[News] Post Office Scandal -

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

This is what sets this apart. Many bug-ridden systems go into many different organisations but what generally happens next is a period of working together to get to the bottom of the issues. The fact that they took the stance that the system was perfect and therefore that any discrepancies were solely down to fraudulent activity by the postmasters is almost beyond comprehension. The fact that they stuck with this position for over a decade is mind-numbing. When you are given enough power and a bottomless pot of money to defend the indefensible there's nothing to stop you doing it. Those who made the decision that this would be the policy are the ones that must be rooted out.

Yep. It's a genuine conspiracy.

 

[WATFORD zero]

I spent many years as a Professional in that industry. A large part of my job was to decide at which point software could be released and the risk that was associated with that release. If you know what you're doing, you can measure the metrics for the amount of change in that software (function point analysis, very old, but still holds true). You then measure how many man years of testing, across how many scenarios and how many scripts and calculate the rate of error (and priority of error) and staff up your support teams appropriately and any person with reasonable skills should get it right +-5%.

I moved across industries and the risk/timescale requirements were different for every one, but the rule held true.

Technical people in a technical industry love this as you can define and measure it

Then the non techies got involved when there is no underlying technical problem, played their political games and here we are

I think I'm a Geek at heart

 

[portslade seagull]

Each time the big brand telco I worked for trialled a new system in one small operational area it was always hailed as an astounding success and would be implemented across the country. However when thrust into the big wide world we would then spend 6 to 18 months just trying to get back to the operational level b4 its release. Meanwhile the developer's and management who dealt with it moved onto bigger things washing their hands of any glitches
Only once in my 36yrs employment did they take to task the project team involved and get them to rectify the complete shambles they had forced upon us

 

[GT49er]

He must be joking.

Hopefully he's sh*tting himself.

 

[WATFORD zero]

Hopefully he's sh*tting himself.

If you really think the 'Head Technical Architect' at Fujitsu is behind this, I have some beans I really think would interest you

 

[METALMICKY]

Criminal Charges need to be brought against senior and mid management executives in this epic corruption story. Before they die. Jail time. Regardless of where working now or retired to. Current employers should scrutinise staffs’ former employment records for involvement back then. And then wisely ‘let them go’, before drag their brand into court of public opinion to be judged. Corporate equivalent to harbouring former SS guards!

All the pardons, apologiesand compensation are fine but ultimately some people must see some jail time for this!

 

[METALMICKY]

If you really think the 'Head Technical Architect' at Fujitsu is behind this, I have some beans I really think would interest you

OK. Enlighten us.

 

[GT49er]

If you really think the 'Head Technical Architect' at Fujitsu is behind this, I have some beans I really think would interest you

I'm not the one asking for immunity from prosecution before giving evidence to the enquiry.

 

[portlock seagull]

All the pardons, apologiesand compensation are fine but ultimately some people must see some jail time for this!

Absolutely. However I’ve no faith anyone will.

 

[clapham_gull]

If you really think the 'Head Technical Architect' at Fujitsu is behind this, I have some beans I really think would interest you

Yes, I'd probably be asking for immunity too.

Having the ability to:

1) Draw some boxes
2) Draw some lines to connect them and finally...
3) Present them to management

....does not exactly make you culpable.

 

[Weststander]

All the pardons, apologiesand compensation are fine but ultimately some people must see some jail time for this!

The cessation of lucrative pension benefits would suit me.

Criminal level proof is hard to achieve. Although I’d love to see that too.

 

[nicko31]

Post Johnson, post truth, I'm not sure if I like the idea of parliament being to overturn prosecutions on mass....

Prefer we do it properly through the courts

 

[hart's shirt]

Ian Hislop taking absolutely no prisoners on Peston tonight.

Well worth a watch.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Ian Hislop taking absolutely no prisoners on Peston tonight.

Well worth a watch.

 

[Man of Harveys]

What on earth did that gormless Tory dimwit even think he was doing, trying to argue with Ian Hislop about this subject? It speaks volumes about their levels of arrogance to think that might turn out ok for him. Their feeble attempts finally to seize some moral high ground this week have been nothing but contemptible.

 

[Westdene Seagull]

You say that, but sometimes even these basic procedures and processes are not undertaken.

I remember working for NatWest Cards in London (their credit card division) back in 1997, and some of the network drives containing important data were not backed up, and of the 15 or so applications being supported, not a single one of them had a test environment.

So you can imagine what happened one day - a handful of incorrect transactions were reported and some guy in support went to fix it (directly in production) and accidentally dropped 100,000 credit card transactions from the production database! (He was an Albion fan from Hassocks ) I mean, mistakes happen and that's the whole point of test environments.

Lack of investment is what boils down to. I have a customer, I won't name them but they are a bank who everyone will have heard of, that has not invested in their IT infrastructure for years and keeps delaying projects to replace said EOL infrastructure. Yet they were surprised when it failed over Christmas and a replacement part couldn't be sourced. Needless to say their customers couldn't do online banking for around 4 hours until my engineers found a workaround. Hate it when company bean counters skrimp on investing in the actual business.

 

[Birdie Boy]

Each time the big brand telco I worked for trialled a new system in one small operational area it was always hailed as an astounding success and would be implemented across the country. However when thrust into the big wide world we would then spend 6 to 18 months just trying to get back to the operational level b4 its release. Meanwhile the developer's and management who dealt with it moved onto bigger things washing their hands of any glitches
Only once in my 36yrs employment did they take to task the project team involved and get them to rectify the complete shambles they had forced upon us

I have worked at a number of companies where some high up know nothing comes in, wants to change something to show their worth even though it never needed changing just to get their bonus when implemented and then f*** off with their bonus and cv updated leaving us to work with a shit system.

 

[Talby]

This isn’t a surprise, but it’s awful.

 

[mikeyjh]

I appreciate that but the example given to me the money was traced to another account. A shop with little stock suddenly had full shelves for Christmas.

Whatever you, or your auditor friend 'know' about the conviction, it's extremely unlikely that Horizon, as their cash accounting mechanism, will not have been used in the prosecution. In which case it's highly likely that prosecution was unsafe....

 

[nicko31]

What on earth did that gormless Tory dimwit even think he was doing, trying to argue with Ian Hislop about this subject? It speaks volumes about their levels of arrogance to think that might turn out ok for him. Their feeble attempts finally to seize some moral high ground this week have been nothing but contemptible.

Jake Berry desperately trying to stay relevant, he's a plank of the highest order