https://soundcloud.com/privateeyenews/page-94-the-private-ey...
- Roonerelli 5y ago
  Really great work by Private Eye. They did all the investigation and broke the story. None of the big news outlets were on it at all
  - toyg 5y ago
    On internal UK news, there is nothing as good as Private Eye. Every two weeks they publish more “hard” material than newspapers do in a month. I’m a subscriber, the value for money is simply ridiculously good.
    - dignick 5y ago
      Same. I struggle to find time to get through each edition, but I don't mind paying the subscription to support quality journalism.
    - khc 5y ago
      Is there something equivalent for the US that people recommend?
    - hermitcrab 5y ago
      I have also recently subscribed to Private Eye - mostly because there is now so little other investigative journalism going on in the UK that I think they deserve some support (the main papers are nearly all owned by billionaire mates of the Conservative Party). It is also quite funny.
      - 5y ago
arethuza 5y ago
Scots law is supposed to require two separate items of evidence to bring a prosecution - doesn't seem to have protected them as there are a number of cases being reviewed in Scotland as well. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-25639645 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-25639645
LatteLazy 5y ago
While I agree more broadly, you cannot expect the Post Office to prove a negative. How would they prove conclusively that the software had no bugs at all under any circumstances? That's a pretty steep QA bill imho.
- jjk166 5y ago
  They don't need to prove that their software has no bugs, but they do need to prove that what their software claims is true.
- throwaway823882 5y ago
  This is the proof that how we write software is inherently wrong, if we allow innocent lives to be destroyed because we don't want to write it differently. Imagine not doing inspections of new building construction because it would be costly.
  - etothepii 5y ago
    The Grenfell inquiry would like to talk to you ...
  - wutbrodo 5y ago
    > This is the proof that how we write software is inherently wrong, if we allow innocent lives to be destroyed because we don't want to write it differently. I think there's a lot of room for writing software better, including expanded source access for public systems and formal verification when critical. But the failure in this case isn't technical, it's legal. It's rational to decide that occasional bugs in a mail software system are acceptable, and not worth the cost of designing a system's development around formal-verification. What's obviously insane is treating such a system as if it's bug-free beyond a reasonable doubt, and ruining innocent people's lives over it. There are a lot of forms of gross incompetence and negligence that we're all fine with because they're so common. Failing to reason about software systems and their pitfalls, or consult with those who are capable of doing so, is an extremely-common and often-dangerous example (cf dumbass Senators grilling Zuckerberg with their 1970s understanding of how technology functions). The blame here lies squarely on the prosecutors, judges, etc who are responsible for these verdicts. They should be ashamed of themselves.
MaxBarraclough 5y ago
You make a solid point. A similar argument applies to closed-source voting machines built by the lowest bidder, something Schneier has written about. https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/04/securing_electi_1.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/04/securing_elec...
avs733 5y ago
Or breathalyzer convictions in the us...where charges are often dismissed if a subpoena for the code is granted
- quacked 5y ago
  Do you have a source for that? I'd believe it immediately, but I'd like to be able to spread it around.
  - fitblipper 5y ago
    Me to! Please share. :)
  - avs733 5y ago
    I remember reading a fairly in depth article that I cannot find...but some sources I'm able to ID at the moment that discuss the issue: https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2009/05/11/breathalyzer-source-code-secrecy-endangers-minnesota-drunk-driving-convictions/ https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2009/05/11/breathalyzer-source... https://lawreader.com/?p=12801 https://lawreader.com/?p=12801 https://www.tradesecretslaw.com/2008/02/articles/practice-procedure/kentucky-court-of-appeals-reverses-granting-of-motion-to-quash-subpoena-for-computer-source-code-for-breathalyzer-device/ https://www.tradesecretslaw.com/2008/02/articles/practice-pr... https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/05/buggy-breathalyzer-code-reflects-importance-of-source-review/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/05/buggy-breathalyz...
    - deepspace 5y ago
      The most comprehensive article I have been able to find is this one: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/03/business/drunk-driving-breathalyzer.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/03/business/drunk-driving-br... (needs login).
jonplackett 5y ago
These people need to be paid massive compensation for having their lives ruined, paid for by whoever did such a bad job on this system.
- arethuza 5y ago
  It's far worse than just having bugs - they knew there were bugs and covered it up even when they knew what impact it was having. That's the bit I find genuinely shocking.
  - Mauricebranagh 5y ago
    Unfortunately (As a sort of insider X BT ) the Postal side always had much worse employee relations. Part of which was caused the very "antagonistic" IB or SD like the US postal Inspectors. There was a bit guilty by suspicion tendency that went on and I suspect some of this culture was embedded in the organisation. Certainly having yourself or your staff investigated by SD was considered very stressful even after the "bad old days"
    - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
      no idea what those acronyms mean. X BT? IB? SD? WTF?
      - skissane 5y ago
        X = ex-, as in formerly BT = British Telecom. British telco, which used to be part of the government-owned Post Office, but was separated from it in 1981 and then privatised in 1984. The delivery services part of the Post Office (Royal Mail) was separately privatised in 2013; but the retail post office business (Post Office Ltd) remains under full government ownership, albeit most of the individual post offices are privately run by franchisees – and it was these franchisees who were being prosecuted IB = Investigation Branch – https://www.postalmuseum.org/blog/the-post-office-investigation-branch/ https://www.postalmuseum.org/blog/the-post-office-investigat... SD = Security Division
temporama1 5y ago
Any independent review would inevitably be done by the same type of "expert" that wrote the software in the first place. No doubt it's some sprawling, insane Java monstrosity Manhattan project or suchlike. "Yeah - 10,000 classes - completely fine and not crazy at all."
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  Surely that contradicts the meaning of independant
- ghufran_syed 5y ago
  doesn’t each side call it’s own expert witnesses? and cross-examine the other sides expert witnesses? Doesn’t seem like it would be hard for the defense’s expert witness to show the possibility of bugs?
hermitcrab 5y ago
Some of these postmasters died before being able to clear their names. It is a huge miscarriage of justice and a national disgrace. I don't suppose any of the guilty parties will be punished though.
easytiger 5y ago
Fully agree with this, it is incomprehensible to me that these convictions required basically the say so of a government owned entity to convict people in private prosecutions (not done by the CPS)

robk 5y ago

Computer said so and they blindly followed. Offshoring victims :(

dd82 5y ago
same with facial recognition. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/technology/facial-recognition-arrest.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/technology/facial-recogni...
- lupire 5y ago
  An arrest based on (mechanical) eye witness evidence is not the same thing as a conviction, at all. The security photo is directly viewable by the police and the accused.

lbriner 5y ago

Unfortunately, that sounds straight-forward but isn't: Q) Did you or any of the people you got to examine the software found any way that what the defendents said was true? A) No Q) Then you are guilty beyond reasonable doubt. I think the bigger issue here is around the power that a large organisation wields to duck and dive and use corporate tricks to manipulate how it played out. For example, the fact that so many people had been accused could have been analyzed if it was known e.g. Last year 5 convictions, this year, 700!

jjk166 5y ago
No, that's still presumption of guilt. If you're going to convict someone of stealing £59,000, the very first thing you should have to show is that £59,000 actually got stolen. If there is reasonable doubt that the crime took place, no one can be guilty beyond that reasonable doubt. If the defendant claims the computer system got it wrong, it's not enough to say you are unaware of bugs, the prosecution should have to show that the computer's output was consistent with the results of doing the calculation by another method.
- arethuza 5y ago
  Not only that £59,000 was actually stolen but that the accused received the money. There was no evidence that the post masters charged ever had the money in their possession!
  - lbriner 5y ago
    What you are both arguing doesn't match up with the facts. It was proved beyond reasonable doubt multiple times. The "proof", (which we now know was flawed) was that the system had shown that what they had sold didn't tally with what was sent to the Post Office, to refute that proof, the defence have to show another plausible explanation. Yes, if they could have proved they also received what was stolen, that would have been a slam dunk but there are enough plausible reasons why they can't find the money. Maybe it was given to friends and family as cash, maybe it was used to gamble or to pay off some criminal. It isn't much different than somebody saying, "you did it because we found your DNA". The Courts or Jury are inclined to believe it because "science" and if the defence are not on their game enough to show how "because DNA" is not always watertight, the defendent is seen as guilty beyond reasonbale doubt.
    - c3534l 5y ago
      > but there are enough plausible reasons why they can't find the money There is a strange presumption in here. It is true that lack of evidence doesn't always means there's evidence that there was no crime. But that shouldn't matter. A crime should only be prosecutable if it is demonstrable. We shouldn't say "oh, well the prosecution had a really hard case, we should just convict this person anyway because it wasn't fair to those lawyers." That's such a perverse way of reasoning about it.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

dignick 5y ago

As the post office is such an old organisation (350 years), it used to have its own armed guard, has its own investigations branch and conducts its own prosecutions. The police wouldn't get involved because the post office was considered to have jurisdiction. Taken from this, which is a great listen: https://soundcloud.com/privateeyenews/page-94-the-private-eye-podcast-going-postal https://soundcloud.com/privateeyenews/page-94-the-private-ey...

Roonerelli 5y ago
Really great work by Private Eye. They did all the investigation and broke the story. None of the big news outlets were on it at all
- toyg 5y ago
  On internal UK news, there is nothing as good as Private Eye. Every two weeks they publish more “hard” material than newspapers do in a month. I’m a subscriber, the value for money is simply ridiculously good.
  - dignick 5y ago
    Same. I struggle to find time to get through each edition, but I don't mind paying the subscription to support quality journalism.
  - khc 5y ago
    Is there something equivalent for the US that people recommend?
  - hermitcrab 5y ago
    I have also recently subscribed to Private Eye - mostly because there is now so little other investigative journalism going on in the UK that I think they deserve some support (the main papers are nearly all owned by billionaire mates of the Conservative Party). It is also quite funny.
    - 5y ago

arethuza 5y ago

Scots law is supposed to require two separate items of evidence to bring a prosecution - doesn't seem to have protected them as there are a number of cases being reviewed in Scotland as well. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-25639645 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-25639645

LatteLazy 5y ago

While I agree more broadly, you cannot expect the Post Office to prove a negative. How would they prove conclusively that the software had no bugs at all under any circumstances? That's a pretty steep QA bill imho.

jjk166 5y ago
They don't need to prove that their software has no bugs, but they do need to prove that what their software claims is true.
throwaway823882 5y ago
This is the proof that how we write software is inherently wrong, if we allow innocent lives to be destroyed because we don't want to write it differently. Imagine not doing inspections of new building construction because it would be costly.
- etothepii 5y ago
  The Grenfell inquiry would like to talk to you ...
- wutbrodo 5y ago
  > This is the proof that how we write software is inherently wrong, if we allow innocent lives to be destroyed because we don't want to write it differently. I think there's a lot of room for writing software better, including expanded source access for public systems and formal verification when critical. But the failure in this case isn't technical, it's legal. It's rational to decide that occasional bugs in a mail software system are acceptable, and not worth the cost of designing a system's development around formal-verification. What's obviously insane is treating such a system as if it's bug-free beyond a reasonable doubt, and ruining innocent people's lives over it. There are a lot of forms of gross incompetence and negligence that we're all fine with because they're so common. Failing to reason about software systems and their pitfalls, or consult with those who are capable of doing so, is an extremely-common and often-dangerous example (cf dumbass Senators grilling Zuckerberg with their 1970s understanding of how technology functions). The blame here lies squarely on the prosecutors, judges, etc who are responsible for these verdicts. They should be ashamed of themselves.

MaxBarraclough 5y ago

You make a solid point. A similar argument applies to closed-source voting machines built by the lowest bidder, something Schneier has written about. https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/04/securing_electi_1.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/04/securing_elec...

avs733 5y ago

Or breathalyzer convictions in the us...where charges are often dismissed if a subpoena for the code is granted

quacked 5y ago
Do you have a source for that? I'd believe it immediately, but I'd like to be able to spread it around.
- fitblipper 5y ago
  Me to! Please share. :)
- avs733 5y ago
  I remember reading a fairly in depth article that I cannot find...but some sources I'm able to ID at the moment that discuss the issue: https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2009/05/11/breathalyzer-source-code-secrecy-endangers-minnesota-drunk-driving-convictions/ https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2009/05/11/breathalyzer-source... https://lawreader.com/?p=12801 https://lawreader.com/?p=12801 https://www.tradesecretslaw.com/2008/02/articles/practice-procedure/kentucky-court-of-appeals-reverses-granting-of-motion-to-quash-subpoena-for-computer-source-code-for-breathalyzer-device/ https://www.tradesecretslaw.com/2008/02/articles/practice-pr... https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/05/buggy-breathalyzer-code-reflects-importance-of-source-review/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/05/buggy-breathalyz...
  - deepspace 5y ago
    The most comprehensive article I have been able to find is this one: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/03/business/drunk-driving-breathalyzer.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/03/business/drunk-driving-br... (needs login).

jonplackett 5y ago

These people need to be paid massive compensation for having their lives ruined, paid for by whoever did such a bad job on this system.

arethuza 5y ago
It's far worse than just having bugs - they knew there were bugs and covered it up even when they knew what impact it was having. That's the bit I find genuinely shocking.
- Mauricebranagh 5y ago
  Unfortunately (As a sort of insider X BT ) the Postal side always had much worse employee relations. Part of which was caused the very "antagonistic" IB or SD like the US postal Inspectors. There was a bit guilty by suspicion tendency that went on and I suspect some of this culture was embedded in the organisation. Certainly having yourself or your staff investigated by SD was considered very stressful even after the "bad old days"
  - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
    no idea what those acronyms mean. X BT? IB? SD? WTF?
    - skissane 5y ago
      X = ex-, as in formerly BT = British Telecom. British telco, which used to be part of the government-owned Post Office, but was separated from it in 1981 and then privatised in 1984. The delivery services part of the Post Office (Royal Mail) was separately privatised in 2013; but the retail post office business (Post Office Ltd) remains under full government ownership, albeit most of the individual post offices are privately run by franchisees – and it was these franchisees who were being prosecuted IB = Investigation Branch – https://www.postalmuseum.org/blog/the-post-office-investigation-branch/ https://www.postalmuseum.org/blog/the-post-office-investigat... SD = Security Division

temporama1 5y ago

Any independent review would inevitably be done by the same type of "expert" that wrote the software in the first place. No doubt it's some sprawling, insane Java monstrosity Manhattan project or suchlike. "Yeah - 10,000 classes - completely fine and not crazy at all."

ClumsyPilot 5y ago
Surely that contradicts the meaning of independant
ghufran_syed 5y ago
doesn’t each side call it’s own expert witnesses? and cross-examine the other sides expert witnesses? Doesn’t seem like it would be hard for the defense’s expert witness to show the possibility of bugs?

hermitcrab 5y ago

Some of these postmasters died before being able to clear their names. It is a huge miscarriage of justice and a national disgrace. I don't suppose any of the guilty parties will be punished though.

easytiger 5y ago

Fully agree with this, it is incomprehensible to me that these convictions required basically the say so of a government owned entity to convict people in private prosecutions (not done by the CPS)