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'Technical glitch' in payroll software sparks riots in Papua New Guinea

34 points by mikece 3y ago

gumballindie 3y ago
Most likely they were using AI programmers. As we keep hearing programmers are already being replaced by prose generators.
aaron695 3y ago
[dead]
spondylosaurus 3y ago
Makes me think back to this great blog post from last year: Software Bugs That Cause Real-World Harm (https://pointersgonewild.com/2023/05/29/software-bugs-that-cause-real-world-harm/ https://pointersgonewild.com/2023/05/29/software-bugs-that-c...)
ahazred8ta 3y ago
200 Police storm parliament: https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/506405/papua-new-guinea-s-security-personnel-storm-parliament https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/506405/papu... 15 dead https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thenews.com.pk/amp/1146772-at-least-15-dead-as-riots-break-out-in-papua-new-guinea https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thenews.com.pk/amp/1146772-...
hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
FWIW, after reading some other articles on the riots (easy to Google for), it's not clear to me the situation is as cut and dry as The Register article is making it out to be. That is, while the government is definitely blaming the initial docking of pay on "a technical glitch", the security services are basically saying this was a deliberate docking of pay. I have no idea what really happened, but I do think that calling this a mere "technical glitch" seems pretty unlikely. The paychecks went out all over the entire country, and in many cases people's paychecks were half what they expected. I have to think somebody would have noticed before all the paychecks went out of it was just a case of "Whoops, the tax rate automatically reverted." To be clear, I definitely think it's possible it actually was a clerical error, but it's definitely premature to take the government's explanation at face value.
- richbell 3y ago
  You'd think such obvious payroll issues would be caught, yet there's stuff like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_pay_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_pay_system
  - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
    The issues with the Phoenix payroll system basically prove my point. First, that wasn't a "technical glitch", nor was it really even just a "software problem" - it was a complex project management failure on many levels. But, as your Wikipedia link points out, the problems and failure of the system were well known before the first Phoenix paycheck went out. I'm sure there were tons of government employees who thought "this is totally fucked" well before they went live. So for the PNG government to say "woops, we just sent out everyone's bad paycheck and nobody noticed until we started getting strikes/riots" (and mind you, the technical problem here really was just a "change that single value in that box" problem) strikes me as unlikely.
    - richbell 3y ago
      Yeah. The issue wasn't that nobody knew it was broken, it's that they knew it was broken and rolled it out anyway.

34 points by mikece 3y ago

Most likely they were using AI programmers. As we keep hearing programmers are already being replaced by prose generators.

aaron695 3y ago

[dead]

spondylosaurus 3y ago

Makes me think back to this great blog post from last year: Software Bugs That Cause Real-World Harm (https://pointersgonewild.com/2023/05/29/software-bugs-that-cause-real-world-harm/ https://pointersgonewild.com/2023/05/29/software-bugs-that-c...)

ahazred8ta 3y ago

200 Police storm parliament: https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/506405/papua-new-guinea-s-security-personnel-storm-parliament https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/506405/papu... 15 dead https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thenews.com.pk/amp/1146772-at-least-15-dead-as-riots-break-out-in-papua-new-guinea https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thenews.com.pk/amp/1146772-...

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago

FWIW, after reading some other articles on the riots (easy to Google for), it's not clear to me the situation is as cut and dry as The Register article is making it out to be. That is, while the government is definitely blaming the initial docking of pay on "a technical glitch", the security services are basically saying this was a deliberate docking of pay. I have no idea what really happened, but I do think that calling this a mere "technical glitch" seems pretty unlikely. The paychecks went out all over the entire country, and in many cases people's paychecks were half what they expected. I have to think somebody would have noticed before all the paychecks went out of it was just a case of "Whoops, the tax rate automatically reverted." To be clear, I definitely think it's possible it actually was a clerical error, but it's definitely premature to take the government's explanation at face value.

richbell 3y ago
You'd think such obvious payroll issues would be caught, yet there's stuff like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_pay_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_pay_system
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  The issues with the Phoenix payroll system basically prove my point. First, that wasn't a "technical glitch", nor was it really even just a "software problem" - it was a complex project management failure on many levels. But, as your Wikipedia link points out, the problems and failure of the system were well known before the first Phoenix paycheck went out. I'm sure there were tons of government employees who thought "this is totally fucked" well before they went live. So for the PNG government to say "woops, we just sent out everyone's bad paycheck and nobody noticed until we started getting strikes/riots" (and mind you, the technical problem here really was just a "change that single value in that box" problem) strikes me as unlikely.
  - richbell 3y ago
    Yeah. The issue wasn't that nobody knew it was broken, it's that they knew it was broken and rolled it out anyway.