[Sussex] Interesting auditor's question

[Nic Ferrier]

Gavin Stevens <starshine at gavmusic.uklinux.net> writes:

> Hi all,
>
> The subject line refers to an interesting question asked by an auditor,
> not a question asked by an interesting auditor.
>
> When the auditors started their annual duties, they were asking all
> sorts of things, but one question stood out: "Do any members of staff
> have access to the source code of your accounting software?"
>
> We had to answer "no".
>
> Next question: "Do any members of staff have the skills necessary to
> alter the source code if they had access to it?"
>
> Answer "yes" & our resident geek commented that he would love to get his
> hands on the code & then he could stop our accounting software being a
> pile of cr*p.
>
> Does this indicate an increased awareness of open source software or has
> some bright spark somewhere screwed a company's accounts by messing
> around?

Sounds to me like some anti-open source accountant has thought of a
way to spread FUD.

It's a doltish idea... if you use GNU accounts you're systems people
could change the accounting software because they have access to the
source code.... As we all know you don't need source code to alter
software. If you really wanted to change the way proprietary code
works you could. 

What is more it would be difficult to establish veracity with a
surreptitous change to proprietary software whereas these problems
have been thought about with free software; how often do you get a
signed checksum with software you buy?


They should put that in their ring binders and smoke it.



Nic (Outraged of Tunbridge Wells)