6 ms·

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 6y 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 6y 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 6y ago
    no idea what those acronyms mean. X BT? IB? SD? WTF?
    - skissane 6y 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
- jonplackett 6y ago
  Well, whoever was in charge of that is candidate #1 to open their chequebook!
  - andi999 6y ago
    I do not think this is how this works.
    - wizzwizz4 6y ago
      It would be preferable to the way it works, though.
_vertigo 6y ago
It's really not about the bugs. The bugs were unfortunate, but bugs happen. The problem is taking the word of the system at face value and not investigating further even when dozens of people's livelihood and freedom are hanging in the balance. Oh, and also the bit about spending 2 decades covering everything up and trying to clamp down on the investigation rather than admitting you got it wrong, once again at the expense the subpostmasters..
- giantg2 6y ago
  "The problem is taking the word of the system at face value and not investigating further even when dozens of people's livelihood and freedom are hanging in the balance." We do the same thing with breathalyzers in most of the US. No independent people allowed to inspect the system for bugs.
  - deepspace 6y ago
    The breathalyser issue is immensely frustrating. In the few cases where the software has been allowed to be examined, they found egregious bugs. Not to mention that the one-size-fits-all measurement model is inaccurate for people outside a very narrow metabolic range. The trouble is that if you speak up about it, people ask: "why are you defending drunk drivers?" It's like innocent until proven guilty flies out the window.
    - matheusmoreira 6y ago
      All sorts of police field tests have significant rates of false positives. People actually get arrested on the basis of such "evidence" all the time. The justice and law enforcement systems essentially operate on the notion that these things are "good enough".
      - giantg2 6y ago
        I've just recently had a trooper make 4 "mistakes" in court and in official reports. One of which I believe was an outright lie. The system doesn't care. If this were any other witness they would be discredited, but because they are law enforcement, they get a free pass. The agencies won't even handle the complaints correctly or file this information as Guglio data for when future cases request it (if found to be unreliable they can lose thier job). The system actors (law enforcement and judicial) in most states have special privileges in keeping information private - so special in many cases that if a complaint against a judge turns up exculpatory evidence that you have no right to it. The reason they state is to uphold the integrity of, and the public trust in, the system. I would think transparency would do that better. The only way that transparency would hurt those objectives is when wrongdoing is ignored or the punishments are so lenient to offend the public sense of justice. But hey, I'm just a stupid peon, so what do I know.
rgblambda 6y ago
>>paid for by whoever did such a bad job on this system. Blame whoever signed off on the system. Can't fix bugs that aren't reported.

arethuza 6y 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 6y 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 6y ago
  no idea what those acronyms mean. X BT? IB? SD? WTF?
  - skissane 6y 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
jonplackett 6y ago
Well, whoever was in charge of that is candidate #1 to open their chequebook!
- andi999 6y ago
  I do not think this is how this works.
  - wizzwizz4 6y ago
    It would be preferable to the way it works, though.

_vertigo 6y ago

It's really not about the bugs. The bugs were unfortunate, but bugs happen. The problem is taking the word of the system at face value and not investigating further even when dozens of people's livelihood and freedom are hanging in the balance. Oh, and also the bit about spending 2 decades covering everything up and trying to clamp down on the investigation rather than admitting you got it wrong, once again at the expense the subpostmasters..

giantg2 6y ago
"The problem is taking the word of the system at face value and not investigating further even when dozens of people's livelihood and freedom are hanging in the balance." We do the same thing with breathalyzers in most of the US. No independent people allowed to inspect the system for bugs.
- deepspace 6y ago
  The breathalyser issue is immensely frustrating. In the few cases where the software has been allowed to be examined, they found egregious bugs. Not to mention that the one-size-fits-all measurement model is inaccurate for people outside a very narrow metabolic range. The trouble is that if you speak up about it, people ask: "why are you defending drunk drivers?" It's like innocent until proven guilty flies out the window.
  - matheusmoreira 6y ago
    All sorts of police field tests have significant rates of false positives. People actually get arrested on the basis of such "evidence" all the time. The justice and law enforcement systems essentially operate on the notion that these things are "good enough".
    - giantg2 6y ago
      I've just recently had a trooper make 4 "mistakes" in court and in official reports. One of which I believe was an outright lie. The system doesn't care. If this were any other witness they would be discredited, but because they are law enforcement, they get a free pass. The agencies won't even handle the complaints correctly or file this information as Guglio data for when future cases request it (if found to be unreliable they can lose thier job). The system actors (law enforcement and judicial) in most states have special privileges in keeping information private - so special in many cases that if a complaint against a judge turns up exculpatory evidence that you have no right to it. The reason they state is to uphold the integrity of, and the public trust in, the system. I would think transparency would do that better. The only way that transparency would hurt those objectives is when wrongdoing is ignored or the punishments are so lenient to offend the public sense of justice. But hey, I'm just a stupid peon, so what do I know.

rgblambda 6y ago

>>paid for by whoever did such a bad job on this system. Blame whoever signed off on the system. Can't fix bugs that aren't reported.