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Posts posted by mchookem
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Just now, Francisco 2.0 said:
What could possibly go wrong.
https://www.wired.com/story/doge-rebuild-social-security-administration-cobol-benefits/
DOGE Plans to Rebuild SSA Codebase In Months, Risking Benefits and System Collapse
Social Security systems contain tens of millions of lines of code written in COBOL, an archaic programming language. Safely rewriting that code would take years—DOGE wants it done in months.This proposed migration isn’t the first time SSA has tried to move away from COBOL: In 2017, SSA announced a plan to receive hundreds of millions in funding to replace its core systems. The agency predicted that it would take around five years to modernize these systems. Because of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, the agency pivoted away from this work to focus on more public-facing projects.
Like many legacy government IT systems, SSA systems contain code written in COBOL, a programming language created in part in the 1950s by computing pioneer Grace Hopper. The Defense Department essentially pressured private industry to use COBOL soon after its creation, spurring widespread adoption and making it one of the most widely used languages for mainframes, or computer systems that process and store large amounts of data quickly, by the 1970s. (At least one DOD-related website praising Hopper's accomplishments is no longer active, likely following the Trump administration’s DEI purge of military acknowledgements.)
As recently as 2016, SSA’s infrastructure contained more than 60 million lines of code written in COBOL, with millions more written in other legacy coding languages, the agency’s Office of the Inspector General found. In fact, SSA’s core programmatic systems and architecture haven’t been “substantially” updated since the 1980s when the agency developed its own database system called MADAM, or the Master Data Access Method, which was written in COBOL and Assembler, according to SSA’s 2017 modernization plan.
SSA’s core “logic” is also written largely in COBOL. This is the code that issues social security numbers, manages payments, and even calculates the total amount beneficiaries should receive for different services, a former senior SSA technologist who worked in the office of the chief information officer says. Even minor changes could result in cascading failures across programs.“If you weren't worried about a whole bunch of people not getting benefits or getting the wrong benefits, or getting the wrong entitlements, or having to wait ages, then sure go ahead,” says Dan Hon, principal of Very Little Gravitas, a technology strategy consultancy that helps government modernize services, about completing such a migration in a short timeframe.
It’s unclear when exactly the code migration would start. A recent document circulated amongst SSA staff laying out the agency’s priorities through May does not mention it, instead naming other priorities like terminating “non-essential contracts” and adopting artificial intelligence to “augment” administrative and technical writing.
Earlier this month, WIRED reported that at least 10 DOGE operatives were currently working within SSA, including a number of young and inexperienced engineers like Luke Farritor and Ethan Shaotran. At the time, sources told WIRED that the DOGE operatives would focus on how people identify themselves to access their benefits online.
Sources within SSA expect the project to begin in earnest once DOGE identifies and marks remaining beneficiaries as deceased and connecting disparate agency databases. In a Thursday morning court filing, an affidavit from SSA acting administrator Leland Dudek said that at least two DOGE operatives are currently working on a project formally called the “Are You Alive Project” targeting what these operatives believe to be improper payments and fraud within the agency’s system by calling individual beneficiaries. The agency is currently battling for sweeping access to SSA’s systems in court to finish out this work.
Again, 150-year-olds are not collecting social security benefits. That specific age was likely a quirk of COBOL. It doesn’t include a date type, so dates are often coded to a specific reference point—May 20, 1875, the date of an international standards-setting conference held in Paris, known as the Convention du Mètre.)
In order to migrate all COBOL code into a more modern language within a few months, DOGE would likely need to employ some form of generative artificial intelligence to help translate the millions of lines of code, sources tell WIRED. “DOGE thinks if they can say they got rid of all the COBOL in months then their way is the right way and we all just suck for not breaking shit,” says the SSA technologist.DOGE would also need to develop tests to ensure the new system’s outputs match the previous one. It would be difficult to resolve all of the possible edge cases over the course of several years, let alone months, adds the SSA technologist.
“This is an environment that is held together with bail wire and duct tape,” the former senior SSA technologist working in the office of the chief information officer tells WIRED. “The leaders need to understand that they’re dealing with a house of cards or Jenga. If they start pulling pieces out, which they’ve already stated they’re doing, things can break.”
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3 hours ago, sidis said:
it's like mike white does nothing but hang out with all the white women that live within 3 miles of my house.
hahaha it's pretty incredible how well he does female characters...versus Taylor Sheridan 🤣
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whoever said nothing good is going to happen to anybody on this show was correct 😆
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gonna make W look like Churchill.
already made Palin look like a Rhodes Scholar.
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4 minutes ago, Sbbruin said:
LA County residents already got an automatic extension to 10/15 due to the wildfires, so we got that going for us, which is nice.
speaking of... has FEMA $$ made it to the ground there? i know he was threatening to withhold it unless Gavin blew him or whatever... did anything ever come of that? or was Trump a fucking shit-filled gargoyle as usual...
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on the bright side, the next time one of the super red gulf states gets decimated by a Cat4, they can take solace in the fact their demise was heightened by the too warm waters of the the Gulf of AMERICA 🇺🇸
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the CO Capitol picture is coming down
i really, really hope they just stick with 'Trump said he would prefer no picture at all over the one that hangs in the Colorado Capitol.'
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Israel
in Cloak Room
didn't that film just win an Oscar?? seems like that should make this a big story...
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40 minutes ago, Dnaguy said:
A result that no one could have foreseen.
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wtf are we even doing
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i actually have questions...
is it going to be televised? if so, where? if not will it at least be recorded? will press be there? surely not an actual RT episode... maybe a pre-recorded segment? that would be something.
i was curious so i checked his ratings, pretty steady decline since...the election kicked into high gear lol.
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9 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:
@pyrohornIII this is what I was talking about the other day- for 30 years rural people have kept Republicans in power so that Republicans could make sure that that city people got the best of everything.
Between this, the voucher shit, the kids leaving, the poor rural economy, and all the hospital closures, I simply can’t believe that with appropriate focus there isn’t enough material to flip 5-6% of the vote in counties under 300k.“And with all the money they’re saving from the fraud, they could afford to give their senior citizens an increase,”
holy shit i had not seen that quote, are you fucking kidding me?? 🤣🤣🤣
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... and humor. i guarantee he made her laugh her panties off 🤣
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Trump literally sued Bill for a bit where he said Trump's real mother was an orangutan and now he's going to sit down with him in the Whitehouse like he's serious.
lol
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DOGE: America Fucking Around
in Cloak Room
Posted