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Fujitsu boss 'does not know' if Horizon is reliable

Fujitsu Europe's boss has admitted he "does not know" if the Post Office Horizon IT system at the heart of hundreds of sub-postmasters' wrongful convictions is reliable.https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg7k89x8rzoNo words....

Ivonne Holliday ● 45d6 Comments

That's a trip down memory lane, John! The joke in information/cyber security has always been that the internet was built to withstand a nuclear war, not cyber warfare - a bit exaggerated as many vulnerabilities are in more recent software but in the early days I think it was only trusted parties allowed onto Arpanet? (Although a friend of mine worked at Imperial College data centre around the time there's and London University and its other colleges were connecting their CDCs to Arpanet so it was expanding outside of the US even in the 1970s.)Interesting, that while Arpanet was being rolled out the educational, military and other government users, IBM were busy developing developing their own System Network Architecture which I encountered more (alongside other proprietary network) during the 70s and 80s - perhaps to give them more control and security; still even SNA connects to IP these day - in fact, has done since the around mid 1990s.But back to Fujitsu, one also has to remember that it acquired ICL - once the government backed, preferred provider of computer systems - which is how it got entangled with the PO systems. One would have thought ICL was history now but perhaps the civil service hasn't caught up the he current situation ...

Michael Ixer ● 43d

'Perhaps IBM were more accurate concerning the real costs of development and delivery?'IBM was a very well managed large US multinational private sector company and the biggest in the field of IT.I have no doubt the bid was totally realistic if not appealing to the NHS.Anyone in the company putting in a bid below cost would have soon been out on their ear.Plenty of other fish to fry !On the other hand we are all aware of the close involvement of the Japanese government with its technology companies and the shadowy environment of Japanese business.Loss leader or as you state -'Could Fujitsu have put in a low quote knowing the customer was not very clear on requirements and contract variations could be used later to escalate the price'?And of course the NHS was probably a bit of a push over.I think the ARPAnet project was one carried out by a small group of US universities but which used IBM software and hardware plus its general IT expertise.Note the involvement of some of the 'seven dwarfs' most if not all no longer in existence.'University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where Kleinrock had established a Network Measurement Center (NMC), with an SDS Sigma 7 being the first computer attached to it;The Augmentation Research Center at Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International), where Douglas Engelbart had created the new NLS system, an early hypertext system, and would run the Network Information Center (NIC), with the SDS 940 that ran NLS, named "Genie", being the first host attached;University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), with the Culler-Fried Interactive Mathematics Center's IBM 360/75, running OS/MVT being the machine attached;The University of Utah School of Computing, where Ivan Sutherland had moved, running a DEC PDP-10 operating on TENEX.I recall its aim was that the networking of computer systems, particularly defence related,  would be essential to keep the show on the road if the Russians invaded ! 'The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first computer networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies became the technical foundation of the Internet. The ARPANET was established by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (now DARPA) of the United States Department of Defense'.Good example of government supporting new private sector technical initiatives.Arpanet was the basis of course of the Internet we know today !

John Hawkes ● 43d

Yes, good questions, John. Do we know if the NHS decision was made primarily on "price"? Perhaps IBM were more accurate concerning the real costs of development and delivery? Could Fujitsu have put in a low quote knowing the customer was not very clear on requirements and contract variations could be used later to escalate the price? I'd guess DARPA would probably be better at specifying their requirements than the NHS ... just a guess ...

Michael Ixer ● 44d

At about the same time, this manufacturer of computer HARDWARE was also given a contract to produce the NHS Central Records system, 'launched in 2002, with the aim of revolutionising the way technology is used in the health service by paving the way for electronic records, digital scanning and integrated IT systems across hospitals and community care'.For some reason or another it was awarded the contract in competition with IBM which had a far better history of delivering complex NETWORK (the US Arpanet project) and SOFTWARE projects of this nature."NHS IT system one of 'worst fiascos ever", said MPs on the Public Accounts Committee.'Hit by technical problems and contractual wrangling, it was effectively disbanded by the government two years ago (2011)'.'UK officials tried to block Fujitsu from government contracts in 2010s‘Project Sushi’ failed to remove Japanese software company despite ‘woeful’ performance'.https://www.ft.com/content/0b5c9a75-72e7-45bc-a202-7172d35e9f54However Fujitsu has always seemed to have good relations with Governments tendering for IT systems.Perhaps the Japan's reputation for technology (e.g pocket calculators !) was influential ?

John Hawkes ● 44d

I listened to part of that. He did at one point make a point that wasn't unreasonable which was that the Fujitu system interfaces with a number of other systems and uses a network managed for the PO by another supplier so probably some errors occurr in these systems rather than Horizon, but he did accept there were errors in the Horizon system. I was a little confused when they seemed to change the question of reliability from software to hardware. Because of the system's life being extended it is running on old hardware which is likely to fail more often; I'd guess that is something that's difficult to predict. I am surprised they haven't assessed the level of software reliability after all this time ... perhaps they'd rather not know?

Michael Ixer ● 44d

Apologies for the duplication!

Ivonne Holliday ● 45d