13 ms·

For those not familiar with recent UK scandals, there has been one ongoing for a few years where there was a bug in a system designed by Fujitsu that was calcul

by Macha 2y ago

For those not familiar with recent UK scandals, there has been one ongoing for a few years where there was a bug in a system designed by Fujitsu that was calculating the finances for post offices. This resulted in the system quoting wrong balances for post offices, and when that didn't match the actual cash in hand, resulted in prosecutions of the postmasters responsible for those offices which in turn led to convictions, dismissals, fines, imprisonments, and suicides over a 15 year period as the computer system was presumed correct. Anyway, it was later proven the computer system was incorrect but the government there dragged their heels on exoneration and compensation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal

Latty 2y ago
A strong recommendation for the excellent "Mr Bates vs The Post Office" to anyone who hasn't followed it, a short (four part) drama about it which is really worth a watch, and a good way to get a rough feel for what went on, and also managed to finally catalyse a real response by the government.
- n4r9 2y ago
  Alan Bates sounds like the epitome of the British "stiff upper lip". Stubbornly standing against overwhelming adversity for years, for the good of his fellow society and his own integrity.
bobnamob 2y ago
> where there was a bug in a system designed by Fujitsu To clarify, there was not _one_ bug, but hundreds. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal#Problems_with_the_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal#Pr... From my read of the information publicly available, there was a fundamental lack of distributed/transactional system understanding from the developers at Fujitsu. This[1] article recently posted here[2] reminded me of the Post Office Scandal. The lack of respect for established CS theory (transactions and distributed systems) and established accounting practices (double entry book keeping or even the idea of a ledger) is mind boggling. [1] https://news.alvaroduran.com/p/engineers-do-not-get-to-make-startup https://news.alvaroduran.com/p/engineers-do-not-get-to-make-... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42269227 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42269227
- movpasd 2y ago
  It seems to me that it's a fundamental failure of software engineering culture. The number one rule for engineering domain applications is to understand the domain. I would blame the perennial neophilia and lack of (or inadequate adoption of/respect for) standardized texts in the industry. Though, to be fair, a lot of this does come down to the rapid changes in the technology. Iterative development is necessary for software, of course, but this should be understood as a necessity due to the medium, not as an excuse for skipping research and design. A lot of these domains (especially something as critical as accounting) should be solved problems.
  - arethuza 2y ago
    From what I can see "software engineering" for the most part isn't really "engineering" in the sense that a PE or CEng would recognise?
    - pjmlp 2y ago
      It is partially on the countries where one cannot just slap engineering on their job title as they feel like. Where signing off contracts does have some implications beyond "it works on my computer".
      - BartjeD 2y ago
        Engineering is a professional activity, a legal title is just a moat, it doesn't mean that it is Engineering, just a protected profession of some sort. In al seriousness, Engineering is about verifying systems to make sure their lifespans and failure modes are known, up front. This has a legal dimension and a practical one. Legally you can make people liable for unreliable systems. But you can also be liable for failure to maintain properly, or failure to warn about impending calamity. Because it's all documented and verified. Practical you can live worry free in earthquake and flooding proof buildings, trusting in the diligence of Engineers, and maintenance workers, because they and others have liability imposed on them. For software this is only the case in a few sectors. For buildings in all cases. Not comparable.
pdpi 2y ago
There were "bugs", yes. There were also fundamental design flaws. One of the things the Post Office did was sell travel money, but the whole system was never really designed for ForEx operations, so it didn't keep track of exchange rates over time. The result is that reconciliation used the exchange rate at time of reconciliation instead of at the time of trade. So, if the foreign currency had gone up in value, it would show up as GBP missing.
- rswail 2y ago
  So they didn't record the rate in the transaction?!? Wow, that's... dumb.
  - pdpi 2y ago
    IIRC they did record the date, yes. What they _didn't_ store was historical exchange rates.
    - rcxdude 2y ago
      Even still, exchange rates aren't a fixed value globally at any given time. You should record the rate with the transaction because the rate could be different from your log of exchange rates for any number of different reasons.
      - pdpi 2y ago
        Disregard that comment. I misread "rate" in GP's comment as "date". Yeah, they just plain didn't record the rate the trade was made at.
  - db48x 2y ago
    A lot of the problems with Horizon are incredibly dumb. Mistakes that anyone with two brain cells to rub together would recognize.
- philipwhiuk 2y ago
  As a developer working on trading platforms, this is horrific. Given the Post Office had a reputation for really good exchange rates, this one design flaw might be responsible for a significant portion of the problem.
ksec 2y ago
I am already consider cynical by many, but reading about the scandal constantly reminds me how naive I am. Just how low can government and politicians get.
- exe34 2y ago
  > Just how low can government and politicians get. As low as it takes for a profit!
  - gorft 2y ago
    Upvoted you because last I checked, Fujitsu is a private entity being run for a profit.
- bowsamic 2y ago
  I actively avoided the news and outrage about this for my own sanity. It was just too shocking. The worst part is that I'd heard about it and got mad about it many years ago, and it wasn't until a TV documentary came out recently that anything happened.
  - bobnamob 2y ago
    Echoing this, I've been passively following the inquiry but haven't watched the miniseries. I think it would leave me furious for weeks and push me into a depression rut. I'm trying to take the whole debacle as long term inspiration to be excellent at what I do - it's tough to stay positive when so many people involved (Fujitsu, PO upper management, the original prosecution) seem entirely morally bereft, with little chance of consequence.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- xenadu02 2y ago
  I guess some people never learn from trying to cover their mistakes as children. I've explained this to my kids: often the initial mistake is minor and warrants nothing more than "please don't do that again". It is the lying and hiding that blow it up into a big issue. The odds of being found out are very high. There is little reward and lots of risk. When you have such a widespread and ongoing problem it becomes clear that such a large proportion of postmasters can't be criminals. Computer bugs are well known. Eventually it is going to come out that the computer is wrong. Why double-down? The earlier you admit a mistake and apologize the lower the impact and the less anyone cares. They had a built-in scapegoat that everyone understands and accepts: the vendor's software had bugs! We have daily meetings to yell at them to fix the bugs we promise and we will fix the problems ASAP. Or do the sneaky thing and fix the issues, stop prosecuting postmasters, and ignore the ones you prosecuted by mistake. Cynical, cruel, and immoral... but contains the damage. Instead the UK Postoffice seems to have just let the problems continue while simultaneously allowing prosecutions to go ahead knowing they were faulty. Literally the worst of all worlds: ongoing accumulation of liability, now with provable malice!
ta1243 2y ago
If the computer had said one postmaster had been wrong, that's one thing. The real scandal here is that there were hundreds, and those at the top knew this, but instead doubled down.
- graemep 2y ago
  If it had only sent one person to jail we would never have know about it. I am pretty sure more dependable systems send the odd person to jail - there have been many cases where someone was lucky not to be convicted.
- arethuza 2y ago
  The bit that I find incredible is that each one of the victims was told that it was just them and it hadn't happened to anyone else....
matteason 2y ago
Also, mind-blowingly (to me at least) - Horizon is still in use, Fujitsu are still being given hundreds of millions of pounds to support it, and its replacement isn't due to go live until 2030 https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366587174/Fujitsu-set-for-further-180m-deal-as-Post-Office-Horizon-replacement-delayed https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366587174/Fujitsu-set-fo...
jonplackett 2y ago
Dragging heels is a bit of an understatement. Both the gov and Fujitsu and the post office absolutely knew it was a bug and intentionally hid the fact while the post masters lives were ruined. However bad the bug was, the cover up was _much_ worse.
- ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
  To be fair, the government were lied to by the Post Office people about whether or not there were bugs. They also lied about whether Fujitsu had the ability to amend the ledgers even though Fujitsu had a team working to correct some of the inaccuracies.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
thehappyfellow 2y ago
Buggy software is important aspect of the story but to me it’s not the main one. The main one is that the post office management/officials at some point became aware of the bugs and that they were ruining lives of innocent people and they knowingly kept lying to save their asses. The inquiry page has all of this and more: https://www.postofficehorizoninquiry.org.uk/about-inquiry https://www.postofficehorizoninquiry.org.uk/about-inquiry I’ve read through it, it’s long but it’s a good (while terrifying) read.
- thehappyfellow 2y ago
  I’m sorry I don’t have a summary but the judgment is also enlightening: https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/bates-v-post-office-judgment.pdf https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/bates-v-... And wiki has rest it the judgments: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bates_%26_Others_v_Post_Office_Ltd https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bates_%26_Others_v_Post_Offi... I have a lot of respect for the judge after reading this. Here’s a quote describing Post Office evidence: “bare assertions and denials that ignore what has actually occurred… [amounting] to the 21st century equivalent of maintaining that the earth is flat”.
nonrandomstring 2y ago
> the computer system was incorrect There's a little more to it. Most of the comments here are focusing on "correctness". And yes, the amendments to section 69 do something towards tempering its ridiculous and dangerous "presumptions". But the (UK Post-Office) story is that the Horizon system had back-doors in it. Fujitsu denied this. "Corrections" were made to systems without operator knowledge - to fix actual errors caused by a terrible database sync script full of race-hazards, faulty locks and duplicated state. The cover-up began life as engineers trying to hide up technical mistakes. It escalated to senior executives trying to cover up financial and political mistakes. It ended with the Crown colluding in covering up judicial mistakes. It is an exemplar of hubris, pride and egotsim resting on a refusal to give up a religious belief in technology. Were it not for the courage of a few (including judges and MPs) they would have gotten away with it (if it weren't for those meddling kids) The case stands as an important landmark that you cannot "hide behind" technology as a means for abuse and injustice. The amendments are welcome but insufficient. They open up a good opportunity for cybersecurity people to work with lawyers now. There are two outstanding problems: Proprietary code. If you cannot examine the system then the right to challenge it is meaningless. This requires changes to investigatory powers/discovery if anyone wants to use "technical correctness" as a base for argument. Malicious function. While the discussion revolves around correctness it is incomplete. Many systems (perhaps not the Horizon system) are not faulty, they work perfectly well to deceive, manipulate and swindle. I'd still push for a complete reversal of presumption [0]. Where software is part of a legal dispute it should "take the stand" as its own witness, in that formal proofs of correctness (a very VERY high bar in software engineering) need to be brought in front of the court. Otherwise the reasonable presumption is that an error or hidden malicious coding "cannot be ruled out". [0] https://cybershow.uk/episodes.php?id=23 https://cybershow.uk/episodes.php?id=23 https://cybershow.uk/episodes.php?id=24 https://cybershow.uk/episodes.php?id=24
EasyMark 2y ago
It doesn’t make sense to change an entire system over once incident. That smells of overreaction to me. It was an awful situation caused by humans, and the humans involved should probably be punished, that doesn’t mean one should break a system that generally works very well and promotes self regulation and continuous improvement rather than shackling it with regulations.
switch007 2y ago
Also for those not familiar: the government owns the Post Office, despite what many try to suggest to the contrary Yes there is operational separation but it's not like they're wholly unrelated and the government totally guilt free
foxyv 2y ago
This reminds me of a story my physics professor told me. Couriers were delivering gold between countries at different longitude. At the origin the gold was weighed using balance scales. At the destination the gold was weighed using spring scales. However, due to differences in gravity and the rotation of the earth, there was a significant difference in the weights. (But not the mass!) This made the authorities think the men had shaved the bars somehow. It was a simple way to demonstrate the difference between weight and mass. Whether the story was true or not, the government is just bad at science. It's how we get stuff like bite mark patterns and facial recognition warrants.

by Macha 2y ago

Latty 2y ago

A strong recommendation for the excellent "Mr Bates vs The Post Office" to anyone who hasn't followed it, a short (four part) drama about it which is really worth a watch, and a good way to get a rough feel for what went on, and also managed to finally catalyse a real response by the government.

n4r9 2y ago
Alan Bates sounds like the epitome of the British "stiff upper lip". Stubbornly standing against overwhelming adversity for years, for the good of his fellow society and his own integrity.

bobnamob 2y ago

> where there was a bug in a system designed by Fujitsu To clarify, there was not _one_ bug, but hundreds. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal#Problems_with_the_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal#Pr... From my read of the information publicly available, there was a fundamental lack of distributed/transactional system understanding from the developers at Fujitsu. This[1] article recently posted here[2] reminded me of the Post Office Scandal. The lack of respect for established CS theory (transactions and distributed systems) and established accounting practices (double entry book keeping or even the idea of a ledger) is mind boggling. [1] https://news.alvaroduran.com/p/engineers-do-not-get-to-make-startup https://news.alvaroduran.com/p/engineers-do-not-get-to-make-... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42269227 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42269227

movpasd 2y ago
It seems to me that it's a fundamental failure of software engineering culture. The number one rule for engineering domain applications is to understand the domain. I would blame the perennial neophilia and lack of (or inadequate adoption of/respect for) standardized texts in the industry. Though, to be fair, a lot of this does come down to the rapid changes in the technology. Iterative development is necessary for software, of course, but this should be understood as a necessity due to the medium, not as an excuse for skipping research and design. A lot of these domains (especially something as critical as accounting) should be solved problems.
- arethuza 2y ago
  From what I can see "software engineering" for the most part isn't really "engineering" in the sense that a PE or CEng would recognise?
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    It is partially on the countries where one cannot just slap engineering on their job title as they feel like. Where signing off contracts does have some implications beyond "it works on my computer".
    - BartjeD 2y ago
      Engineering is a professional activity, a legal title is just a moat, it doesn't mean that it is Engineering, just a protected profession of some sort. In al seriousness, Engineering is about verifying systems to make sure their lifespans and failure modes are known, up front. This has a legal dimension and a practical one. Legally you can make people liable for unreliable systems. But you can also be liable for failure to maintain properly, or failure to warn about impending calamity. Because it's all documented and verified. Practical you can live worry free in earthquake and flooding proof buildings, trusting in the diligence of Engineers, and maintenance workers, because they and others have liability imposed on them. For software this is only the case in a few sectors. For buildings in all cases. Not comparable.

pdpi 2y ago

There were "bugs", yes. There were also fundamental design flaws. One of the things the Post Office did was sell travel money, but the whole system was never really designed for ForEx operations, so it didn't keep track of exchange rates over time. The result is that reconciliation used the exchange rate at time of reconciliation instead of at the time of trade. So, if the foreign currency had gone up in value, it would show up as GBP missing.

rswail 2y ago
So they didn't record the rate in the transaction?!? Wow, that's... dumb.
- pdpi 2y ago
  IIRC they did record the date, yes. What they _didn't_ store was historical exchange rates.
  - rcxdude 2y ago
    Even still, exchange rates aren't a fixed value globally at any given time. You should record the rate with the transaction because the rate could be different from your log of exchange rates for any number of different reasons.
    - pdpi 2y ago
      Disregard that comment. I misread "rate" in GP's comment as "date". Yeah, they just plain didn't record the rate the trade was made at.
- db48x 2y ago
  A lot of the problems with Horizon are incredibly dumb. Mistakes that anyone with two brain cells to rub together would recognize.
philipwhiuk 2y ago
As a developer working on trading platforms, this is horrific. Given the Post Office had a reputation for really good exchange rates, this one design flaw might be responsible for a significant portion of the problem.

ksec 2y ago

I am already consider cynical by many, but reading about the scandal constantly reminds me how naive I am. Just how low can government and politicians get.

exe34 2y ago
> Just how low can government and politicians get. As low as it takes for a profit!
- gorft 2y ago
  Upvoted you because last I checked, Fujitsu is a private entity being run for a profit.
bowsamic 2y ago
I actively avoided the news and outrage about this for my own sanity. It was just too shocking. The worst part is that I'd heard about it and got mad about it many years ago, and it wasn't until a TV documentary came out recently that anything happened.
- bobnamob 2y ago
  Echoing this, I've been passively following the inquiry but haven't watched the miniseries. I think it would leave me furious for weeks and push me into a depression rut. I'm trying to take the whole debacle as long term inspiration to be excellent at what I do - it's tough to stay positive when so many people involved (Fujitsu, PO upper management, the original prosecution) seem entirely morally bereft, with little chance of consequence.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
xenadu02 2y ago
I guess some people never learn from trying to cover their mistakes as children. I've explained this to my kids: often the initial mistake is minor and warrants nothing more than "please don't do that again". It is the lying and hiding that blow it up into a big issue. The odds of being found out are very high. There is little reward and lots of risk. When you have such a widespread and ongoing problem it becomes clear that such a large proportion of postmasters can't be criminals. Computer bugs are well known. Eventually it is going to come out that the computer is wrong. Why double-down? The earlier you admit a mistake and apologize the lower the impact and the less anyone cares. They had a built-in scapegoat that everyone understands and accepts: the vendor's software had bugs! We have daily meetings to yell at them to fix the bugs we promise and we will fix the problems ASAP. Or do the sneaky thing and fix the issues, stop prosecuting postmasters, and ignore the ones you prosecuted by mistake. Cynical, cruel, and immoral... but contains the damage. Instead the UK Postoffice seems to have just let the problems continue while simultaneously allowing prosecutions to go ahead knowing they were faulty. Literally the worst of all worlds: ongoing accumulation of liability, now with provable malice!

ta1243 2y ago

If the computer had said one postmaster had been wrong, that's one thing. The real scandal here is that there were hundreds, and those at the top knew this, but instead doubled down.

graemep 2y ago
If it had only sent one person to jail we would never have know about it. I am pretty sure more dependable systems send the odd person to jail - there have been many cases where someone was lucky not to be convicted.
arethuza 2y ago
The bit that I find incredible is that each one of the victims was told that it was just them and it hadn't happened to anyone else....

matteason 2y ago

Also, mind-blowingly (to me at least) - Horizon is still in use, Fujitsu are still being given hundreds of millions of pounds to support it, and its replacement isn't due to go live until 2030 https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366587174/Fujitsu-set-for-further-180m-deal-as-Post-Office-Horizon-replacement-delayed https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366587174/Fujitsu-set-fo...

jonplackett 2y ago

Dragging heels is a bit of an understatement. Both the gov and Fujitsu and the post office absolutely knew it was a bug and intentionally hid the fact while the post masters lives were ruined. However bad the bug was, the cover up was _much_ worse.

ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
To be fair, the government were lied to by the Post Office people about whether or not there were bugs. They also lied about whether Fujitsu had the ability to amend the ledgers even though Fujitsu had a team working to correct some of the inaccuracies.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

thehappyfellow 2y ago

Buggy software is important aspect of the story but to me it’s not the main one. The main one is that the post office management/officials at some point became aware of the bugs and that they were ruining lives of innocent people and they knowingly kept lying to save their asses. The inquiry page has all of this and more: https://www.postofficehorizoninquiry.org.uk/about-inquiry https://www.postofficehorizoninquiry.org.uk/about-inquiry I’ve read through it, it’s long but it’s a good (while terrifying) read.

thehappyfellow 2y ago
I’m sorry I don’t have a summary but the judgment is also enlightening: https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/bates-v-post-office-judgment.pdf https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/bates-v-... And wiki has rest it the judgments: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bates_%26_Others_v_Post_Office_Ltd https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bates_%26_Others_v_Post_Offi... I have a lot of respect for the judge after reading this. Here’s a quote describing Post Office evidence: “bare assertions and denials that ignore what has actually occurred… [amounting] to the 21st century equivalent of maintaining that the earth is flat”.

nonrandomstring 2y ago

> the computer system was incorrect There's a little more to it. Most of the comments here are focusing on "correctness". And yes, the amendments to section 69 do something towards tempering its ridiculous and dangerous "presumptions". But the (UK Post-Office) story is that the Horizon system had back-doors in it. Fujitsu denied this. "Corrections" were made to systems without operator knowledge - to fix actual errors caused by a terrible database sync script full of race-hazards, faulty locks and duplicated state. The cover-up began life as engineers trying to hide up technical mistakes. It escalated to senior executives trying to cover up financial and political mistakes. It ended with the Crown colluding in covering up judicial mistakes. It is an exemplar of hubris, pride and egotsim resting on a refusal to give up a religious belief in technology. Were it not for the courage of a few (including judges and MPs) they would have gotten away with it (if it weren't for those meddling kids) The case stands as an important landmark that you cannot "hide behind" technology as a means for abuse and injustice. The amendments are welcome but insufficient. They open up a good opportunity for cybersecurity people to work with lawyers now. There are two outstanding problems: Proprietary code. If you cannot examine the system then the right to challenge it is meaningless. This requires changes to investigatory powers/discovery if anyone wants to use "technical correctness" as a base for argument. Malicious function. While the discussion revolves around correctness it is incomplete. Many systems (perhaps not the Horizon system) are not faulty, they work perfectly well to deceive, manipulate and swindle. I'd still push for a complete reversal of presumption [0]. Where software is part of a legal dispute it should "take the stand" as its own witness, in that formal proofs of correctness (a very VERY high bar in software engineering) need to be brought in front of the court. Otherwise the reasonable presumption is that an error or hidden malicious coding "cannot be ruled out". [0] https://cybershow.uk/episodes.php?id=23 https://cybershow.uk/episodes.php?id=23 https://cybershow.uk/episodes.php?id=24 https://cybershow.uk/episodes.php?id=24

EasyMark 2y ago

It doesn’t make sense to change an entire system over once incident. That smells of overreaction to me. It was an awful situation caused by humans, and the humans involved should probably be punished, that doesn’t mean one should break a system that generally works very well and promotes self regulation and continuous improvement rather than shackling it with regulations.

switch007 2y ago

Also for those not familiar: the government owns the Post Office, despite what many try to suggest to the contrary Yes there is operational separation but it's not like they're wholly unrelated and the government totally guilt free

foxyv 2y ago

This reminds me of a story my physics professor told me. Couriers were delivering gold between countries at different longitude. At the origin the gold was weighed using balance scales. At the destination the gold was weighed using spring scales. However, due to differences in gravity and the rotation of the earth, there was a significant difference in the weights. (But not the mass!) This made the authorities think the men had shaved the bars somehow. It was a simple way to demonstrate the difference between weight and mass. Whether the story was true or not, the government is just bad at science. It's how we get stuff like bite mark patterns and facial recognition warrants.