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This case is one I've been watching for a while. It's astonishing. No money ever went missing. It merely _seemed_ to have, and that was the entire foundation f

This case is one I've been watching for a while. It's astonishing. No money ever went missing. It merely _seemed_ to have, and that was the entire foundation for what happened. Fujitsu should take no blame at all. Their software is crap. But so is everyone's. That's software. We know and accept that in the industry. > The inquiry will look at whether the Post Office knew about faults in the IT system It did, because hundreds of users reported them. It chose to attack those users and bullheadedly believe that the system could not be wrong. Once their position was entrenched it became about "How dare mere mortals challenge technology?" It led to a staggering spectacle of bullying (through relentless legal threats, stone-walling, harassment, and wrongful prosecution) that caused many of the victims to suffer severe health effects or contemplate suicide. > our first priority is that full, fair and final compensation is provided Rubbish. This is about more than compensation. There is no _final_ to this. It needs dragging out into the sunlight. Sure, people lost their livelihoods, marriages, homes and years of their lives over this. Deep pockets might cover it. But if mere compensation is allowed to cover-up this episode a travesty will have occurred. The issue is about fundamental changes we need to make around our relation to technology that allows grave errors made by weak-minded people to hide behind it. As we put ever more trust in digital forensics, telemetry, algorithmic policing, face-recognition, automated fraud detection and so on, more innocent people will have their lives ruined because we are falling into abject snivelling surrender before technology, far beyond anything Ellul, Mumford, Freud or Weber foresaw. This speaks to a fundamental error in _how_ technology is being used. > lessons are learned so that such events can never happen again Sadly, they will happen again and again and again, I think.

gm3dmo 5y ago
> Sadly, they will happen again and again and again, I think. The principles that the Government Digital Service tried to instill/make departments adopt should prevent that I think that kind of behaviour was endemic among outsourcing companies around that time and they acted with impunity on government contracts. Sky outsourced a contract to EDS. EDS had delivery problems. It all ended in court: https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/guides/bskyb-v-eds https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/guides/bskyb-v-eds What won it for Sky seemed to be the fundamental dishonesty of a single individual at EDS who claimed they had worked on an MBA that anybody could buy via an "internet university". The Sky lawyer bought a degree for the dog named Rover. The could have gotten away with incompetence but when the liar doubled down on lying that was the end.
unfocussed_mike 5y ago
> Fujitsu should take no blame at all. Their software is crap. But so is everyone's. That's software. We know and accept that in the industry. Really!? Let's see what the inquiry brings up, shall we?
- nerdawson 5y ago
  If Fujitsu knew about the fault internally and failed to notify the Post Office, they are to blame too. Whether they notified the Post Office or not though, the Post Office certainly knew. They not only shared emails about the problem within the organisation, they engaged in a cover up. There’s a good BBC Panorama documentary on the scandal that was released more than a year ago.
  - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
    I'm familiar with the case; it's obvious that the Post Office knew. And the issue is not just that the Post Office knew, but that they were also in charge of the prosecutions. Private prosecution itself is on trial here, IMO (IANAL but this opinion would not be unusual among lawyers from what I have read) Edit to add link: https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252485328/MPs-to-examine-fairness-of-private-prosecutions-in-light-of-Post-Office-IT-scandal https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252485328/MPs-to-examine...
    - JetSetWilly 5y ago
      In Scotland the Royal Mail could not do private prosecutions and instead only did prosecutions via the regular public bodies - the procuratoer fiscal. So if the private prosecutions were themselves an aggravating factor, we'd surely expect to see a significantly lower rate of prosecutions in Scotland than in England? And the same goes for Northern Ireland The data that I can see shows that 76 subpostmasters were prosecuted in Scotland which doesn't seem completely wacky out of line with the rest of the UK.
      - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
jaclaz 5y ago
That should be made compulsory as a reminder in the start screen of any computer/smartphone, etc.: Remember that software is crap. I would add that - particularly when money, or people's lives or reputations - are at risk, the "sensibility" of developers, assistance, etc. should be much higher than it is common today, besides the developers (that still largely insist to believe that their algorithms and implementation are perfect) there is the whole chain of people below that - when confronted with a bug/issue/inconsistency - still instinctively believe that the computer/program/app is right and that the human (customer/operator/etc.) is at fault. The solution to failing/failed technology (which is anyway right/correct - say - 99% of the times) is to make the friction needed to solve the remaining 1% edge cases/bugs/etc. simpler via human intervention through a documented, transparent and fair process. Before or later this 99% will (hopefully) go up to 99.99% but still the procedures to correct errors will be needed for the 0.01%. To give a practical example, not completely unrelated, I recently had a look on the various "online bank cards" (like - only as examples - Revolut, N26, Monzo) on TrustPilot, and found that they have extremely poor customer satisfaction ratings, clearly due almost exclusively to people that for one reason or the other had one of these rare cases and support/assistance was not capable to solve problems or to solve them in a timely fashion. Even if you look at the various complaints here and there on Hacker News about (say) Apple, Google (and their app stores), Facebook, etc. they mostly revolve (besides the privacy/monopoly related ones) to the total lack of assistance/support and/or the total lack of transparency in the (sometimes with relevant consequences) decisions they make.
Glawen 5y ago
>Fujitsu should take no blame at all. Their software is crap. But so is everyone's. That's software. We know and accept that in the industry. Why? It's ok that 737 max crashed? Fujitsu should have taken appropriate measures to minimize errors, people lives got screwed because of lazy developers. I dislike the complacency in tech about bugs and bad quality because 99% of software have no impact on people, until it doesn't...
- n4r9 5y ago
  > because of lazy developers Why would you assume it's the fault of the developers? For all you know they could have been lumped with a 2 month deadline for a 2 year task, no push back, and just did the best they could.
  - brigandish 5y ago
    Not saying no when you should say no is a form of laziness known as cowardice.
    - stronglikedan 5y ago
      You can say no all you want, but it doesn't matter when your "no" gets overridden by your manager's "yes". You can even quit over it, but there's a whole line of people waiting to replace you (yes, everyone, even you, is replaceable). Lazy developers have nothing on greedy managers.
      - brigandish 5y ago
        What does there being others who will do a bad thing have to do with whether I do something bad or not? Is there an opportunity cost to refusing to enact or participate in criminal or immoral acts? Should I do something like that simply because I am potentially fungible? I can't understand that logic. Personally, I would and I have said no to work I find immoral. I was also fired, on the spot, for saying no to something that was illegal. The company then threatened to sue me. I threatened to sue them back and they backed down, and I found another job within days that paid more because, like most people in tech, I'm in demand. That company is now dead. We can all afford to be more choosy.
michaelt 5y ago
> Fujitsu should take no blame at all. Their software is crap. But so is everyone's. That's software. We know and accept that in the industry. Eh, it's one thing if a PC game lets you fall out the world. Such bugs are low-stakes, thorough checks aren't possible for performance reasons, and nobody denies that bugs are widespread. But for an accounting system to lose track of money? Which is extremely high-stakes? And they've got more than enough time to use things like SQL databases with transactions and constraints? And they ended up telling the courts they were certain enough about the system to jail people based on it? Our standards aren't that low.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- donmcronald 5y ago
  > And they ended up telling the courts they were certain enough about the system to jail people based on it? I think that should open them up to unlimited liability. How hard would it have been for them to audit a single problem site to find out their software was trash?
- rocqua 5y ago
  > They ended up telling the courts they were certain enough about the system to jail people based on it? Is that actually something people from Fujitsu testified to in open court? I could not find that in the original article, so I presume you have a different source? I would be interested in that source! Edit: lower down I found this article that might be your source? https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252509066/Fujitsu-escaped-huge-lawsuit-because-Post-Office-behaved-so-badly-in-Horizon-scandal https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252509066/Fujitsu-escape...
  - jamespo 5y ago
    Private Eye has done a lot of reporting of this over the years, but they are still mainly offline.
    - 5y ago
mhh__ 5y ago
You can do good enterprise software, but it isn't free. That's the issue. If you're prepared to pay for a solution that actually fits your business and you have tight coupling of good software developers and intelligent people who will be using it you can get good results, but people either want something for nothing (won't pay for it) or are mentally incapable of constraining what they want. Some firms simply do not have the staff nor culture to do things well, unfortunately.
- jayelbe 5y ago
  They spent £1bn on Horizon, this isn't a case of not spending enough money. You might be onto something re:business fit - the system was designed to process benefits payments and, when the Post Office lost this work, was repurposed into an all-functioning EPOS (which it wasn't originally designed for). I get the distinct impression that, from the offset, the Post Office might have been more concerned with saving face and justifying the amount spent on the system, and this lead to a culture where none of the system's flaws (or poor fit) could be properly acknowledged or addressed.
jdbernard 5y ago
If we in the industry have truly accepted that software is unavoidably crap, then we in the industry must also accept that it cannot be used is some contexts, like providing evidence in trials that may lead to incarceration. And we in the industry should say this loudly enough to convince the rest of society, or have enough of a backbone to refuse to build such software. Personally, I disagree that software is unavoidably crap and I feel like I as a professional have an ethical obligation to oppose the release of software until it meets the standard, or go public in cases where my company is trying to cover up a flaw with this kind of impact.
joefife 5y ago
Contemplate suicide? Four post masters actually did it - https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/post-office-scandal-worker-suicide-wrongly-accused-stealing-b931504.html https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/post-office-scandal-worke...
hdlothia 5y ago
Hopefully the cryptocurrency folks don't win because a code is final law world sounds horrible
coding123 5y ago
I am a programmer but I'm not sure this is defended enough: > Fujitsu should take no blame at all. Their software is crap. But so is everyone's. That's software. We know and accept that in the industry. Here's the problem at the end of your post you said this: > Sadly, they will happen again and again and again, I think. So if Jailing people is supposed to stop (deter) others from murdering people, then why does it not follow that jailing programmers does not deter them from making coding errors. We are, after all, paid more than ANYONE else in the world for trade work. Should we just start letting the murderers go?
noneeeed 5y ago
I've been following this too, and I seem to remember that at least some people at Fujitsu took the strong stance that their software was not, and could not be at fault in these cases. I believe their assertions were part of why these cases were able to get so far. While the PO definitely takes a lot of the blame (arguably the majority), if people at Fujitsu were claiming perfection when they should know better, especially if that formed part of the prosecution case, then they too deserve to be thoroughly investigated. There is plenty of blame to go around in this case. It's a shocking, and tragic misscarriage that has ruined thousands of lives. Unfortunately I will be shocked if those responsible see anything remotely close to the kind of strong justice and significant punishment they so clearly deserve. This will be one of those cases like that of Jean Charles de Menezes, where the collective spreads the blame thinly enough that somehow no one is held responsible. I hope I'm proved wrong.

gm3dmo 5y ago

> Sadly, they will happen again and again and again, I think. The principles that the Government Digital Service tried to instill/make departments adopt should prevent that I think that kind of behaviour was endemic among outsourcing companies around that time and they acted with impunity on government contracts. Sky outsourced a contract to EDS. EDS had delivery problems. It all ended in court: https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/guides/bskyb-v-eds https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/guides/bskyb-v-eds What won it for Sky seemed to be the fundamental dishonesty of a single individual at EDS who claimed they had worked on an MBA that anybody could buy via an "internet university". The Sky lawyer bought a degree for the dog named Rover. The could have gotten away with incompetence but when the liar doubled down on lying that was the end.

unfocussed_mike 5y ago

> Fujitsu should take no blame at all. Their software is crap. But so is everyone's. That's software. We know and accept that in the industry. Really!? Let's see what the inquiry brings up, shall we?

nerdawson 5y ago
If Fujitsu knew about the fault internally and failed to notify the Post Office, they are to blame too. Whether they notified the Post Office or not though, the Post Office certainly knew. They not only shared emails about the problem within the organisation, they engaged in a cover up. There’s a good BBC Panorama documentary on the scandal that was released more than a year ago.
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  I'm familiar with the case; it's obvious that the Post Office knew. And the issue is not just that the Post Office knew, but that they were also in charge of the prosecutions. Private prosecution itself is on trial here, IMO (IANAL but this opinion would not be unusual among lawyers from what I have read) Edit to add link: https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252485328/MPs-to-examine-fairness-of-private-prosecutions-in-light-of-Post-Office-IT-scandal https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252485328/MPs-to-examine...
  - JetSetWilly 5y ago
    In Scotland the Royal Mail could not do private prosecutions and instead only did prosecutions via the regular public bodies - the procuratoer fiscal. So if the private prosecutions were themselves an aggravating factor, we'd surely expect to see a significantly lower rate of prosecutions in Scotland than in England? And the same goes for Northern Ireland The data that I can see shows that 76 subpostmasters were prosecuted in Scotland which doesn't seem completely wacky out of line with the rest of the UK.
    - unfocussed_mike 5y ago

jaclaz 5y ago

That should be made compulsory as a reminder in the start screen of any computer/smartphone, etc.: Remember that software is crap. I would add that - particularly when money, or people's lives or reputations - are at risk, the "sensibility" of developers, assistance, etc. should be much higher than it is common today, besides the developers (that still largely insist to believe that their algorithms and implementation are perfect) there is the whole chain of people below that - when confronted with a bug/issue/inconsistency - still instinctively believe that the computer/program/app is right and that the human (customer/operator/etc.) is at fault. The solution to failing/failed technology (which is anyway right/correct - say - 99% of the times) is to make the friction needed to solve the remaining 1% edge cases/bugs/etc. simpler via human intervention through a documented, transparent and fair process. Before or later this 99% will (hopefully) go up to 99.99% but still the procedures to correct errors will be needed for the 0.01%. To give a practical example, not completely unrelated, I recently had a look on the various "online bank cards" (like - only as examples - Revolut, N26, Monzo) on TrustPilot, and found that they have extremely poor customer satisfaction ratings, clearly due almost exclusively to people that for one reason or the other had one of these rare cases and support/assistance was not capable to solve problems or to solve them in a timely fashion. Even if you look at the various complaints here and there on Hacker News about (say) Apple, Google (and their app stores), Facebook, etc. they mostly revolve (besides the privacy/monopoly related ones) to the total lack of assistance/support and/or the total lack of transparency in the (sometimes with relevant consequences) decisions they make.

Glawen 5y ago

>Fujitsu should take no blame at all. Their software is crap. But so is everyone's. That's software. We know and accept that in the industry. Why? It's ok that 737 max crashed? Fujitsu should have taken appropriate measures to minimize errors, people lives got screwed because of lazy developers. I dislike the complacency in tech about bugs and bad quality because 99% of software have no impact on people, until it doesn't...

n4r9 5y ago
> because of lazy developers Why would you assume it's the fault of the developers? For all you know they could have been lumped with a 2 month deadline for a 2 year task, no push back, and just did the best they could.
- brigandish 5y ago
  Not saying no when you should say no is a form of laziness known as cowardice.
  - stronglikedan 5y ago
    You can say no all you want, but it doesn't matter when your "no" gets overridden by your manager's "yes". You can even quit over it, but there's a whole line of people waiting to replace you (yes, everyone, even you, is replaceable). Lazy developers have nothing on greedy managers.
    - brigandish 5y ago
      What does there being others who will do a bad thing have to do with whether I do something bad or not? Is there an opportunity cost to refusing to enact or participate in criminal or immoral acts? Should I do something like that simply because I am potentially fungible? I can't understand that logic. Personally, I would and I have said no to work I find immoral. I was also fired, on the spot, for saying no to something that was illegal. The company then threatened to sue me. I threatened to sue them back and they backed down, and I found another job within days that paid more because, like most people in tech, I'm in demand. That company is now dead. We can all afford to be more choosy.

michaelt 5y ago

> Fujitsu should take no blame at all. Their software is crap. But so is everyone's. That's software. We know and accept that in the industry. Eh, it's one thing if a PC game lets you fall out the world. Such bugs are low-stakes, thorough checks aren't possible for performance reasons, and nobody denies that bugs are widespread. But for an accounting system to lose track of money? Which is extremely high-stakes? And they've got more than enough time to use things like SQL databases with transactions and constraints? And they ended up telling the courts they were certain enough about the system to jail people based on it? Our standards aren't that low.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
donmcronald 5y ago
> And they ended up telling the courts they were certain enough about the system to jail people based on it? I think that should open them up to unlimited liability. How hard would it have been for them to audit a single problem site to find out their software was trash?
rocqua 5y ago
> They ended up telling the courts they were certain enough about the system to jail people based on it? Is that actually something people from Fujitsu testified to in open court? I could not find that in the original article, so I presume you have a different source? I would be interested in that source! Edit: lower down I found this article that might be your source? https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252509066/Fujitsu-escaped-huge-lawsuit-because-Post-Office-behaved-so-badly-in-Horizon-scandal https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252509066/Fujitsu-escape...
- jamespo 5y ago
  Private Eye has done a lot of reporting of this over the years, but they are still mainly offline.
  - 5y ago

mhh__ 5y ago

You can do good enterprise software, but it isn't free. That's the issue. If you're prepared to pay for a solution that actually fits your business and you have tight coupling of good software developers and intelligent people who will be using it you can get good results, but people either want something for nothing (won't pay for it) or are mentally incapable of constraining what they want. Some firms simply do not have the staff nor culture to do things well, unfortunately.

jayelbe 5y ago
They spent £1bn on Horizon, this isn't a case of not spending enough money. You might be onto something re:business fit - the system was designed to process benefits payments and, when the Post Office lost this work, was repurposed into an all-functioning EPOS (which it wasn't originally designed for). I get the distinct impression that, from the offset, the Post Office might have been more concerned with saving face and justifying the amount spent on the system, and this lead to a culture where none of the system's flaws (or poor fit) could be properly acknowledged or addressed.

jdbernard 5y ago

If we in the industry have truly accepted that software is unavoidably crap, then we in the industry must also accept that it cannot be used is some contexts, like providing evidence in trials that may lead to incarceration. And we in the industry should say this loudly enough to convince the rest of society, or have enough of a backbone to refuse to build such software. Personally, I disagree that software is unavoidably crap and I feel like I as a professional have an ethical obligation to oppose the release of software until it meets the standard, or go public in cases where my company is trying to cover up a flaw with this kind of impact.

joefife 5y ago

Contemplate suicide? Four post masters actually did it - https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/post-office-scandal-worker-suicide-wrongly-accused-stealing-b931504.html https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/post-office-scandal-worke...

hdlothia 5y ago

Hopefully the cryptocurrency folks don't win because a code is final law world sounds horrible

coding123 5y ago

I am a programmer but I'm not sure this is defended enough: > Fujitsu should take no blame at all. Their software is crap. But so is everyone's. That's software. We know and accept that in the industry. Here's the problem at the end of your post you said this: > Sadly, they will happen again and again and again, I think. So if Jailing people is supposed to stop (deter) others from murdering people, then why does it not follow that jailing programmers does not deter them from making coding errors. We are, after all, paid more than ANYONE else in the world for trade work. Should we just start letting the murderers go?

noneeeed 5y ago

I've been following this too, and I seem to remember that at least some people at Fujitsu took the strong stance that their software was not, and could not be at fault in these cases. I believe their assertions were part of why these cases were able to get so far. While the PO definitely takes a lot of the blame (arguably the majority), if people at Fujitsu were claiming perfection when they should know better, especially if that formed part of the prosecution case, then they too deserve to be thoroughly investigated. There is plenty of blame to go around in this case. It's a shocking, and tragic misscarriage that has ruined thousands of lives. Unfortunately I will be shocked if those responsible see anything remotely close to the kind of strong justice and significant punishment they so clearly deserve. This will be one of those cases like that of Jean Charles de Menezes, where the collective spreads the blame thinly enough that somehow no one is held responsible. I hope I'm proved wrong.