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In the UK hundreds of postmasters were accused of stealing by the Post Office because their accounting system couldn't add up†. Many lost their jobs. Some were jailed. It took twenty years for the management to admit that their system was broken.

I work in software and I do not trust it. Like you, I get paper bills. Where that's not an option I keep my own records.

† https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon_(IT_system)

This the same idea behind why I only push my online bill payments to service providers and never allow them to pull from my bank account. I want any mistakes to be my own rather than having to claw back a double payment that drains my account after the fact.

I do allow some services to auto-bill my credit card. That's the bank's money first and credit cards offer more protection in the event of billing errors.

I get digitally signed PDFs from service providers each month, similarly from various gov agencies.

Sure, there are still a lot of people who simply isn't comfortable handling this, and for them send them printed versions.

Auditors and reporters should audit the end-result, not look at paper baskets. We already know "oops liberty not found" happens in a lot of cases yet the powers that be does nothing. (Because it can't because it's a in a gridlock, because well, a lot of people are still just a xenophobic bigoted harmful dickhole waving their (single issue) flag.)

> Auditors and reporters should audit the end-result

I mean, sure. It's just that it's really hard to know how we got to any given end-result. Hey, we see a guy who is really having problems getting services for his kids from the state. Investigation time! Oh, it turns out he's got a bunch of money but he just doesn't want to spend it on his kids. So the reason why he's not getting the services is legit.

MEANWHILE

A guy isn't getting services for his kids AND we see that his forms are all in the trash outside of the statehouse. And there's Jimmy from the service department emptying some more filled out forms into the trash. Ah ha!

If it was an electronic form, then Jimmy could just hit delete (maybe even accidentally) and we would never know.

The point of paper is to make it harder for people in government to get away with not helping. Yeah, ideally we would investigate everything, but we just don't have the resources for that. Forcing someone to throw away paper into a basket is a shortcut to help people investigate.

This seems to be some kind of epicycles argument. :)

Paper is no different from digital documents when it comes to shady government business. It's just as likely for said magical auditors to find printed copies, email attachments, missing reports, missing data, misplaced data, forgotten backups, and so on. (Have I mentioned the tendency of digital things to be easy to get copied? Whistleblowers? Also I want to mention just to be redundant: backups!)

Audits are conducted based on processes. If the process is so lax that it does not mandate adequate records keeping then that problem needs fixing. And ... reporters write about this all the time, paper or not, it doesn't matter.

Just look at how the ATF's National Trace Center (the federal gun database) is still paper based to protect privacy. (To protect against a government overreach.)

"Interestingly" other special interest groups were less successful in keeping their records out of searchable databases.

If someone is not getting the money they are allocated by law, they usually sue. In the trial the plaintiff presents the evidence (documents in whatever form) that support (prove) that they are due whatever money they are not getting. Then it's the government's responsibility to contest that, show the problem with the argument, or show some document that changes the outcome of the assessment.

Which service providers are we talking about, if you don't mind sharing? Utilities, mortgages, that sort of thing?

I don't recall ever seeing such an option.

Hungarian ones. Utilities (for example I just checked my ISP's invoice, it's digitally signed [and timestamped]).

A stack of papers going back years showing that the corporate entity you're dealing with confirms that you payed them on time for years feels a lot better defense than:

I do agree with this sentiment, but I would like to point out that one can achieve the same effect (or very nearly so) by saving the "receipt" page or confirmation page that you usually get with online transactions. You could either save a directory full of PDF's and only print them out if there actually is a need for them in court, or you could even print them as you encounter them and build up that "big stack of papers" over time.

Yes this imposes extra friction, which does suck, but it's something.

Yeah, this is true.

But I personally like having paper that the corporation printed out versus something that I printed out. Like, technically, you can fake the "receipt" page because it's just some html etc. The only thing that proves that what you have is real is the confirmation number and suddenly you're back to hoping that the corporation that asserts you owe them money has and will provide all of their sql databases so that you can show that your confirmation number is genuine.

On the other hand, if I have years of documents they produced and the styles and layout, paper quality, postal records, etc all match what everyone else has in their homes, then, yeah, it could still be faked, but it's a much harder pill for a judge to swallow. Like, at some point people are going to decide that you're either telling the truth or you are a super genius with way too much time on your hands. Either way they're going to tend towards letting you off the hook.

One possibility is signed PDF's. You can verify that the corporation created the document, that it has not been changed. That is more security than a piece of paper. You can forge a document.

It's not really compelling to a jury though. Digital signature verification is just a magical computer saying something that the expert witness fails to explain very well.

Meanwhile, the jury can look at 200 bill receipts and see the age of the paper for themselves. Like, yeah it could be faked, but it means they were planning on faking something for 20 years.