I really don't think you can assume that. Other humans will have told them that it was good.

I can assume that a wider and deeper understanding of how software works would have meant that the investigations would have demanded a more thorough accounting of how the software worked, evidence provided by the system that it's calculations were correct (an audit trail) and that these questions would be asked at every juncture whenever the issue was raised to a new body or party.

As can be seen by following the story, this wasn't the case. The only evidence provided in criminal cases was essentially a witness statement saying that the system was working correctly and that was the end of it.

Note that they had audit trails of various kinds, but some of the bugs yielded incorrect logs.

I didn't know that and that's insidious

> The only evidence provided in criminal cases was essentially a witness statement saying that the system was working correctly and that was the end of it.

I'm not saying it wasn't. You're assuming a blind faith in all IT is the cause of this witness' belief. I'm disagreeing with you there.

I'm assuming an ignorance in IT which allows for a vote of confidence from a trusted party to go unquestioned and unsubstantiated. Not a blind faith in all IT.

Fair enough. I might have misread. It was this that made me think that:

> it was also enabled by a belief in the reliability and credibility of IT systems

Yes, but even after getting lots of reports from sub postmasters complaining about bugs, they persisted in telling their victims that they were the only one reporting any issues. They were lying and knew they were lying as they could just force the sub postmaster to make good any "losses". They were most definitely acting maliciously.

I'm not disagreeing with that. If they're lying then we're not in the "blind faith" discussion any more anyway.