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I don't think you (or the sibling comment) got my point. No where am I "excusing" bugs. Civil engineering bugs are indeed a fact of life too, just check the g

by ldarby 5y ago

I don't think you (or the sibling comment) got my point. No where am I "excusing" bugs. Civil engineering bugs are indeed a fact of life too, just check the god damn news. What I'm saying, is that I think where PHK says "nobody sat down and documented precisely what went wrong", I think he is just wrong. The guy in the Computerphile video, Steven Murdoch wrote this article: https://www.benthamsgaze.org/2021/07/15/what-went-wrong-with-horizon-learning-from-the-post-office-trial/ https://www.benthamsgaze.org/2021/07/15/what-went-wrong-with..., which has further details of the bugs, e.g. "There is a window of time between a user printing and cutting-off a report. If another user was to perform a transaction during that window, that transaction may not show on the report." which is from the long and very detailed judgment: https://www.benthamsgaze.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Bates-and-Ors-v-the-Post-Office-Ltd-2019-EWHC-3408-QB.pdf https://www.benthamsgaze.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Bate... The problem that needs investigating here is the miscarriage of justice, apparently the post office was aware of the bugs at the same time as prosecuting people for falling victim to the bugs, in order to save face about their IT decision.

inopinatus 5y ago
A blog post and a judgement focused on the legal issues is nothing, not even close, not even in the same ballpark, as a thorough report from an investigatory board. What PHK is calling for is a couple of orders of magnitude greater in detail and depth. Moreover he specifically denounces any practice of treating technical inquiries as judicial processes. The incentives differ, making that a short path to bad outcomes as people run for cover. Dispassionately recorded findings that inform the whole profession may be useful, and restorative justice has already occurred; punitive justice will be best served as a separate and ultimate proceeding.
- ldarby 5y ago
  Seriously, did you read a different article from https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3475967 https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3475967 ? I have re-read it several times but am not seeing what you apparently are.
  - chrischapman 5y ago
    You're both right - inopinatus and ldarby. It was clearly a miscarriage of justice - hence the lawyers and court case and resignation of the Post Office CEO. But it absolutely needed to be investigated by a dedicated, professional Software Incident Investigation Board. The miscarriage of justice is the truly awful, shameful part of this incident and it all came about because of the 'less than honest' stance of the post office leadership. To be fair to them, they were probably advised to act in this manner by their lawyers. The difference between an aircraft/train/boat/car/oil rig accident and a software incident is that we immediately know that an aircraft/train/boat/car/oil rig accident has happened. Professional investigators are usually on the scene long before the lawyers have had their first cup of coffee. With a software incident, lawyers have wrapped their fingers around everything long before we even know that something has happened. For the incident investigators to do their job properly, it would probably be best to keep all lawyers out of the picture until the investigation is complete. But the chances of that happening are slim. I also agree with PHK about the expense issue. There are so many examples of huge expense to discover the cause of an aircraft accident. Just think of MH370 or AF447 (military submarines were used to try to find both wrecks). Also oil rigs. How about Deep Water Horizon? Huge amounts of money was spent to figure out exactly what happened. Similar sorts of money should be made available to discover the causes of software incidents. It's far too easy for companies to hide a software incident and then hide behind lawyers while blaming others. Bugs should be reviewed and dealt with by a profession independent investigation board, not by lawyers.
    - ldarby 5y ago
      > To be fair to them, they were probably advised to act in this manner by their lawyers. Probably? Don't you think that's something that should be investigated and people held accountable for? Nope, doesn't matter, only the stupid software bugs here need to be investigated. Got it.
ldarby 5y ago
Replying to myself to clarify a couple of things further. I'm not disagreeing with the idea of an IT accident review board, and I agree in general we should focus on eliminating bugs, maybe what PHK means is having even more details of the bugs, i.e. the specific coding mistakes, issues with internal processes in Fujitsu that led to the bugs being released, etc. and a database containing this and other company's mistakes that others can learn from. I just don't think the bugs here are especially interesting compared to bugs in other software of similar complexity. In any other situation it goes like this: customer: hey vendor, this software has bugs vendor: whoops, sorry, here's a fix or even this: customer: hey vendor, this software has bugs, and they're so bad we're suing you (which may have been appropriate in this case if the bugs caused financial loss) not this: customer: hey vendor, this software has bugs, and we've sent our employees to prison because we don't want to admit the bugs exist. vendor: wtf? That's a cultural / judicial problem and I just don't believe the reaction should be to focus on preventing other companies creating similar bugs.

by ldarby 5y ago

inopinatus 5y ago

A blog post and a judgement focused on the legal issues is nothing, not even close, not even in the same ballpark, as a thorough report from an investigatory board. What PHK is calling for is a couple of orders of magnitude greater in detail and depth. Moreover he specifically denounces any practice of treating technical inquiries as judicial processes. The incentives differ, making that a short path to bad outcomes as people run for cover. Dispassionately recorded findings that inform the whole profession may be useful, and restorative justice has already occurred; punitive justice will be best served as a separate and ultimate proceeding.

ldarby 5y ago
Seriously, did you read a different article from https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3475967 https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3475967 ? I have re-read it several times but am not seeing what you apparently are.
- chrischapman 5y ago
  You're both right - inopinatus and ldarby. It was clearly a miscarriage of justice - hence the lawyers and court case and resignation of the Post Office CEO. But it absolutely needed to be investigated by a dedicated, professional Software Incident Investigation Board. The miscarriage of justice is the truly awful, shameful part of this incident and it all came about because of the 'less than honest' stance of the post office leadership. To be fair to them, they were probably advised to act in this manner by their lawyers. The difference between an aircraft/train/boat/car/oil rig accident and a software incident is that we immediately know that an aircraft/train/boat/car/oil rig accident has happened. Professional investigators are usually on the scene long before the lawyers have had their first cup of coffee. With a software incident, lawyers have wrapped their fingers around everything long before we even know that something has happened. For the incident investigators to do their job properly, it would probably be best to keep all lawyers out of the picture until the investigation is complete. But the chances of that happening are slim. I also agree with PHK about the expense issue. There are so many examples of huge expense to discover the cause of an aircraft accident. Just think of MH370 or AF447 (military submarines were used to try to find both wrecks). Also oil rigs. How about Deep Water Horizon? Huge amounts of money was spent to figure out exactly what happened. Similar sorts of money should be made available to discover the causes of software incidents. It's far too easy for companies to hide a software incident and then hide behind lawyers while blaming others. Bugs should be reviewed and dealt with by a profession independent investigation board, not by lawyers.
  - ldarby 5y ago
    > To be fair to them, they were probably advised to act in this manner by their lawyers. Probably? Don't you think that's something that should be investigated and people held accountable for? Nope, doesn't matter, only the stupid software bugs here need to be investigated. Got it.

ldarby 5y ago

Replying to myself to clarify a couple of things further. I'm not disagreeing with the idea of an IT accident review board, and I agree in general we should focus on eliminating bugs, maybe what PHK means is having even more details of the bugs, i.e. the specific coding mistakes, issues with internal processes in Fujitsu that led to the bugs being released, etc. and a database containing this and other company's mistakes that others can learn from. I just don't think the bugs here are especially interesting compared to bugs in other software of similar complexity. In any other situation it goes like this: customer: hey vendor, this software has bugs vendor: whoops, sorry, here's a fix or even this: customer: hey vendor, this software has bugs, and they're so bad we're suing you (which may have been appropriate in this case if the bugs caused financial loss) not this: customer: hey vendor, this software has bugs, and we've sent our employees to prison because we don't want to admit the bugs exist. vendor: wtf? That's a cultural / judicial problem and I just don't believe the reaction should be to focus on preventing other companies creating similar bugs.