Reply to: Horizon IT Scandal: Postmasters await justice today

[Andy2022]

This guy sounds nice… says bloke who was cleared was guilty, had to be compelled to appear the enquiry, and he was too busy walking his dog to put any proper effort into his statement

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...-inquiry-hears

[Fraidycat]

The scandal was the coverup, but incase anyone is interested in the poor development standards:

Testimony from one of the software development manager (David McDonnell):

Out of the 8 developers on the team, 2 were good/capable, 2 were mediocre/ok but 4 were 'not up to producing professional code'.
No coding standards
No peer code reviews
No unit or integration tests
No methodology
No design specs/documents for lower level module designs, just a high level design.
Dev team was the wild west. No structure no rules or discipline, 'wild west'
Several thousand oustanding bugs.

If interested you can easily watch the following video testimony at double speed as they talk quite slow.

https://youtu.be/l2bi29H3DwQ?feature=shared&t=900

[DoctorStrangelove]

Oh, look: there's another one a bit earlier:

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/government...225824182.html

"Capture".

[vetran]

A duplicate depends on the system.

Lots of companies/organisations deal with duplicates and the ones I've contacted for admit they have issues with cleansing them.

it does indeed we had challenges 35 years ago. Its still one of the most difficult data problems. Frequently you get enough to cause problems but not enough to be sure it is a duplicate.

[SueEllen]

good try but no cigar.

Seen this question stump many vendors.

A duplicate depends on the system.

Lots of companies/organisations deal with duplicates and the ones I've contacted for admit they have issues with cleansing them.

[vetran]

A duplicate could be a transaction with the same value with the same time stamp (Y,M,D, Hr,Mn,Sec, MSec) however, each transaction should also have a unique identifier. To be “robust”, it should be possible to unplug the computer/terminal mid transaction and upon restart, the transaction should either complete or ask for a re-try.

ATMs are on the whole robust in that, even if in the end, you don’t take the cash, the transaction will be reversed and the money counted going back in the system. BTW: I am not an expert.

good try but no cigar.

Seen this question stump many vendors.

[Paddy]

define a duplicate!

A duplicate could be a transaction with the same value with the same time stamp (Y,M,D, Hr,Mn,Sec, MSec) however, each transaction should also have a unique identifier. To be “robust”, it should be possible to unplug the computer/terminal mid transaction and upon restart, the transaction should either complete or ask for a re-try.

ATMs are on the whole robust in that, even if in the end, you don’t take the cash, the transaction will be reversed and the money counted going back in the system. BTW: I am not an expert.

[Dactylion]

The utter incompetence of Fujitsu beggars belief.

Unfortunately it doesn't.

[courtg9000]

If I followed witness testimony correctly, the muppets at Fujitsu Support were pulling off transaction records from the Horizon Database, then dumping into Excel in order to manually find (rather than using a macro) and delete duplicate entries. However, it was apparent that by doing it manually, some duplicate transactions were overlooked thus showed up as shortfalls. The utter incompetence of Fujitsu beggars belief.

I did quite a bit of work for Fujitsu back in the day (I had nothing to do with Horizon). Intelligence is very questionable in certain parts of the organisation.

[vetran]

Muppets indeed, why did the database indexes allow for duplication and if it was possible why didn't the application provide data sanity checks and recovery?

Then we get to the part where the free money they stole from the Postmasters (not the other way around) was put into executive remuneration Hanging in public by the bollocks for all Fujitsu management (who must of known their system was a wrongun) involved seems the only fair punishment.

define a duplicate!

[tazdevil]

If I followed witness testimony correctly, the muppets at Fujitsu Support were pulling off transaction records from the Horizon Database, then dumping into Excel in order to manually find (rather than using a macro) and delete duplicate entries. However, it was apparent that by doing it manually, some duplicate transactions were overlooked thus showed up as shortfalls. The utter incompetence of Fujitsu beggars belief.

Muppets indeed, why did the database indexes allow for duplication and if it was possible why didn't the application provide data sanity checks and recovery?

Then we get to the part where the free money they stole from the Postmasters (not the other way around) was put into executive remuneration Hanging in public by the bollocks for all Fujitsu management (who must of known their system was a wrongun) involved seems the only fair punishment.

[Paddy]

oh I agree no perpetrator should escape but we need quick action on the ringleaders, a few decent fraud, extortion and corporate manslaughter convictions while the smaller prosecutions run on.

Use the small fry to catch the big fish.

If I followed witness testimony correctly, the muppets at Fujitsu Support were pulling off transaction records from the Horizon Database, then dumping into Excel in order to manually find (rather than using a macro) and delete duplicate entries. However, it was apparent that by doing it manually, some duplicate transactions were overlooked thus showed up as shortfalls. The utter incompetence of Fujitsu beggars belief.

[vetran]

Not just the big bosses, and don't spend ages on every bit, get enough easy wins on them and then charged and if guilty short jail sentences and big fines will suffice, the shame of a criminal conviction is enough. This will then free up resources to go after as many of the lower ranks who also submitted evidence such as the lawyers and SMEs. It needs to be such a wake up call that it deters other people asked to sign false statements etc to think twice. You can't tell me that some of the tulips working on Horizon were not cognisant of the prosecutions?

oh I agree no perpetrator should escape but we need quick action on the ringleaders, a few decent fraud, extortion and corporate manslaughter convictions while the smaller prosecutions run on.

Use the small fry to catch the big fish.

[Uncle Albert]

Not just the big bosses, and don't spend ages on every bit, get enough easy wins on them and then charged and if guilty short jail sentences and big fines will suffice, the shame of a criminal conviction is enough. This will then free up resources to go after as many of the lower ranks who also submitted evidence such as the lawyers and SMEs. It needs to be such a wake up call that it deters other people asked to sign false statements etc to think twice. You can't tell me that some of the tulips working on Horizon were not cognisant of the prosecutions?

Were they involved too?

[Gibbon]

Well charge the big bosses of fraud & perverting the cause of justice (according to the cop this morning)

Not just the big bosses, and don't spend ages on every bit, get enough easy wins on them and then charged and if guilty short jail sentences and big fines will suffice, the shame of a criminal conviction is enough. This will then free up resources to go after as many of the lower ranks who also submitted evidence such as the lawyers and SMEs. It needs to be such a wake up call that it deters other people asked to sign false statements etc to think twice. You can't tell me that some of the tulips working on Horizon were not cognisant of the prosecutions?