Post #645239
2026-03-11 20:03 UTC
Replies (28)
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@deech@mastodon.social 2026-03-11 20:25
@rradczewski This is horrific, I remember being aware of it but not the extent of damage and lives destroyed.
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@pietkuip@mastodon.nl 2026-03-11 20:55
@rradczewski It is a bit like the "toeslagenaffaire" in the Netherlands. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_childcare_benefits_scandal
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@ftp_alun@infosec.exchange 2026-03-11 22:23
@rradczewski they had to hire more lawyers, and not once did they stop to ask the question "what is the likely cause of this (apparent) rise in theft across the board?"
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@bashtoni@mastodon.social 2026-03-11 22:50
@rradczewski the particularly crazy thing is how well known the software defects were. Computer Weekly were writing about it in 2008, and Private Eye shortly after. It was common knowledge enough to be a topic of small talk in the IT industry in the UK, but there were still hundreds of convictions after these reports.
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@craig_groeschel@zeroes.ca 2026-03-11 23:29
@rradczewski I really enjoyed the docudrama Mr. Bates vs. The Post Office. It was shown on PBS Masterpiece Theater over here.
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@LilPecan@mastodon.social 2026-03-11 23:31
@rradczewski Vennells should have served prison time for that fiasco. Hundreds of subpostmasters and others were imprisoned but she gets to continue life as usual.
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@Crystal_Fish_Caves@mstdn.party 2026-03-12 01:05
@rradczewski I saw a pbs docudrama recently it was just amazing what they did to people when it was their system all along. Horrifying.
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@huntingdon@mstdn.social 2026-03-12 02:09
@rradczewski Nice summary of a decades long scandal that is far from over. Now, automate the errors via AI -- and join them to the big big company PR that such software is virtually "error free," rather than bad 20% or more of the time. So error free, you could use it to evaluate whether a prospective voter was a citizen or not.
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@stalbaum@mastodon.social 2026-03-12 02:28
@rradczewski yes I have heard of this, on a pod I think. (San Diego CA USA.) Disgusting and, uh, well I already said where I am so... It made me sad leave it there ...
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@DavidPenington@aus.social 2026-03-12 05:30
@rradczewski Horrifying that lawyers managed to bill 146 million pounds over 3 years for this, 46 million for the plaintiffs, forcing the plaintiffs to settle & give almost 80% of the settlement to the lawyers & funders. Law is vastly too expensive for justice in the UK & Australia.
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@Reinald@nrw.social 2026-03-12 08:56
@rradczewski I think this is an interesting example, how a "we don't do software for nuclear power plants" to play down on sloppy programming can escalate to legal issues and destroy lives. THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR SLOPPY SOFTWARE DEVELOPEMENT. NEVER. however trivial your field of work might feel.
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@FallsMom@mastodon.coffee 2026-03-12 11:48
@rradczewski Watched it here in US on PBS, found it as I watch for shows w/ Toby Jones. It's Orwellian, and certainly something similar can/will/may be happening here.
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@svines@gts.svines.rodeo 2026-03-12 12:54
@rradczewski so much this! I just read a blog post advocating for no longer checking for bugs because AI can code review better than humans can and this was the very next thing I saw. This unhinged AI mania is going to hurt people
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@alan@lighthouse.co.im 2026-03-12 13:25
@rradczewski @aral Watch Mr Bates v The Post Office. ITV four part drama if you want to know more. The government is still dragging its heels over the compensations payments. 236 subpostmasters went to jail over the faulty Horizon software made by Fujitsu, over a 1000 prosecuted. 13 Suicides 10 attempts……
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@TheBuell@techhub.social 2026-03-12 15:38
Weird how no one has been jailed for causing this mess .
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@markhughes@mastodon.social 2026-03-12 16:01
@rradczewski indeed, #GenAI / #LLMs and vibe coding are going to make this commonplace. What shocked me was that as this unfolded it was obviously a fuck up somewhere. So many sub postmasters being prosecuted for stealing tens of thousands of pounds without any evidence of where that money went... and nobody thought hang on, really? It was so obvious to me, but the system had no way to recognise and recover before it was obvious even to politicians. Politicians: let's make the system worse.
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@masek@infosec.exchange 2026-03-12 18:30
@rradczewski Outside UK but heard of it already while brewing.
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@outer@mas.to 2026-03-12 19:13
@rradczewski DAMN! I had absolutely no idea! Being thoroughly 'murican, most of the british news I see is about Royal Scandals. I'd better finish reading that article. Then do it again. So many deaths. So much heartache.
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@BlackMinaFZ8@metalhead.club 2026-03-12 20:17
@rradczewski omg that's horrible!
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@Iveyline@mastodon.nz 2026-03-13 03:56
@rradczewski It is a heart breaking story and those responsible have never been made to pay. The little guys who ran the post offices got shafted because big tech screwed up big time
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@n3wjack@mastodon.social 2026-03-13 08:04
@rradczewski Read an article about this ones (tech related). Quite baffling indeed. Mind-blowing how they didn't take responsibility for the software flaws and destroyed human lives instead.
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@AngelaScholder@mastodon.energy 2026-03-15 08:56
@rradczewski And it's still dragging on.
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@jonpsp@mstdn.social 2026-03-16 11:36
@rradczewski Private Eye worked to expose it for years https://www.private-eye.co.uk/special-reports/justice-lost-in-the-post
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@wall_e@ioc.exchange 2026-03-16 15:24
@rradczewski oof yeah, I can't remember whether it was an article, a documentary or a podcast I've seen about it... But I remember that it did a good job of explaining the technical fuckup as well as showing the pain and suffering inflicted upon numerous families, some having lost family members to suicide over this.
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@klefstadmyr@social.vivaldi.net 2026-03-16 15:31
@rradczewski It was a program about it on Norwegian radio a couple of years ago. As a former programmer I'm horrified by the faith in "A Computer Can Do No Errors."
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@Robo105@mastodon.social 2026-03-16 17:09
@rradczewski I am in Canada and I heard how the higherups abandoned all sense of right and wrong
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@bassistance@chaos.social 2026-03-17 18:23
@rradczewski the show Mr Bates vs The Post Office is excellent. And infuriating 👏
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@lolitechengineer@loli.church 2026-03-16 00:11
@rradczewski@hachyderm.io so why didn't anyone look at the publicly available source code?