News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:A TV Show Forced Britain's Devastating Post Office Scanda... by belter on Thursday January 11, 2024 @11:52AM (#38954816)
This interpretation is excessively charitable regarding what really happen here...

Fundamentally, the scandal is not merely a result of misplaced trust in an IT system. It exemplifies a series of injustices, overlooked for over 15 years by complacent politicians. Crucially, it illustrates the extent of deceit possible when bonuses for senior management and technical staff are at stake.

The UK legal system's appalling quality are starkly highlighted once again. Hundreds of postmasters faced wrongful convictions and prosecutions. Individuals were imprisoned for years, without any concrete evidence of their guilt. A single miscarriage of justice is concerning, but when there are over 250, it raises serious questions about the competence of the judiciary.

Astonishingly, more than 700 postmasters were prosecuted without any executive, manager, or statistician recognizing this glaring anomaly.

The longevity of the issue is also troubling. Even low-level Fujitsu employees, aware of the system's flaws, remained silent. Despite widespread media coverage and a string of wrongful convictions, leading even to suicides, not a single person within a large team exhibited any kind of moral responsibility or something that looked like a conscience. Their silence, just makes you believe again in conspiracy theories, and raises concerns about the integrity of modern IT systems and AI that we rely on.

The simple fact that somebody decided to attest to the absence on bugs on an IT system...An achievement unheard of in the history of software development, and the fact they decided to reiterate that under oath, at a court of law, should be enough for their names to be published and banished for ever, from any profession related to technology.

Re:A TV Show Forced Britain's Devastating Post Office Scanda... by ndsipa_pomu on Thursday January 11, 2024 @12:57PM (#38955944)
> Astonishingly, more than 700 postmasters were prosecuted without any executive, manager, or statistician recognizing this glaring anomaly.

They were fully aware of the problems and deliberately not acknowledging them.

e.g. the ongoing inquiry has just been shown a document showing the Post Office indicated that it would accept a guilty plea on a less serious charge provided the defendant agreed to accept that there was “nothing wrong with Horizon”.

Re:A TV Show Forced Britain's Devastating Post Office Scanda... by bostik on Thursday January 11, 2024 @01:59PM (#38957023)
And to make sure the incentives were properly perverse, Post Office executives were paid bonuses for each successful conviction.

As far as I am concerned, justice will not have been done until all of their bonuses are clawed back, and at least one of the execs has been smeared on tracks by the tube.

Re:A TV Show Forced Britain's Devastating Post Office Scanda... by VBprogrammer on Thursday January 11, 2024 @12:37PM (#38955592)
> Astonishingly, more than 700 postmasters were prosecuted without any executive, manager, or statistician recognizing this glaring anomaly.

I was thinking about this last night. I knew there where about 1000 McDonald's in the UK, Googling it there are about 11,500 post offices. At some point you'd have thought someone would have noticed it was a bit excessive.

Re:A TV Show Forced Britain's Devastating Post Office Scanda... by justincormack on Thursday January 11, 2024 @01:39PM (#38956647)
Apparently they thought that their staff were all always dishonest and this new computer system was finally revealing this truth, or something like that.
Re:A TV Show Forced Britain's Devastating Post Office Scanda... by lol768 on Thursday January 11, 2024 @01:06PM (#38956071)
> The longevity of the issue is also troubling. Even low-level Fujitsu employees, aware of the system's flaws, remained silent. Despite widespread media coverage and a string of wrongful convictions, leading even to suicides, not a single person within a large team exhibited any kind of moral responsibility or something that looked like a conscience. Their silence, just makes you believe again in conspiracy theories, and raises concerns about the integrity of modern IT systems and AI that we rely on.

>

> The simple fact that somebody decided to attest to the absence on bugs on an IT system...An achievement unheard of in the history of software development, and the fact they decided to reiterate that under oath, at a court of law, should be enough for their names to be published and banished for ever, from any profession related to technology.

Completely agreed. This is why ethics in our profession are important, and yet all too often dismissed.

Re:A TV Show Forced Britain's Devastating Post Office Scanda... by tauchunfall on Thursday January 11, 2024 @11:15PM (#38963642)
>not a single person within a large team exhibited any kind of moral responsibility or something that looked like a conscience.

That's not true.

>Richard Roll is the real life Fujitsu whisteblower behind the character in Mr Bates vs The Post Office who lifted the lid on the faulty computer system.