Serious Software Glitches

Recently Robert Sterbal pointed out a podcast to me. This link is for Apple Podcasts, but it's for the Journal, which is on other platforms (I listened on Spotify). It's the story of a computer glitch in UK post office software, which resulted in quite a few local postmasters being criminally prosecuted, many convicted, and even a few committing suicide. It's a sad story, and it's complex, but there are some technology-related elements. First, the overall story is Fujitsu sold the UK a point-of-sale system for post offices. There was a computer glitch here, which incorrectly calculated lots of totals and showed postmasters owing more money than they should. They were upset, called support, got nowhere and many were liable for paying money they didn't owe. The UK postal management hid information about the widespread nature of the problem, while prosecuting many local postmasters. Fujitsu support didn't disclose to callers how others were experiencing this same issue. This also coincided with a (an unrelated) law that changed saying computer systems were presumed correct and anyone accused of a crime had to prove the computer was wrong. Read the rest of Serious Software Glitches