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Post by bigjohnritchie on Feb 21, 2024 10:37:14 GMT
Wouldn't it be nice if we had some politicians who showed some integrity and humanity and just spoke simply and straightforwardly.
" Let's just get justice for the Sub postmasters and do it as soon as we can. Pay compensation and pursue all those responsible"
Israel" Stop all fighting and start talking "
( It may not be that simple in practice, but it should be the principle and starting position that most people could get behind....in my opinion all the talk about " humanitarian pauses" are a nonsense...just stop....if two eight year old are fighting in the playground the first thing a teacher does / says is " stop fighting, what are you fighting about. Let's sort it out. Fighting isn't the answer")
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Post by Huddysleftfoot on Feb 23, 2024 7:25:40 GMT
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Post by Huddysleftfoot on Feb 23, 2024 9:41:09 GMT
Another harrowing tale....
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Post by bigjohnritchie on Feb 23, 2024 10:33:53 GMT
Another harrowing tale.... An interesting thing from your link Paul, said by the victim? "I have always maintained that the money that was being taken by ‘the Horizon System’ might well have ended up in Fujitsu employees’ bank accounts. Why is that not being considered?” How do we actually KNOW that somehow money wasn't being syphoned out of sub postmasters' accounts, somehow into personal accounts? I've heard explanations that the money didn't actually exist or that the money was ploughed back into Post Office profits.....but I would eventually like to see an explanation/ case study/ trace of what actually happened. It may just be a " number " but presumably if £500 went out of your bank account overnight, you'd want to know....where actually has it gone? Which begs the question If Fujitsu COULD intervene in sub-postmasters' Horizon records ( which it has been established they could)...WHY were they intervening?
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Post by noustie on Feb 23, 2024 10:50:29 GMT
Another harrowing tale.... An interesting thing from your link Paul, said by the victim? "I have always maintained that the money that was being taken by ‘the Horizon System’ might well have ended up in Fujitsu employees’ bank accounts. Why is that not being considered?” How do we actually KNOW that somehow money was being syphoned out of sub postmasters accounts, somehow into personal accounts? I've heard explanations that the money didn't actually exist or that the money was ploughed back into Post Office profits.....but I would eventually like to see an explanation/ case study of whst actually happened. It may just be a " number " but presumably if £500 went out of your bank account overnight, you'd want to know....where actually has it gone? Dealt with a client a few years back who got tipped off to have a look at a previous colleague's dealings. Can't remember exactly how they'd done it but it was something to do with National Insurance on foreign agency staff - somehow they were charging it to the agency guys via payroll and then reclaiming it back into their own bank account from the ones who hadn't cottoned on they shouldn't be paying it. They did it over three or four employers for over a decade before getting caught. If someone in accounts can set up something like that can only imagine what someone running that program could look to set-up. Typical story of probably being too greedy I wouldn't be surprised - who'd notice a quid a month from all of the post offices involved? Why nobody is considering to investigate it is another question entirely.
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Post by Paul Spencer on Feb 23, 2024 13:15:30 GMT
Another harrowing tale.... An interesting thing from your link Paul, said by the victim? "I have always maintained that the money that was being taken by ‘the Horizon System’ might well have ended up in Fujitsu employees’ bank accounts. Why is that not being considered?” How do we actually KNOW that somehow money wasn't being syphoned out of sub postmasters' accounts, somehow into personal accounts? I've heard explanations that the money didn't actually exist or that the money was ploughed back into Post Office profits.....but I would eventually like to see an explanation/ case study/ trace of what actually happened. It may just be a " number " but presumably if £500 went out of your bank account overnight, you'd want to know....where actually has it gone? Which begs the question If Fujitsu COULD intervene in sub-postmasters' Horizon records ( which it has been established they could)...WHY were they intervening? I've always been under the impression that the money didn't actually exist/disappear, it was literally figures on a screen that were wrong and the reason that Fujitsu were remotely accessing Horizon, was because they knew that there were serious bugs in the software and they were attempting to both rectify any discrepancies in the subpostmasters individual accounts, whilst also attempting to address the fundamental IT issues. As for any money that was paid o er by the subpostmasters themselves, surely this ultimately just went into the Post Office's profit column.
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Post by cvillestokie on Feb 23, 2024 13:18:55 GMT
Is a uniform payout for all those wronged appropriate? Surely, the impact for some have been felt more severely and for longer than for others? Should compensation and damages not be proportionate?
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Post by Huddysleftfoot on Feb 23, 2024 13:23:17 GMT
Is a uniform payout for all those wronged appropriate? Surely, the impact for some have been felt more severely and for longer than for others? Should compensation and damages not be proportionate? You would certainly hope so....
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Post by wannabee on Feb 23, 2024 13:26:43 GMT
An interesting thing from your link Paul, said by the victim? "I have always maintained that the money that was being taken by ‘the Horizon System’ might well have ended up in Fujitsu employees’ bank accounts. Why is that not being considered?” How do we actually KNOW that somehow money was being syphoned out of sub postmasters accounts, somehow into personal accounts? I've heard explanations that the money didn't actually exist or that the money was ploughed back into Post Office profits.....but I would eventually like to see an explanation/ case study of whst actually happened. It may just be a " number " but presumably if £500 went out of your bank account overnight, you'd want to know....where actually has it gone? Dealt with a client a few years back who got tipped off to have a look at a previous colleague's dealings. Can't remember exactly how they'd done it but it was something to do with National Insurance on foreign agency staff - somehow they were charging it to the agency guys via payroll and then reclaiming it back into their own bank account from the ones who hadn't cottoned on they shouldn't be paying it. They did it over three or four employers for over a decade before getting caught. If someone in accounts can set up something like that can only imagine what someone running that program could look to set-up. Typical story of probably being too greedy I wouldn't be surprised - who'd notice a quid a month from all of the post offices involved? Why nobody is considering to investigate it is another question entirely. I concede in this whole debacle anything is possible but I find it highly improbable that it's the result of interventions by either Fujitsu or PO Staff diverting funds from either sub postmasters or PO Bank Accounts to their Personal Bank Accounts as their would be a clear audit trail if this were the case. The Horizon EPOS (Electronic Point of Sale) System "Worked" similar to a till you would see in a Pub where each individual transaction is recorded and at the end of each day a physical count of Cash in Hand is matched to the calculated amount Horizon said should be Cash in Hand. The Horizon System didn't have a single but multiple bugs which partly explains why a pattern was difficult to establish One of the major bugs was that at times the System would simply freeze and when reactivated could create Phantom or Duplicate Transactions that never actually happened I'm mindful of the Landmark Court of Appeal summation of Hamilton & Others v Post Office Limited in April 2021, the Court of Appeal concluded that in all cases in which the reliability of Horizon data was essential to the prosecution and in which there was no independent evidence of an actual loss, the trial process could not be fair The "Loss" was in fact what the sub postmasters suffered. Many unlike Mr Bates, who refused to accept he had made an error, and out of their own funds paid the apparent shortfall. The total estimated paid by the 555 sub postmasters in the Hamilton case is £18M Huddy's two Twitter Links do however throw up some interesting points and may go some way to explain Kemi's explosive reaction to Staunton's claim of foot dragging If we look at the timeline it could be argued that as far back as June 2014 the Deloitte Report identified categorically that there were bugs in Horizon. The claim is that neither the Post Office Minister nor The PO Board of Directors read the Report which it had Commissioned. By 2016 it was now on record that Government and PO were fully aware of bugs in Horizon although they continued to support the prosecution of the 555 in Hamilton Appeal and failed to give full disclosure, a Criminal Offence of Perverting the Course of Justice. As said above. the Appeal Court decision was delivered in April 2021 and excoriated PO and by definition UK Government as the Sole Shareholder of PO Almost 3 years later only 33 of the almost 700 Compensation Claims have been settled in full. In anyone's judgement this represents "Hobbling" or "Limping" to enact restorative compensation The exchange of Letters between Reid CEO of PO and Chalk Lord Chancellor and the Letter from Peters & Peters Legal Advisors to PO and Reid are quite breathtaking The Government announced in the aftermath of the ITV Docudrama that it would enact Emergency Legislation specifically overturning the Convictions of the 700 odd without requiring them to go through the appeals process The legal advice being given by Peters & Peters to PO LAST MONTH and thus to Government is that on review of the prosecution files they find 177 convictions should be overturned 380 should not and they can't make a determination on 132. Extraordinary. The tone of Peters & Peters letter chimes very much with what Anna related to Nick Watts and I'd bet good money that it was P&P that interviewed her for compensation claim where she says they wanted her to admit she was lying We know that Government has a lot to lose Financially We know that Fujitsu has a potential Financial obligation We know that PO and Fujitsu Employees face the potential of Criminal Convictions for withholding evidence, if they are ever pursued But a new Twist is that if Peters & Peters knowingly colluded in the prosecutions individually and collectively the Firm could be struck off by the Bar Council and individual Barrister could also be prosecuted for Perverting the Course of Justice Never mind it's all in safe hands, Kemi will sort it all out.
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Post by thebet365 on Feb 23, 2024 13:29:33 GMT
An interesting thing from your link Paul, said by the victim? "I have always maintained that the money that was being taken by ‘the Horizon System’ might well have ended up in Fujitsu employees’ bank accounts. Why is that not being considered?” How do we actually KNOW that somehow money wasn't being syphoned out of sub postmasters' accounts, somehow into personal accounts? I've heard explanations that the money didn't actually exist or that the money was ploughed back into Post Office profits.....but I would eventually like to see an explanation/ case study/ trace of what actually happened. It may just be a " number " but presumably if £500 went out of your bank account overnight, you'd want to know....where actually has it gone? Which begs the question If Fujitsu COULD intervene in sub-postmasters' Horizon records ( which it has been established they could)...WHY were they intervening? I've always been under the impression that the money didn't actually exist/disappear, it was literally figures on a screen that were wrong and the reason that Fujitsu were remotely accessing Horizon, was because they knew that there were serious bugs in the software and they were attempting to both rectify any discrepancies in the subpostmasters individual accounts, whilst also attempting to address the fundamental IT issues. As for any money that was paid o er by the subpostmasters themselves, surely this ultimately just went into the Post Office's profit column. That's exactly it, Money wasn't being moved by fujitsu employees, they were tinkering with numbers on a software so that when it came to balancing it didn't add up, or trying to fix in imbalance and making it worse. The physical money only changed hands when the subpostmasters where chased by the PO for their discrepancies which will have gone direct to the PO and ultimately the PO profits as it was money for nothing.
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Post by bigjohnritchie on Feb 23, 2024 13:38:10 GMT
An interesting thing from your link Paul, said by the victim? "I have always maintained that the money that was being taken by ‘the Horizon System’ might well have ended up in Fujitsu employees’ bank accounts. Why is that not being considered?” How do we actually KNOW that somehow money wasn't being syphoned out of sub postmasters' accounts, somehow into personal accounts? I've heard explanations that the money didn't actually exist or that the money was ploughed back into Post Office profits.....but I would eventually like to see an explanation/ case study/ trace of what actually happened. It may just be a " number " but presumably if £500 went out of your bank account overnight, you'd want to know....where actually has it gone? Which begs the question If Fujitsu COULD intervene in sub-postmasters' Horizon records ( which it has been established they could)...WHY were they intervening? I've always been under the impression that the money didn't actually exist/disappear, it was literally figures on a screen that were wrong and the reason that Fujitsu were remotely accessing Horizon, was because they knew that there were serious bugs in the software and they were attempting to both rectify any discrepancies in the subpostmasters individual accounts, whilst also attempting to address the fundamental IT issues. As for any money that was paid o er by the subpostmasters themselves, surely this ultimately just went into the Post Office's profit column. That's what I thought Paul and it is what we have been told so far....but I think everything has got to be questioned. A forensic/it accountant of some sort is needed. Presumably the " bug" took the money out( did it put any in?)...which Presumably the Fujitsu people tried to rectify....at the point it went out....did it go anywhere, if so where? I wonder , now that we do most things electronically, at what point money " exists" or doesn't exist....we presume because we have a " number " in our account on the computer thst it " exists"??
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Post by cvillestokie on Feb 23, 2024 13:38:50 GMT
Is a uniform payout for all those wronged appropriate? Surely, the impact for some have been felt more severely and for longer than for others? Should compensation and damages not be proportionate? You would certainly hope so.... My understanding of what the govt have said though is that they want to fast track this through the courts and create a uniform template for compensation? I haven’t looked at this in a couple of weeks, has that approach changed?
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Post by Huddysleftfoot on Feb 23, 2024 13:40:23 GMT
You would certainly hope so.... My understanding of what the govt have said though is that they want to fast track this through the courts and create a uniform template for compensation? I haven’t looked at this in a couple of weeks, has that approach changed? I understand the same as you CS....not seen any new developments?
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Post by wannabee on Feb 23, 2024 13:58:32 GMT
I've always been under the impression that the money didn't actually exist/disappear, it was literally figures on a screen that were wrong and the reason that Fujitsu were remotely accessing Horizon, was because they knew that there were serious bugs in the software and they were attempting to both rectify any discrepancies in the subpostmasters individual accounts, whilst also attempting to address the fundamental IT issues. As for any money that was paid o er by the subpostmasters themselves, surely this ultimately just went into the Post Office's profit column. That's what I thought Paul and it is what we have been told so far....but I think everything has got to be questioned. A forensic/it accountant of some sort is needed. Presumably the " bug" took the money out( did it put any in?)...which Presumably the Fujitsu people tried to rectify....at the point it went out....did it go anywhere, if so where? I wonder , now that we do most things electronically, at what point money " exists" or doesn't exist....we presume because we have a " number " in our account on the computer thst it " exists"?? The "bug" didn't take any money out Its Bookkeeping Double-entry 101 The Horizon System created a Single Sided Phantom Transaction which at the end of each days calculation of all Transactions showed a Cash "Shortfall". Some subpostmasters made up the "Shortfall" from their own funds, others didn't or couldn't.
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Post by noustie on Feb 23, 2024 14:22:21 GMT
Dealt with a client a few years back who got tipped off to have a look at a previous colleague's dealings. Can't remember exactly how they'd done it but it was something to do with National Insurance on foreign agency staff - somehow they were charging it to the agency guys via payroll and then reclaiming it back into their own bank account from the ones who hadn't cottoned on they shouldn't be paying it. They did it over three or four employers for over a decade before getting caught. If someone in accounts can set up something like that can only imagine what someone running that program could look to set-up. Typical story of probably being too greedy I wouldn't be surprised - who'd notice a quid a month from all of the post offices involved? Why nobody is considering to investigate it is another question entirely. I concede in this whole debacle anything is possible but I find it highly improbable that it's the result of interventions by either Fujitsu or PO Staff diverting funds from either sub postmasters or PO Bank Accounts to their Personal Bank Accounts as their would be a clear audit trail if this were the case. The Horizon EPOS (Electronic Point of Sale) System "Worked" similar to a till you would see in a Pub where each individual transaction is recorded and at the end of each day a physical count of Cash in Hand is matched to the calculated amount Horizon said should be Cash in Hand. The Horizon System didn't have a single but multiple bugs which partly explains why a pattern was difficult to establish One of the major bugs was that at times the System would simply freeze and when reactivated could create Phantom or Duplicate Transactions that never actually happened I'm mindful of the Landmark Court of Appeal summation of Hamilton & Others v Post Office Limited in April 2021, the Court of Appeal concluded that in all cases in which the reliability of Horizon data was essential to the prosecution and in which there was no independent evidence of an actual loss, the trial process could not be fair The "Loss" was in fact what the sub postmasters suffered. Many unlike Mr Bates, who refused to accept he had made an error, and out of their own funds paid the apparent shortfall. The total estimated paid by the 555 sub postmasters in the Hamilton case is £18M Huddy's two Twitter Links do however throw up some interesting points and may go some way to explain Kemi's explosive reaction to Staunton's claim of foot dragging If we look at the timeline it could be argued that as far back as June 2014 the Deloitte Report identified categorically that there were bugs in Horizon. The claim is that neither the Post Office Minister nor The PO Board of Directors read the Report which it had Commissioned. By 2016 it was now on record that Government and PO were fully aware of bugs in Horizon although they continued to support the prosecution of the 555 in Hamilton Appeal and failed to give full disclosure, a Criminal Offence of Perverting the Course of Justice. As said above. the Appeal Court decision was delivered in April 2021 and excoriated PO and by definition UK Government as the Sole Shareholder of PO Almost 3 years later only 33 of the almost 700 Compensation Claims have been settled in full. In anyone's judgement this represents "Hobbling" or "Limping" to enact restorative compensation The exchange of Letters between Reid CEO of PO and Chalk Lord Chancellor and the Letter from Peters & Peters Legal Advisors to PO and Reid are quite breathtaking The Government announced in the aftermath of the ITV Docudrama that it would enact Emergency Legislation specifically overturning the Convictions of the 700 odd without requiring them to go through the appeals process The legal advice being given by Peters & Peters to PO LAST MONTH and thus to Government is that on review of the prosecution files they find 177 convictions should be overturned 380 should not and they can't make a determination on 132. Extraordinary. The tone of Peters & Peters letter chimes very much with what Anna related to Nick Watts and I'd bet good money that it was P&P that interviewed her for compensation claim where she says they wanted her to admit she was lying We know that Government has a lot to lose Financially We know that Fujitsu has a potential Financial obligation We know that PO and Fujitsu Employees face the potential of Criminal Convictions for withholding evidence, if they are ever pursued But a new Twist is that if Peters & Peters knowingly colluded in the prosecutions individually and collectively the Firm could be struck off by the Bar Council and individual Barrister could also be prosecuted for Perverting the Course of Justice Never mind it's all in safe hands, Kemi will sort it all out. In fairness there was a clear audit trail in the situation I mentioned but it wasn't until they knew what they were looking for that she got caught. If the company she was at hadn't have found it then tipped the wink the contact I had would never have been aware she'd done it to them too but was meant to be obvious once they knew. Like you say doubt the companies involved would be up to anything like that but who knows at an individual basis particularly around computer programing.
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Post by bigjohnritchie on Feb 23, 2024 14:28:37 GMT
That's what I thought Paul and it is what we have been told so far....but I think everything has got to be questioned. A forensic/it accountant of some sort is needed. Presumably the " bug" took the money out( did it put any in?)...which Presumably the Fujitsu people tried to rectify....at the point it went out....did it go anywhere, if so where? I wonder , now that we do most things electronically, at what point money " exists" or doesn't exist....we presume because we have a " number " in our account on the computer thst it " exists"?? The "bug" didn't take any money out Its Bookkeeping Double-entry 101 The Horizon System created a Single Sided Phantom Transaction which at the end of each days calculation of all Transactions showed a Cash "Shortfall". Some subpostmasters made up the "Shortfall" from their own funds, others didn't or couldn't. I get that but.....Given everything that has gone on, I'd like that explanation confirmed as far as it is possible to do so.
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Post by fullmetaljacket on Feb 23, 2024 20:32:37 GMT
Be interesting what happens to those cases in NI and Scotland.
This mass exoneration applies to England and Wales.
Seeing some of the shambles that went on in NI and Scotland you'd hope they follow suit sharpish.
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Post by iancransonsknees on Feb 27, 2024 7:06:34 GMT
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Post by fullmetaljacket on Feb 27, 2024 14:37:43 GMT
Henry Staunton pulling no punches.
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Post by elystokie on Feb 27, 2024 15:18:18 GMT
Henry Staunton pulling no punches. Kemi Badenoch with some serious questions to answer. Seems she lied again. Bet nobody saw that coming...
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Post by Huddysleftfoot on Feb 27, 2024 15:40:19 GMT
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Post by fullmetaljacket on Feb 27, 2024 15:41:48 GMT
Henry Staunton pulling no punches. Kemi Badenoch with some serious questions to answer. Seems she lied again. Bet nobody saw that coming... Sounds an utterly dysfunctional place still. With the CEO being under investigation, throwing wobbles bout leaving.
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Post by bigjohnritchie on Feb 27, 2024 15:57:40 GMT
Can someone please attempt to answer this question( if it was at the heart of the problem):
If the Fujitsu " team" were trying to correct bugs in Horizon.....Logistically and practically how could they do this?
How, as far as can be surmised, did the bug work? Did it always take money out of accounts, never put money in? How could ' they' possibly monitor the whole country's sub-post offices on a second by second basis? How could they know when a transaction had gone wrong?
I know the answer might be " We don't know ", but there will be some on here who know far more than me about " computer bug issues "
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Post by wannabee on Feb 27, 2024 16:36:15 GMT
Can someone please attempt to answer this question( if it was at the heart of the problem): If the Fujitsu " team" were trying to correct bugs in Horizon.....Logistically and practically how could they do this? How, as far as can be surmised, did the bug work? Did it always take money out of accounts, never put money in? How could ' they' possibly monitor the whole country's sub-post offices on a second by second basis? How could they know when a transaction had gone wrong? I know the answer might be " We don't know ", but there will be some on here who know far more than me about " computer bug issues " There were Multiple Bugs in the Horizon Software some identified even during its pilot testing but still released Internally the Fujitsu Software Programmers called the bug after the sub Post Office Location the particular bug was first identified Of course Fujitsu didn't monitor the system transactions live but they had a Hotline for subpostmasters to call for advice if they had problems. Each time the subpostmasters were told lies that their problem was unique and no other subpostmaster had any issues I assume the Fujitsu Software Programmers made attempts to fix the bugs and would have updated the mainframe which subpostmasters accessed remotely. As Fujitsu never acknowledged there were bugs any fixes would not have been tested by subpostmasters in real time to see if they worked. It was like a giant game of Whac-A-Mole
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Post by CBUFAWKIPWH on Feb 27, 2024 16:37:15 GMT
Can someone please attempt to answer this question( if it was at the heart of the problem): If the Fujitsu " team" were trying to correct bugs in Horizon.....Logistically and practically how could they do this? How, as far as can be surmised, did the bug work? Did it always take money out of accounts, never put money in? How could ' they' possibly monitor the whole country's sub-post offices on a second by second basis? How could they know when a transaction had gone wrong? I know the answer might be " We don't know ", but there will be some on here who know far more than me about " computer bug issues " A well designed computer system should have an audit trail that ensures what was posted matches what ends up in the accounts. Whether the Horizon system is well designed is a moot point. There are 2 issues: 1 The Horizon system has bugs that caused errors in the accounts. As the software developer Fujitsu should have fixed these but it looks like they didn't. Which means their software development practices are likely to be crap. 3 Secondly they had built a "back door" into the system that allowed Fujitsu employees to directly change the accounts. This is considered bad practice but a lot of systems have them. However best practice would be to have proper procedures for their use and a robust manual/off system mechanism for auditing any backdoor changes to the data. Fujitsu staff were doing this all the time and from what I can make out the changes weren't audited. To make matters worse the Post Office denied that there was a backdoor into the system so anything dubious in the accounts was down to the sub postmasters who entered the data into the system in the first place when they knew full well that Fujitsu employees were frigging the data through a back door they had built into the system to deal with the bugs in their system. For years they lied about the system having a backdoor and sub postmasters were convicted on the understanding that they were responsible for what was in the accounts and there was no way anyone could have tampered with the data. Hope that helps.
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Post by bigjohnritchie on Feb 27, 2024 16:41:00 GMT
Can someone please attempt to answer this question( if it was at the heart of the problem): If the Fujitsu " team" were trying to correct bugs in Horizon.....Logistically and practically how could they do this? How, as far as can be surmised, did the bug work? Did it always take money out of accounts, never put money in? How could ' they' possibly monitor the whole country's sub-post offices on a second by second basis? How could they know when a transaction had gone wrong? I know the answer might be " We don't know ", but there will be some on here who know far more than me about " computer bug issues " There were Multiple Bugs in the Horizon Software some identified even during its pilot testing but still released Internally the Fujitsu Software Programmers called the bug after the sub Post Office Location the particular bug was first identified Of course Fujitsu didn't monitor the system transactions live but they had a Hotline for subpostmasters to call for advice if they had problems. Each time the subpostmasters were told lies that their problem was unique and no other subpostmaster had any issues I assume the Fujitsu Software Programmers made attempts to fix the bugs and would have updated the mainframe which subpostmasters accessed remotely. As Fujitsu never acknowledged there were bugs any fixes would not have been tested by subpostmasters in real time to see if they worked. It was like a giant game of Whac-A-Mole So they only attempted to rectify the " mistakes' about which they were informed? Did they rectify mistakes made at Main ( Post office owned) post offices? Do you or anyone) know how the bug actually worked....just a random removal of "digital " money?
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Post by wannabee on Feb 27, 2024 16:54:59 GMT
Can someone please attempt to answer this question( if it was at the heart of the problem): If the Fujitsu " team" were trying to correct bugs in Horizon.....Logistically and practically how could they do this? How, as far as can be surmised, did the bug work? Did it always take money out of accounts, never put money in? How could ' they' possibly monitor the whole country's sub-post offices on a second by second basis? How could they know when a transaction had gone wrong? I know the answer might be " We don't know ", but there will be some on here who know far more than me about " computer bug issues " A well designed computer system should have an audit trail that ensures what was posted matches what ends up in the accounts. Whether the Horizon system is well designed is a moot point. There are 2 issues: 1 The Horizon system has bugs that caused errors in the accounts. As the software developer Fujitsu should have fixed these but it looks like they didn't. Which means their software development practices are likely to be crap. 3 Secondly they had built a "back door" into the system that allowed Fujitsu employees to directly change the accounts. This is considered bad practice but a lot of systems have them. However best practice would be to have proper procedures for their use and a robust manual/off system mechanism for auditing any backdoor changes to the data. Fujitsu staff were doing this all the time and from what I can make out the changes weren't audited. To make matters worse the Post Office denied that there was a backdoor into the system so anything dubious in the accounts was down to the sub postmasters who entered the data into the system in the first place when they knew full well that Fujitsu employees were frigging the data through a back door they had built into the system to deal with the bugs in their system. For years they lied about the system having a backdoor and sub postmasters were convicted on the understanding that they were responsible for what was in the accounts and there was no way anyone could have tampered with the data. Hope that helps. Your opening para raises another important point, there are many It is understood Vennells agreed to “migrate” the archive to the Fujitsu system, known as Eternus, despite warnings from at least two senior executives in the Post Office that this would make it virtually impossible to investigate branch transactions should a forensic audit be needed into Horizon’s records.Whether this was done with malevolent intent may be difficult to prove that a Woman of the Cloth would do such a thing. www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/feb/13/ex-post-office-boss-gave-fujitsu-bonus-contract-despite-warnings-whistleblowers-says
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Post by CBUFAWKIPWH on Feb 27, 2024 17:10:17 GMT
There were Multiple Bugs in the Horizon Software some identified even during its pilot testing but still released Internally the Fujitsu Software Programmers called the bug after the sub Post Office Location the particular bug was first identified Of course Fujitsu didn't monitor the system transactions live but they had a Hotline for subpostmasters to call for advice if they had problems. Each time the subpostmasters were told lies that their problem was unique and no other subpostmaster had any issues I assume the Fujitsu Software Programmers made attempts to fix the bugs and would have updated the mainframe which subpostmasters accessed remotely. As Fujitsu never acknowledged there were bugs any fixes would not have been tested by subpostmasters in real time to see if they worked. It was like a giant game of Whac-A-Mole So they only attempted to rectify the " mistakes' about which they were infor? Did they rectify mistakes made at Main ( Post office owned) post offices? Do you or anyone) know how the bug actually worked....just a random removal of "digital " money? My understanding is that sub masters either reported that they believed there were errors in their accounts or the central office identified issues with the accounts. Either way a Fujitsu employer "fixed" the accounts by directly changing the data via the back door into the system. The problem with this is that there is no record of how they changed the data and if they did it wrongly it could have the accounts look even worse. An accounting system should maintain an accurate audit trail of any financial transactions. So for example if money is received it should show has income in the accounts and if money is spent it is recorded as expenditure. Money transferred to a bank account would also show as a transaction. If the system is cocking up the income, expenditure and or banking transactions the amount of money actually in the bank account won't match the amount of money that the accounting system says should be there. This is how people actually committing fraud get caught out - the money they are syphoning off cannot be reconciled with what is in the bank and in the accounting system. The sub post masters were being scapegoated for the discrepancies caused by a bug ridden system and Fujitsu employees' cack handed attempts at "correcting" the accounts via the backdoor. The post office claimed the accounts were reliable when they weren't - and they knew it.
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Post by CBUFAWKIPWH on Feb 27, 2024 17:40:31 GMT
A well designed computer system should have an audit trail that ensures what was posted matches what ends up in the accounts. Whether the Horizon system is well designed is a moot point. There are 2 issues: 1 The Horizon system has bugs that caused errors in the accounts. As the software developer Fujitsu should have fixed these but it looks like they didn't. Which means their software development practices are likely to be crap. 3 Secondly they had built a "back door" into the system that allowed Fujitsu employees to directly change the accounts. This is considered bad practice but a lot of systems have them. However best practice would be to have proper procedures for their use and a robust manual/off system mechanism for auditing any backdoor changes to the data. Fujitsu staff were doing this all the time and from what I can make out the changes weren't audited. To make matters worse the Post Office denied that there was a backdoor into the system so anything dubious in the accounts was down to the sub postmasters who entered the data into the system in the first place when they knew full well that Fujitsu employees were frigging the data through a back door they had built into the system to deal with the bugs in their system. For years they lied about the system having a backdoor and sub postmasters were convicted on the understanding that they were responsible for what was in the accounts and there was no way anyone could have tampered with the data. Hope that helps. Your opening para raises another important point, there are many It is understood Vennells agreed to “migrate” the archive to the Fujitsu system, known as Eternus, despite warnings from at least two senior executives in the Post Office that this would make it virtually impossible to investigate branch transactions should a forensic audit be needed into Horizon’s records.Whether this was done with malevolent intent may be difficult to prove that a Woman of the Cloth would do such a thing. www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/feb/13/ex-post-office-boss-gave-fujitsu-bonus-contract-despite-warnings-whistleblowers-saysTo be honest that sounds like a decision by someone who hasn't got a clue what they are doing. I used to work in IT as a software developer and can confirm that most of the time the people making important decisions about IT haven't got a clue about IT. Having said that it looks like Vennells knew what was going on and watched innocent people get ruined and go to prison in order to cover the arses of senior management at the Post Office, hers included. What she did was unethical and immoral and how a member of the church could not see just how appalling her behaviour was is beyond me.
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Post by bigjohnritchie on Feb 27, 2024 17:42:29 GMT
So they only attempted to rectify the " mistakes' about which they were infor? Did they rectify mistakes made at Main ( Post office owned) post offices? Do you or anyone) know how the bug actually worked....just a random removal of "digital " money? My understanding is that sub masters either reported that they believed there were errors in their accounts or the central office identified issues with the accounts. Either way a Fujitsu employer "fixed" the accounts by directly changing the data via the back door into the system. The problem with this is that there is no record of how they changed the data and if they did it wrongly it could have the accounts look even worse. An accounting system should maintain an accurate audit trail of any financial transactions. So for example if money is received it should show has income in the accounts and if money is spent it is recorded as expenditure. Money transferred to a bank account would also show as a transaction. If the system is cocking up the income, expenditure and or banking transactions the amount of money actually in the bank account won't match the amount of money that the accounting system says should be there. This is how people actually committing fraud get caught out - the money they are syphoning off cannot be reconciled with what is in the bank and in the accounting system. The sub post masters were being scapegoated for the discrepancies caused by a bug ridden system and Fujitsu employees' cack handed attempts at "correcting" the accounts via the backdoor. The post office claimed the accounts were reliable when they weren't - and they knew it. Thank you for replying CB and Civil
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