DOGE plans to rebuild the Social Security Administration COBAL code base in months. Doing so is a danger to benefits and could cause a system collapse. [More inside] (archive.ph)

submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) by InevitableSwing@hexbear.net to c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net

47 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

65 million people in the US currently receive Social Security benefits. They're considering Java as a replacement.

The project is being organized by Elon Musk lieutenant Steve Davis, multiple sources who were not given permission to talk to the media tell WIRED, and aims to migrate all SSA systems off COBOL, one of the first common business-oriented programming languages, and onto a more modern replacement like Java within a scheduled tight timeframe of a few months.

---

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] TrashGoblin@hexbear.net 16 points 5 days ago

The myth of the 100x programmer. But now worse because of Dunning-Krueger cases running LLMs.

[-] invalidusernamelol@hexbear.net 10 points 5 days ago

"10x" programmers just didn't properly test their code. I know because when I was expected to do 10x type work and push a feature in a day or less, I wrote zero tests and ended up introducing a ton of latent bugs that required fixing later.