Does it? I can't see most of the comments on this page when I turn on reader mode. (Not that I'm implying the CSS here is deficient; it's better than most.)
IIRC, common law also presumes that snail mail is robust.
The idea is that it is common for someone to deny receiving a mailed notification but that it is uncommon for mail to actually be lost. So, it makes sense to presume that the mail was successfully delivered unless there is evidence to the contrary (i.e. other mail to nearby addresses was also undelivered due to a weather condition).
My take on the UK law is that software is presumed to work unless an actual bug can be demonstrated.
(US based) I'm a human snail mail spam filter... It is possible for me to have physically received the mail, but promptly tossed it because the volume of ads and spam dwarfs actual mail. I've also found unopened mail in my trash by accident because it was tucked inside of supermarket flyers/etc that were tossed.
So, its quite likely that both cases are true, if you consider that there is a difference between physical reception of the mail and actual knowledge of what was sent.
I'm not really sure what the solution is, except maybe to pass more laws that keep the spammers from trying to make their mail look like official business (which is common because it increases the number of people that open the mail).
Same here. 98% of my mail is spam. I receive far, far more physical mail spam than email spam. (I'm sure the total volume of email spam sent to me is way higher than the physical mail spam's, but the email spam filters catch almost all of it.)
I've definitely accidentally thrown out some real mail which was wedged inside of some kind of spam ad.
I believe the trial it refers to is a civil class action case relating to the UK Post Office "Horizon" IT system, which falsely accused hundreds of postmasters (managers of local post offices) of theft. This case was settled this month, ruling against the post office to the tune of £57.75m [1].
The very lengthy judgement[2], does have an appendix going into technical detail, and page 17 onwards contains an interesting and long discussion of "the meaning of 'robustness' ".
As to why the judgement is very long: Ordinarily cases before a court will have a lot of agreed facts. For example maybe Mrs Smith says Mr Jones knocked down her cherry tree with his car and Mr Jones denies this, the two sets of lawyers will meet before court and agree that OK, yes, this blue car is Mr Jones' car, the cherry tree belongs to Mrs Smith, it's on her land- and so on. Then the court gets to focus on a real dispute.
The agreed facts don't take the court's time (the judge will read them, but he doesn't need a court in session to do so) and only appear in a judgement if the judge happens to mention them for some reason. But for the most part this court was obliged to tediously "find" things that should have been agreed up front. Since the plaintiffs are human and so have finite financial resources and lifespan, whereas Post Office Ltd is a corporate entity wholly owned by the British Government we can reasonably believe this was a deliberate stalling tactic for which a judge ought IMO to have sanctioned them.
The judge stops short of this, concluding that "Over the numerous hearings and two full substantive trials that I have conducted, I have gained the distinct impression that the Post Office is less committed to speedy resolution of the entire group litigation than are the claimants, but it is not possible to state with finality whether that is correct"
An example the judge brings up early in their writing is that the plaintiffs say the Post Office did this to other Sub-post masters but eventually fixed it and paid them back. The Post Office says it didn't, but, under cross examination actually Post Office staff admitted that yeah, obviously they took money from other sub-post masters due to bugs, but they considered that since they'd paid it back months or years later that meant it wasn't taken at all. With a few hours haggling over the wording this could have been an admitted fact both sides agreed on, albeit one that makes the Post Office look pretty bad, but instead they insisted on wasting the court's time.
The Post Office doubled down on the stalling tactic, first trying to get the entire case thrown away by arguing that this judge was "biased" because he had found against them. They asserted that they were entitled to a judge who basically believed anything they said, what the purpose of such a judge could be is unclear, but this wasted yet more court time. They also hired new lawyers who insisted that they ought to be allowed to start over because they (the new lawyers) hadn't been there to make better arguments earlier in the trial...
Basically there was no plan beyond "Stall and lie and hope all the plaintiffs die before we lose". A competent government might have observed this, terminated the Post Office CEO for gross negligence and ordered her replacement to settle years ago.
Also notable: Some plaintiffs have Criminal convictions for their supposed "theft" from the Post Office as a result of shortfalls in Horizon. The Criminal Cases Review Commission is charged with considering situations where people are found guilty of some crime as a result of gross miscarriages of justice - most often they're "fitted up" by corrupt cops, or expert witnesses at trial insist upon something subsequently proved to be factually wrong. The commission will have wanted to wait until the civil case is completed before considering whether any of these plaintiffs were wrongly convicted and should be sent back for a new trial (at which a court might conclude that with the current evidence there was no crime and so their conviction is overturned automatically).
The Post Office has successfully framed the (perception of the) case using completely ambiguous terms.
The Court has fallen for the strategy and wasted many hours splitting hairs on the meaning of the word "robust".
A better choice would have been "verifiably correct", since that requires a verification process and a definitive set of statements defining correctness.
A competent system engineer of 6 months experience could have pointed that out in a heartbeat. But, lawyers being lawyers....
Every time I see a case like this I am horrified the that it takes decades, still there is virtually no compensation for the victims.
To me the evidence of failure on the post-office side looks absolutely damning, including third party audits and physical impossibilities.
" The auditor supposedly witness all transactions for half a day and witness Horizon being short, thereby corroborating her account and also now a potential witness for her"
"Horizon generated a shortfall of £9,000 over Christmas and New Year 2009, a period when her post office branch was closed."
This goes way beyond presumption of robustness, the first time any of this evidence saw the light of day, that should have been the end of it.
Also the court seems to be full of people making statements to the system's robustness who have no business doing so - they appear to present no evidence, know nothing about development process and have no qualifications. Please point out if I am getting this wrong.
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The idea is that it is common for someone to deny receiving a mailed notification but that it is uncommon for mail to actually be lost. So, it makes sense to presume that the mail was successfully delivered unless there is evidence to the contrary (i.e. other mail to nearby addresses was also undelivered due to a weather condition).
My take on the UK law is that software is presumed to work unless an actual bug can be demonstrated.
So, its quite likely that both cases are true, if you consider that there is a difference between physical reception of the mail and actual knowledge of what was sent.
I'm not really sure what the solution is, except maybe to pass more laws that keep the spammers from trying to make their mail look like official business (which is common because it increases the number of people that open the mail).
I've definitely accidentally thrown out some real mail which was wedged inside of some kind of spam ad.
The very lengthy judgement[2], does have an appendix going into technical detail, and page 17 onwards contains an interesting and long discussion of "the meaning of 'robustness' ".
[1] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/12/12/post_office_horizon... [2] https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/bates-v-...
The agreed facts don't take the court's time (the judge will read them, but he doesn't need a court in session to do so) and only appear in a judgement if the judge happens to mention them for some reason. But for the most part this court was obliged to tediously "find" things that should have been agreed up front. Since the plaintiffs are human and so have finite financial resources and lifespan, whereas Post Office Ltd is a corporate entity wholly owned by the British Government we can reasonably believe this was a deliberate stalling tactic for which a judge ought IMO to have sanctioned them.
The judge stops short of this, concluding that "Over the numerous hearings and two full substantive trials that I have conducted, I have gained the distinct impression that the Post Office is less committed to speedy resolution of the entire group litigation than are the claimants, but it is not possible to state with finality whether that is correct"
An example the judge brings up early in their writing is that the plaintiffs say the Post Office did this to other Sub-post masters but eventually fixed it and paid them back. The Post Office says it didn't, but, under cross examination actually Post Office staff admitted that yeah, obviously they took money from other sub-post masters due to bugs, but they considered that since they'd paid it back months or years later that meant it wasn't taken at all. With a few hours haggling over the wording this could have been an admitted fact both sides agreed on, albeit one that makes the Post Office look pretty bad, but instead they insisted on wasting the court's time.
The Post Office doubled down on the stalling tactic, first trying to get the entire case thrown away by arguing that this judge was "biased" because he had found against them. They asserted that they were entitled to a judge who basically believed anything they said, what the purpose of such a judge could be is unclear, but this wasted yet more court time. They also hired new lawyers who insisted that they ought to be allowed to start over because they (the new lawyers) hadn't been there to make better arguments earlier in the trial...
Basically there was no plan beyond "Stall and lie and hope all the plaintiffs die before we lose". A competent government might have observed this, terminated the Post Office CEO for gross negligence and ordered her replacement to settle years ago.
Also notable: Some plaintiffs have Criminal convictions for their supposed "theft" from the Post Office as a result of shortfalls in Horizon. The Criminal Cases Review Commission is charged with considering situations where people are found guilty of some crime as a result of gross miscarriages of justice - most often they're "fitted up" by corrupt cops, or expert witnesses at trial insist upon something subsequently proved to be factually wrong. The commission will have wanted to wait until the civil case is completed before considering whether any of these plaintiffs were wrongly convicted and should be sent back for a new trial (at which a court might conclude that with the current evidence there was no crime and so their conviction is overturned automatically).
The Court has fallen for the strategy and wasted many hours splitting hairs on the meaning of the word "robust".
A better choice would have been "verifiably correct", since that requires a verification process and a definitive set of statements defining correctness.
A competent system engineer of 6 months experience could have pointed that out in a heartbeat. But, lawyers being lawyers....
To me the evidence of failure on the post-office side looks absolutely damning, including third party audits and physical impossibilities.
" The auditor supposedly witness all transactions for half a day and witness Horizon being short, thereby corroborating her account and also now a potential witness for her"
"Horizon generated a shortfall of £9,000 over Christmas and New Year 2009, a period when her post office branch was closed."
This goes way beyond presumption of robustness, the first time any of this evidence saw the light of day, that should have been the end of it.
Also the court seems to be full of people making statements to the system's robustness who have no business doing so - they appear to present no evidence, know nothing about development process and have no qualifications. Please point out if I am getting this wrong.