Sent To Jail Because of a Software Bug

First time accepted submitter toshikodo writes "The BBC is reporting a claim that some sub-post office workers in the UK have been sent to jail because of a bug in the accounting software that they use. The Post Office admits Horizon computer defect. I've worked on safety critical system in the past, and I am well aware of the potential for software to ruin lives (thankfully AFAIK nobody has been harmed by my software), but how many of us consider the potential for bugs in ordinary software to adversely affect those that use it?"

not when you are a 1099 fedex does the same BS

[Joe_Dragon]

not when you are a 1099 fedex does the same BS

FedEx package after the FedEx delivery driver had a neighbor I didn’t know in my building in [redacted] sign for a package from Apple.

and then make the driver be on the hook for it even when they don't have all day to wait and it common to give stuff / leave stuff to neighbor or drop it your door when you are not home.

http://consumerist.com/2011/08/19/report-your-iphone-stolen-get-a-visit-from-the-fedex-thugs/ [consumerist.com]

Try healthcare

[Wolfling1]

We make software for Healthcare professionals. As you can imagine, the risk footprint is pretty ugly.

We have special testing programs that are targeted at protecting patient safety.

We also have insurance up the wazoo (a technical term). Our PI Insurance covers us for several millions of dollars per claim, and hundreds of millions for class actions. It is our single biggest insurance expense for the entire organisation.

I'm happy to say that in 18 years, we've never made a claim against it, and we've never been notified of any negative consequence on any patients.

Re:helpdesk india or helpdesk must use script fail

[Greyfox]

Pretty much being an asshole to helpdesk people is the only way to get results. Most of those guys are just trying to get you to go away in 10 minutes or less so they can make their call stats for the week. Back in the day you might occasionally get someone who knew what they were doing, but that was back before the outsourcing craze pretty much guaranteed you were talking to a guy in a call center that also serves as helpdesk support for Hoover vacuum cleaners. He probably doesn't know that much about vacuum cleaners, either.

So this defines your relationship with that poor bastard. You have some broke-ass shit that needs fixing, and he is there to make you try to give up and fix your shit yourself. Now you could attempt to do that, and most of the time you're some wanker who just needs his hand held while he RTFMs. But sometimes you legitimately have some shit that needs fixing. If you KNOW you're a person who needs actual help and you KNOW about your relationship with aforementioned poor bastard, your only choice, really, is to beat that guy like he owes you money. I suppose alternately you could attempt to explain all this to him, but that would take a good bit longer and he really does have call stats he needs to make.

It would be nice if the process could work in such a way that you didn't HAVE to be an asshole to someone, but I guess that's just the way the world works.

Re:Open Source...

[c0lo]

Everyone assumes someone is already out there testing all open-source software, which is why it never seems to get done.
Also, deliberate bugs and backdoors simply wouldn't be checked back in.

TFA quote:

Ms Hamilton said that, by the time the figure reached £36,000, she lied to the Post Office - wrongly telling them the books were balancing just so that she could open the office the next day.

With closed-source, the choices Ms Hamilton has:
* keep covering the differences caused by the bug
* refuse to pay and instead sue the Post Office/Royal Mail with the hope they'll ask Horizon computer system to check. Not going to happen: the plaintiff carries the burden of proof, the Post Office has no incentive to do anything.

With OSS, Ms Hamilton has (alone or in by association with other sub-postmasters) the choice between:
* do the same as for close source. or
* hire a QA team and, upon obtaining the proof, sue the Post Office for the unwarranted requests, cost of source audit and other unspecified damages. The Post Office has the choice between to keep losing such suits or pay their own source audit/QA process and release the fixes in OSS.

I wonder which of the two would minimize the total social cost of the package maintenance (in the very specific terms of the "unseen costs" [wikipedia.org])?

Actually

[Charliemopps]

What I build every day directly relates to the stats and commission of a large number of people. The problem is I'm given flawed methodology from the outset by the managers and above of these people. They basically do not have the analytical or even basic math skills required to be writing the requirements they are in charge of. When I point out all the problems with how they want to approach what we're doing, all I get in return is talk of scope creep and lines like "you're trying to fix today's problems when what we need done is the design for tomorrows system!" which I'm assuming they got out of a book or trade magazine because I hear it repeated enough. None of it really matters when they're doing something as idiotic as dividing every month by 30 to get a daily average.
"well most months are 30 days"
No, most months have 31... what about holidays and weekends?
"See? It all averages out!"
You and I have entirely different definitions of "average" and... whatever, I've written all my objections into the design requirements, please sign off that you're ignoring my warnings, thanks.
"Done!"
Again, your peoples numbers will be completely wrong...