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

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Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨oakey66@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.wired.com/story/doge-rebuild-social-security-administration-cobol-benefits/

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Comments

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  • elatedCatfish@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    As long as Big Ballz is running things, I’m sure it will all be fine!

    /s

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  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Gonna blow up the database as many times as they blow up SpaceX rockets.

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    • HiTekRedNek@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Sooo only gonna blow up the test databases?

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  • AdamBomb@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    It will go way over budget and come limping across the finish line late, with more bugs and less features than the system it replaces. I guarantee it.

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    • peteyestee@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      AI is going to write it.

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      • adminofoz@lemmy.cafe ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        1000% percent. If they can’t even figure out how dates work in COBOL we are getting a vibe coded SSA. Let’s hope they trained LLMs on COBOL or we are cooked.

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  • FauxLiving@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    They’re really playing with fire here.

    So many MAGA supporters are seniors who are entirely dependent on OASDI. If Trump’s minions break this, we’re going to see torches and pitchforks strapped to electric scooters and golf carts coming out of Florida retirement communities in droves.

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    • EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      No they’d just blame the liberals and maintain 100% loyalty lol.

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    • matjoeman@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Nah, they’ll just say the Democrats are still worse because reasons

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      • monkeyman512@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        The reason is that it takes a lot of emotional intelligence and strength to admit that you have been scammed. These people will find it less emotionally painful to deny reality then admit their mistakes.

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  • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    In theory, it wouldn’t be a necessarily bad idea to port the COBOL code to something more modern, but I cannot trust Muskrat and a few vibe coder youngsters with this task.

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    • letzlo@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      In theory it is a horrible idea. No port like this ever works out. An incremental approach has much higher chance of success but will take long.

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    • fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      If these people are good enough to redo federal codebases I should apply for a coding job already

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    • 800XL@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Bro. Check it out bro, we’re gonna like make it this dope Electron app, bro. It’ll interface with X, bro and everyone will have to login there to get their money, bro. Don’t worry tho, you’ll get paid in recession-proof Trumpbux crypto currency as long as you claim it in time. But X gets a fee of 60% bro.

      Seriously bro we like hired a bunch of grads that took a one week X created code boot camp that like you know revolved around a language big balls created called “cyber coin purse++”. On second thought bro we’re rewriting it in that. Should be like 2 weeks to rewrite it cuz old people wrote the current code and they’re like old or whatever bro. Like I live in an old person’s basement and they’re just like old, bro.

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    • AllHailTheSheep@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      in theory yeah it’s not a bad idea but it’s also 60 million lines of a cobol

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  • frezik@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    “ROFL”

    Signed, everyone who has been involved in migrating a codebase before.

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    • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I mean this is a great example of what happens when you put conservative men in power who think they know what they are doing but are just going to loudly, incompetently and incorrectly re-invent the wheel while everyone else suffers from not having an actual practical solution.

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    • peteyestee@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      By rebuild I don’t think they mean it’s going to function the same. …just torn apart and replaced.

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      • frezik@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        It has to function the same. It has to follow the same laws as before.

        Bur more likely, they know this and it’s all part of privatizing social security.

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    • Simulation6@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      That is the mother load of all code bases. Probably still some COBOL if not mostly cobol.

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    • skozzii@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      They have an experienced team of teenagers don’t worry.

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    • nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Okay but have you ever tried just throwing genAI at the problem and not caring about the consequences?

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      • andallthat@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        With Grok looking more and more like the only one working for Musk with enough (digital) balls to stand to to his boss, that might be better than the alternative of “Big Balls” and the rest of the Digital Oblivous Goons of Elon

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    • ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Yep, months is a joke, doubly so when talking about tens of millions of lines of code and also COBOL specifically.

      This is going to be a hilarious disaster but not so hilarious when people who need the benefits need them and won’t be able to get them.

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      • dryfter@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        I’m on SSDI (and Medicaid and HUD housing) and have been having insane anxiety the last month and a half to the point that I’m wondering if I’ll even get paid in April. I regularly check my SSA account online to make sure my direct deposit is still freaking scheduled. Missing a payment could mess up all of my other benefits as well.

        I know the fuck up is coming, but I don’t know if I can handle another few months hoping they don’t fuck up the migration if they don’t fuck up just paying people first with all that’s been going on.

        I’m pretty sure Im not the only one in this situation who can’t handle the stress of this bullshit.

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      • monkeyman512@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        To be fair. We assume “months” means less than 2 years. But 10 years can also be “months”, and is probably a more realistic timeline.

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  • normalexit@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I’ve worked on teams converting legacy code for most of my life. The planning for something like this would take longer than six months.

    If this proceeds in Trump’s corrupt government, Elon will get the contact, will claim it is too broken to salvage, and will privatize it. The only way this goes anywhere is if Trump and musk stand to gain money, and they stand to gain a lot.

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    • misteloct@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      If they planned a 1 month migration of a small component, 6 months to complete would be pretty lucky imo.

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      • normalexit@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        Just determining the requirements would be a nightmare.

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  • OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I’m sure having a corrupt non-government narcissist rewrite the code for SS will be fine. It’s not like he could leave any code hidden in there for his own purposes, like controlling or redirecting payments or anything.

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  • KulunkelBoom@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Hey asshole - it works - don’t fix it.

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    • turnip@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Bring back lotus notes and the command line!

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      • KulunkelBoom@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        Lotus Notes ??!? So expensive. I’m keeping my Notepad from Windows 2000.

        :D

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      • based_raven@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        When I started at my workplace a few years back, I had to login to lotus notes to obtain some sort of ID code. I’d never heard or seen the software before, but after opening it, I let out an audible “what the fuck is this shit”. Luckily they got rid of it completely a couple of years ago.

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  • crystalmerchant@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    risking guaranteeing

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    • andros_rex@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Is it a “risk” if it’s the desired outcome?

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  • Tuxman@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    “…but sir, we only know Node.js…”

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    • futatorius@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Musk would probably think that’s just fine.

      Server-side javascript is an abomination, but there’s more of it around than you might think.

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      • NeonKnight52@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        Node.js is a fantastic tool for web servers. Its event loop allows it to rival much lower-level languages in performance while remaining easy to write and maintain. JavaScript has been the most popular programming language for nearly a decade.

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  • samuelazers@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    step 1. rewrite into spaghetti code step 2. nobody understands the new code, so the govt has contract elon musk for code maintenance forever step 3. profit

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    • natryamar@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      So the way things already were?

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  • lepinkainen@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Rewrite it in Rust has gone too far 😆

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  • barneypiccolo@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    The MuskRat should get Big Ballz and the boys to program a video game, so he can have a new revenue stream to replace Tesla when it goes bankrupt, which sure looks like the future of that company.

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  • endeavor@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Russia just wants musks boy toys to cripple the only checks and balances putin thinks he has.

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    • Deathray5@lemmynsfw.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Putin loves this but I suspect he’s not directly planning every dumb thing the trump team is behind. Trying to get Musk and Trump to follow instructions is challenging

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    • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Image

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  • PanArab@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    COBOL is perfectly suitable for financial purposes for which it was designed. The SSA code has gone through decades worth of changes and improvements that cannot be replicated even in 10 years.

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    • turnip@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
      [deleted]
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      • PanArab@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        The code is already in production, there is no point in rewriting it. It can be maintained for decades to come. New features can be implemented in other languages and over time.

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    • futatorius@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      COBOL is perfectly suitable for financial purposes for which it was designed.

      Nobody uses COBOL for greenfield projects, even in the banking and financial sectors. And, as people with COBOL expertise die of old age, it becomes increasingly unmaintainable.

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      • PanArab@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        I bet is cheaper to teach it to new programmers than to rewrite old software. Just because a language is old doesn’t mean it is unlearnable or that software written in it needs to be rewritten.

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      • NeonKnight52@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        Agreed. But those that do know COBOL make BANK maintaining the old financial systems!

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  • suite403@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    This is like a new programmer coming in to their new job, seeing the code isn’t perfect and saying they could rebuild the entire thing and do it better in a month.

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    • futatorius@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Yeah, I’ve cleaned up the messes that idiots like that have left.

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    • null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      It’s not a case of “seeing the code isn’t perfect” but rather, not understanding the myriad problems the code is solving or mitigating.

      I’m reminded of this shitshow:

      …wikipedia.org/…/2010_Queensland_Health_payroll_s…

      Queensland is a state of about 3m people in Australia. Their health service employs about 100k people. They ended up spending about 900m USD to develop their payroll software and fix the fuck ups it caused.

      I’m an accountant by trade, there’s a classic “techbro does accounting” style of development we see a lot. Like if you hadn’t spent a career learning how complex accounting can be, it would be easy to look at a payroll system and conclude “it’s just a database with some rules”.

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      • suite403@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        Yea, that’s a mich better way of putting it.

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      • morbidcactus@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        I’ve always known your world is complex, working closely with accountants and actuaries the last 4 years doing data applications further confirmed that, there’s some legitimately complex math that shows up, and it’s a lot of work to model that correctly.

        “It’s just a …” Is a redflag to me, project’s going to be a gongshow.

        I find that mentality of not trying to understand the problem and its context totally counter to the engineering method.

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      • DrainKikoLake@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        Oh hey, we had one of those disasters in Canada! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_pay_system

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    • rottingleaf@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      That happens. Even if said new programmer had seen before that IRL the important part of that codebase consists of specific domain area quirks, scarcely documented and understood. They have an advantage in doing something good for the specific stage of that system’s evolution, but a huge disadvantage in knowing what the hell it really does.

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    • oppy1984@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I’m sure the doge boys are expert grock vibe coders, it will be fine, they’ve got big ballz on the team, what could possibly go wrong? /s

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    • Treczoks@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I did such a thing, but I had a big advantage: the codebase had been done by people who had never really learned to code, and I was a seasoned programmer with 20 years of experience.

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    • jonne@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Yeah, this is going to end in disaster.

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  • baatliwala@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    if (!=white) {benefits=false}

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    • Armand1@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Nah I think it will just be

      const benefits = false;
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      • NikkiDimes@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        In Javascript, no less

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  • botanicangular@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Wont happen legacy systems more complicated than expected, well it wont happen functionally…

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  • Itdidnttrickledown@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Better shrubs than them have tried and failed. Same as with the ATC system.

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  • dzso@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    This clusterfck has me seriously considering whether taxes are quite as certain as death anymore.

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  • Crashumbc@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    These comments are completely missing the truth.

    They have zero intention of rebuilding anything, this is just an excuse to destroy SSA …

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  • Lutra@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Just adding. This and all the bad things that will happen if they get the green light, is not how this is done or should be done.

    ‘But all the waste and ineficciency!’ Hog wash.

    From the system that is working? and serves thousands of people what they needed every day of every year.

    They have to say it’s horribly broken. Its a lie, but they have to justify why.

    There are standards, procurement contracts, entire agency’s to make sure — Make sure what?

    March 28, 2025 - Make sure that what will happen, doesn’t.

    coda: The trick this cabal is using is simple - take a thing most folk don’t understand. Say it’s broken. Open it. Rob it. Say its fixed. Collect profits and praise, leave town.

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  • cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    i hope elon and the entire “doge” team dies. i really do.

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  • nthavoc@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    They’re not rebuilding anything. They’re just adding back doors everywhere. If anyone hasn’t learned yet, these are crackpot script kiddies at best. Even If somehow control is take away from them, they are now going to definitely have to redo the entire thing to make sure none of their shit code survives.

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  • Agent641@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Australian here.

    They are robbing you

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  • FourWaveforms@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Reminds me of that thing Lex Luthor did where he sponged off rounding errors in financial transactions

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