DOGE Plans to Rebuild SSA Codebase In Months, Risking Benefits and System Collapse (1 Viewer)

[Luce]

Then SS collapses & they can just do away with it

Exactly.

Regular updates will be made available while granny moves under a bridge and learns what hostile architecture means.

 

[HenryChinaski]

Ambitious! Boomers better hope this project turns out to be the first thing this team actually does competently. Me, I probably wouldn't take a "move fast and break things" approach to 65 million retirees' and disabled folks' benefits, but let's see how it goes.

DOGE Plans to Rebuild SSA Codebase In Months, Risking Benefits and System Collapse

It's plausible and possible that the intended purpose of the OP is to skim money from the program undetected.

 

[ScrambledEggs]

It will save countless billions if the SS and IRS got rid of those 50 year-old computers and went back to using slide rules and abacuses.

The waste in our government is out of control.

MAGA.

Cant we just put an nvidia rtx 5090 in the computers to upgrade them? Or download more RAM? Idk my son Barron turned on a computer yesterday I'll ask him

 

[ElChupacabra]

Ambitious! Boomers better hope this project turns out to be the first thing this team actually does competently. Me, I probably wouldn't take a "move fast and break things" approach to 65 million retirees' and disabled folks' benefits, but let's see how it goes.

DOGE Plans to Rebuild SSA Codebase In Months, Risking Benefits and System Collapse

Nothing like a "build it as we go" project that's tied to fund distribution for people depending on those funds without any real review of the legacy data, its dependencies, and how its structured across various antiquated systems. Should be a hoot.

 

[Luce]

Do you think their programming will be well documented? Because I am unsure this will happen.

 

[Peacenik]

Ambitious! Boomers better hope this project turns out to be the first thing this team actually does competently. Me, I probably wouldn't take a "move fast and break things" approach to 65 million retirees' and disabled folks' benefits, but let's see how it goes.

DOGE Plans to Rebuild SSA Codebase In Months, Risking Benefits and System Collapse

What is the 'problem' with the current system?

How much is this migration supposed to cost and why does it need to be done?

How much 'savings' will be realized, and will it be able to be done smoothly without loss of services?

The answers are not forthcoming.

 

[eman623]

Good thing DOGE just fired all the ppl with legacy / institutional knowledge about the systems. Have fun reverse engineering everything.

I thought they fired the newest hires. Get your story straight

 

[Peacenik]

I too have extensive experience with rewriting legacy systems for a large Telco but from the business requirements perspective. When we moved to client server architecture for the call centers we left a lot of the legacy mainframe and batch processing on COBOL .....wasn't worth the risk. The biggest problem is getting people who know COBOL for maintenence. You pretty much have to train them.

This is a very risky business if not done with good planning and people who really understand the requirements.

So I presume the masters of COBOL are on Social Security now and haven't worked in years. Maybe cutting off their checks will suddenly get them to drag their pap machines into the office on walkers and try to work long hours again without falling asleep after lunch? Any hope of getting this done 'very quickly' and on budget is a pipe dream.

 

[Callen]

I thought they fired the newest hires. Get your story straight

Not true.....the firings were based on tenure in their current function. So somebody transferred from one group to another could have been on the previous function for years but new on the current assignment.

 

[trumptman]

Ambitious! Boomers better hope this project turns out to be the first thing this team actually does competently. Me, I probably wouldn't take a "move fast and break things" approach to 65 million retirees' and disabled folks' benefits, but let's see how it goes.

DOGE Plans to Rebuild SSA Codebase In Months, Risking Benefits and System Collapse

So to clarify we get yearly stories about how billions in SS are wasted, sent out to people that don't exist, stolen via disability scams and more. The people who were to modernize this, prevent this and fix this are full of fears and excuses about how their predictions of failure will come true if they are not allowed to continue on their prior path of failure and lack of delivery and improvement.

No one cares about their fears and predictions. COBOL is the programming language that was used on the giant cabinet sized computers with reel to reel tapes from back in the day.



The people who RUN this sort of system and their "consultants" who help them maintain it and haven't helped them move past it in decades now want us to listen to them and their fears and predictions.

No thank you.

Modernization and improvement of all our core IT systems in every branch and department of government should be applauded and lauded, not spun into today's episode of MSNBC presents: Trump Terror on Tuesday.

Do a basic web search for government departments and their computer upgrade and modernization efforts failing and you'd have pages of returns.

It's worth the risk and the reward.

Do it.

 

[eman623]

They'll fix it like Elon fixed Twitter. Social Security will now be called X, and you'll be paid in meme coins.

That was amusing

 

[trumptman]

The "problem" with the existing system is that it actually works.

Does it work? I mean my 250 year old grandmother thinks it is great but what about all the other vampires?

 

[Greenbeard]

How much is this migration supposed to cost and why does it need to be done?

DOGE gave itself access to Treasury's payment systems, so I think they just take whatever they want.

 

[TangoNoCash]

Just put twice as many people on it and it will be done in half the time. Idiots.

 

[WorldWatcher]

I haven't heard that there are any problems with the legacy system. Wonder what the business case and the risk assesment looks like? Bet there isn't one!!!

There have been calls for decades to modernize the core infrastructure of the SSA.

But that takes funding.

WW

 

[TangoNoCash]

Also is this where big balls rounds up pennies and places them in a special account?

 

[Callen]

There have been calls for decade to modernize the core infrastructure of the SSA.

But that takes funding.

WW

.....not cheap and not fast

 

[WorldWatcher]

Nothing like a "build it as we go" project that's tied to fund distribution for people depending on those funds without any real review of the legacy data, its dependencies, and how its structured across various antiquated systems. Should be a hoot.

See this is the difference between Rocket Science and Goverment level program admnistration.

In Rocket Science it goes like this:

• Design based on the best estimates.
• Build components
• Test to failure on the ground
• Gather the data as to what failed
• Return to design table
• Build new components
• Test to failure on the ground
• Gather the data as to what failed
• Return to design table
• REPEAT
• Build rocket
• Test to failure on the ground
• Gather the data as to what failed
• Return to design table
• REPEAT
• Build rocket
• Test to failure on the ground
• Gather the data as to what failed
• Return to design table
• REPEAT
• Build rocket
• Test to failure on the ground or over multiple launches
• Gather the data as to what failed
• Return to design table
• Repeat until you get a good sustainable rocket.

Test to failure is not how you run government infrastructure.

WW

 

[AZRWinger]

The panic among SSA bureaucrats and consultants is understood as a matter of self interest. Democrats in general are plagued by the memory of the Obamacare website disaster. If the historic Obama administration stumbled so badly implementing what amounts to an e-commerce application the Bad Orange Man upgrading SS software systems must be impossible. Sad but true.

 

[WorldWatcher]

.....not cheap and not fast

Not shiny either.



WW

 

[Deuce]

I thought they fired the newest hires. Get your story straight

They've done both. Why did you think these were mutually exclusive? LOL

 

[eman623]

I have almost 15 years xp doing software development.

Legacy rewrites are very slow & error prone. And for something as massive and consequential as SS, it is extremely dangerous to do a fast rewrite.

There's a reason many financial institutions, banks & insurance companies still run core systems on COBOL. Because the risks of a rewrite are very high, especially if done without extreme caution & planning.

How long will it take if we never even start upgrading?

The people who installed those systems are long gone now. We have to move on this.

 

[Callen]

How long will it take if we never even start upgrading?

The people who installed those systems are long gone now. We have to move on this.

Have the funds been allocated by Congress?

 

[ScrambledEggs]

How long will it take if we never even start upgrading?

The people who installed those systems are long gone now. We have to move on this.

I'm not saying "don't upgrade it".

But I am saying don't let big balls & Musk let you think it's going to just take a few months or even years & that it won't be expensive/risky.

I work for a large corp that has been upgrading systems & moving off oracle, old SAP versions, on-prem .NET to serverless/cloud for almost a decade now.

Systems can have layers and layers of onion layers to peel, lost institutional knowledge from retirees, lack of documentation, random patches of code for random business scenarios, etc.

And that's just code. What about the data? Ingestion processes?

 

[iliveonramen]

It's going to be a disaster. Moving from legacy systems are a nightmare even in the best of circumstances.