Being declared dead is automated, so why is resurrection such a nightmare?(theregister.com)
theregister.com
Being declared dead is automated, so why is resurrection such a nightmare?
https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/15/something_for_the_weekend/
53 comments
Cf. Doc Daneeka in Catch-22, listed (as a courtesy so he could collect flight pay) on the flight manifest of a bomber that crashed, and that he was not counted to have parachuted out of. His persistent existence was resented by company officers, and eventually his wife.
India has the same issue. Apparently bribing an official is an easy way to settle a dispute. Without the messiness of actually killing someone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uttar_Pradesh_Association_of_D...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uttar_Pradesh_Association_of_D...
> > his uncle had bribed a government official with ₹300 to have his nephew declared deceased, in order to inherit Lal Bihari's ancestral land holdings of about 1 acre (0.4 ha). Subsequently, Lal Bihari lost his home. ..... In 1994, the Azamargh district magistrate, Hausla Prasad Verma, declared him to be once again alive. Bihari did, however, allow his uncle to continue farming the land he had stolen
Wow, I would not have been nearly as kind there at the end.
Wow, I would not have been nearly as kind there at the end.
Well, people die all the time, so the process of registering such events is well known - it had to be repeated millions of times, and thus is typically well implemented and optimized.
But people are falsely declared dead, or get revived after being declared dead quite infrequently, and that's why this process is typically not automated and sometimes even entirely missed.
But people are falsely declared dead, or get revived after being declared dead quite infrequently, and that's why this process is typically not automated and sometimes even entirely missed.
Dead people's identities are also great targets for e.g. spies, illegal immigrants, and money launderers, so governments have a strong interest in making sure the identities of the deceased get turned off promptly and thoroughly.
Indeed.
It’s amazing how lax the old paper system was.
Canada used to accept baptismal certificates as proof of birth in Canada. The Millennium bomber stole a blank form and got himself a Canadian passport pretty damn easily.
It’s not easy to get a death certificate (needs to be signed by a doctor or coroner) so reversing such an official document must be difficult.
And on top of that, there is probably no process for actually do it, so that’s a challenge itself.
It’s amazing how lax the old paper system was.
Canada used to accept baptismal certificates as proof of birth in Canada. The Millennium bomber stole a blank form and got himself a Canadian passport pretty damn easily.
It’s not easy to get a death certificate (needs to be signed by a doctor or coroner) so reversing such an official document must be difficult.
And on top of that, there is probably no process for actually do it, so that’s a challenge itself.
If I am a victim why should I give a flying fuck about the reasons. It is their error and they must fix it ASAP. It is their fucking for job which we pay.
I'm quite sure that there is no one in the world whose job is only and specifically to assist you in being declared un-deceased and that, even if their were, they wouldn't have the authority to entire enact the process. Any person you interact with is going to have additional considerations beyond fulfilling your immediate request and the organization(s) they work with or for also will have additional priorities. How could you possibly expect everyone else to drop all other work to complete your request totally without regard for any of their other priorities?
I admire your attitude. Government knows these thing happen. If it is rare then it can be part time responsibility of some government employee. Appropriate authority can be given. When government wants something it always finds a way.
Your attitude is - they know it will happen, it is rare so fuck it and lets ruin few lives so some government fucker does not have to strain all 2 brain cells they have left.
Btw when bad things happen to "important people" suddenly it gets fixed in no time.
Your attitude is - they know it will happen, it is rare so fuck it and lets ruin few lives so some government fucker does not have to strain all 2 brain cells they have left.
Btw when bad things happen to "important people" suddenly it gets fixed in no time.
Because it makes sense for everyone. Making the system perfectly handle an infrequent use case is a waste of resources for the larger system. A manual, buggy process is likely fine. The time spent to make it perfect would be large. That time can be spent making sure people get better service in other, more common scenarios.
There was a story where an employee was fired by mistake. It was an automatic procedure and he had all his access revoked, computer and physical.
No one could un-fire him, the only solution was to hire him again as if he was a new employee.
No one could un-fire him, the only solution was to hire him again as if he was a new employee.
The good news is that you get the new employee salary increase instead of the token half-inflation-rate increase.
The down-side is you get to find out whether they would hire you again if you weren't already on payroll.
Bad news is all your accrued vacation days are wiped clean
Why aren't they paid out upon termination? Is that not standard policy in the US? You earnt them, after all. Just as they can't take back your earnt wages, they can't take back your earnt leave.
I don't think it's required by law.
Edit: I guess a fair number of states do have laws for that, though unlimited vacation still gets around that.
Edit: I guess a fair number of states do have laws for that, though unlimited vacation still gets around that.
Love Dabbsy's stories.
There's a traditional way to screw over co-workers. On a day they are not in the office, scrawl "DECEASED" on all their mail, and drop it in the outbox. It's said to take years to undo. That long predates computers.
The Motorhead vid was a bit sad, though. R. I. P., Lemmy.
There's a traditional way to screw over co-workers. On a day they are not in the office, scrawl "DECEASED" on all their mail, and drop it in the outbox. It's said to take years to undo. That long predates computers.
The Motorhead vid was a bit sad, though. R. I. P., Lemmy.
I think this is the first of his stories I've read, and what a treat.
I love this part of his autobio at the end:
> He still stings from having to provide proof to the French authorities that he was not a bigamist prior to getting married. Most countries have such a thing as a Wedding Certificate but in France, there is also an official Certificate of Unmarriedness, and it is a right old bugger to find someone to draw one up when you’re not French. In the end, he persuaded a British consul to sign a letter stating that the aforementioned – a person he didn’t know and had never met – was, as far as he could guess, probably not already married, perhaps, maybe, I dunno, I hope not. The French authorities accepted it without further question.
Back to the story, sometimes here in California we have the opposite problem, where someone really is dead, deceased, an ex-person, pushing up the daisies, kicked the bucket like Jimmy Durante [1], but no one will let him Rest In Peace.
Every week or so I get a piece of mail with an offer for guaranteed issue of a life insurance policy for an acquaintance who died a few years ago. He never actually lived at my address, but through a chain of events his forwarding address was set to here.
Since they are so insistent, I am tempted to fill in one of those applications on his behalf and see what happens. Maybe they will bring him back to life? After all, they do call it Life Insurance.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w00Kab17aeI
"Did you see it? He (slap) sailed right out there!"
I love this part of his autobio at the end:
> He still stings from having to provide proof to the French authorities that he was not a bigamist prior to getting married. Most countries have such a thing as a Wedding Certificate but in France, there is also an official Certificate of Unmarriedness, and it is a right old bugger to find someone to draw one up when you’re not French. In the end, he persuaded a British consul to sign a letter stating that the aforementioned – a person he didn’t know and had never met – was, as far as he could guess, probably not already married, perhaps, maybe, I dunno, I hope not. The French authorities accepted it without further question.
Back to the story, sometimes here in California we have the opposite problem, where someone really is dead, deceased, an ex-person, pushing up the daisies, kicked the bucket like Jimmy Durante [1], but no one will let him Rest In Peace.
Every week or so I get a piece of mail with an offer for guaranteed issue of a life insurance policy for an acquaintance who died a few years ago. He never actually lived at my address, but through a chain of events his forwarding address was set to here.
Since they are so insistent, I am tempted to fill in one of those applications on his behalf and see what happens. Maybe they will bring him back to life? After all, they do call it Life Insurance.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w00Kab17aeI
"Did you see it? He (slap) sailed right out there!"
> tempted to fill in one of those applications on his behalf…
…and then send in his death certificate. It should be amusing, provided you aren’t nicked for filling in the policy.
…and then send in his death certificate. It should be amusing, provided you aren’t nicked for filling in the policy.
I just got a quarter million dollar loan check for the guy who rented my house before me. He died 6 years ago.
> I think this is the first of his stories I've read, and what a treat.
Collect the whole set:
https://search.theregister.com/?q=SOMETHING+FOR+THE+WEEKEND
Collect the whole set:
https://search.theregister.com/?q=SOMETHING+FOR+THE+WEEKEND
Not at the same level but I recently had to fight for 4 months to get my office location corrected after it was incorrectly recorded. I work in a company office in Seattle but was reporting to a boss in London. I changed jobs within the company and started to report to a boss in Chicago. What I hadn’t realized was that someone marked me as working in the Chicago office.
Sounds like no big deal but then they started witholding state income taxes for Illinois out of my paycheck. My actual home office in Seattle is in a state with zero state taxes so it made a big difference.
It took a month to realize that it had happened, then it took another month to get someone who could change me back to the correct state. Of course they were saying that I would need to wait until next year to file taxes and request that Illinois payback the witholdings. I managed to find some Illinois state tax regulations explaining a process to clawback overpaid taxes and sent that to our payroll team. Finally, after around 4 months, they issued me a check for $3,000.00 for the overpaid taxes.
That was a surprisingly complex process even though this is a fairly modern tech company. Can’t imagine what a more traditional company would have been like. It also taught me to keep a closer eye on that automatically paid paycheck to watch for anything odd.
Sounds like no big deal but then they started witholding state income taxes for Illinois out of my paycheck. My actual home office in Seattle is in a state with zero state taxes so it made a big difference.
It took a month to realize that it had happened, then it took another month to get someone who could change me back to the correct state. Of course they were saying that I would need to wait until next year to file taxes and request that Illinois payback the witholdings. I managed to find some Illinois state tax regulations explaining a process to clawback overpaid taxes and sent that to our payroll team. Finally, after around 4 months, they issued me a check for $3,000.00 for the overpaid taxes.
That was a surprisingly complex process even though this is a fairly modern tech company. Can’t imagine what a more traditional company would have been like. It also taught me to keep a closer eye on that automatically paid paycheck to watch for anything odd.
The first part of the title reminds me of a previous employer, where offboarding was not automated.
I know, because I recall a project to systematize and consistently revoke access to everything for anyone that left.
My point is: automating a process may not make the opposite process easy, but when it's manual, I'd kind of expect things to be no better and maybe worse.
If you don't even know exactly how a person was declared defunct, it can't be any easier to resurrect them.
I know, because I recall a project to systematize and consistently revoke access to everything for anyone that left.
My point is: automating a process may not make the opposite process easy, but when it's manual, I'd kind of expect things to be no better and maybe worse.
If you don't even know exactly how a person was declared defunct, it can't be any easier to resurrect them.
The mechanics of birth/death registrations was once covered in a Blackhat talk.
https://youtu.be/9FdHq3WfJgs
https://youtu.be/9FdHq3WfJgs
The more curious parts of my brain are wondering whether being offically declared dead and not fixing it would have any advantages.
I suspect you'd have to never cross a border/barrier where ID was required, and you would need to pay cash (or bitcoin) in-person for everything, as you would be cut-off from the banking system. You'd probably also be limited to earning cash in work that didn't require your nonexistent legal identity.
Moving to another country is a safer choice: you get to choose the level of “deadness” you are to your surroundings, if you just cut all ties nobody’s going after you. And you can start a new chapter somewhere you never existed in the first place.
You could probably commit a crime, get bail, and then submit proof that you were dead to get away with it?
It seems a great hack for a new life.
Declare yourself dead and start again!
Declare yourself dead and start again!
I'm sure it works on Hacker News, but creating a new identity can be harder elsewhere.
The People need to use tombstone logic with a field as markAsDead.
Dead men don't have any obligations to pay taxes. Just saying.
Falsehoods that programmers believe:
- Someone declared dead will never be declared alive again
- Someone declared dead will never be declared alive again
This applies to so many systems that have irreversible status transitions. I have seen this again and again over my career as a developer. A foolproof system is designed and then some fool of a user puts it in a different state from reality, after which it requires all kinds of tricking the system to make it match the observable universe.
By now this should be system design 101: the system should always have an override to move a record from any state into any other state.
By now this should be system design 101: the system should always have an override to move a record from any state into any other state.
I try to design systems on an accounting principle. Every persistent state change is basically a journal entry, and you can always create a new entry to correct a prior entry.
THIS. No unaccountable editing, but always allow new entries that accommodate the same needs. There is no legit reason any legit error correction can't have a log that shows the error and the correction. There are reasons, but no legit reasons.
You could have a journal to record changes, but presumably you'd still have a single record for a person, with a single field for date of death, that would be set and then unset.
Edit: I suppose it could be like addresses, if you had a separate address table and you'd be using the most recent address for a person without losing previous addresses. But it may seem like overkill for a field that's normally set only once.
Edit: I suppose it could be like addresses, if you had a separate address table and you'd be using the most recent address for a person without losing previous addresses. But it may seem like overkill for a field that's normally set only once.
This is almost always the right decision and it applies to pretty much any thing that needs to record anything. It also is one of the few down to earth use cases for a blockchain.
> It also is one of the few down to earth use cases for a blockchain.
Please no. It may be really difficult to get a human beaurocrat to fix something but can you imagine what it would be like if there was a smart contract that wasn’t coded with this possibility in mind?
Please no. It may be really difficult to get a human beaurocrat to fix something but can you imagine what it would be like if there was a smart contract that wasn’t coded with this possibility in mind?
Did I say anything about smart contracts? I think you've been brainwashed by the web3 gang.
A blockchain is just a series of hash signatures that depend on each other, in this context you can use it to demonstrate integrity on the provided dataset. Period.
A blockchain is just a series of hash signatures that depend on each other, in this context you can use it to demonstrate integrity on the provided dataset. Period.
I am just now programming a system where you can make a temporary deactivation and a permanent deactivation of a user account. And a permanent deactivation is irreversible from the UI, though it can be reversed by flipping a boolean in the DB proper. It is intended for situations where, e.g., the employee leaves the corporation.
Should there be an override in the UI? Why? The way you are stating it sounds like a mathematical axiom, but I would like to see it treated as a theorem: with a proof, or at least a powerful set of reasons.
I can see that a particular person may rejoin the same corporation later, but IMHO they should be given a new account, not just have their old account reactivated. They aren't really "the same person" anymore, they might have a different job description etc.
Should there be an override in the UI? Why? The way you are stating it sounds like a mathematical axiom, but I would like to see it treated as a theorem: with a proof, or at least a powerful set of reasons.
I can see that a particular person may rejoin the same corporation later, but IMHO they should be given a new account, not just have their old account reactivated. They aren't really "the same person" anymore, they might have a different job description etc.
They'd seem like the same person to me. Do people who switch jobs get a new account too?
Some systems need irreversibleness from a legal viewpoint. Image a voting machine for instance: at what conditions should it accept that the same person votes again ?
In reality there must be situations where voiding a first vote and casting a second should be allowed. But for one, is it even possible IRL in most situations, for instance during a single day voting window ?
For two, how would you make that an option that can be used at the level the reversing decision is taken, while also protecting from abuse from bad faith actors and corrupt elements ?
In reality there must be situations where voiding a first vote and casting a second should be allowed. But for one, is it even possible IRL in most situations, for instance during a single day voting window ?
For two, how would you make that an option that can be used at the level the reversing decision is taken, while also protecting from abuse from bad faith actors and corrupt elements ?
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