The basic “logic” of the SSA is also written mainly in Cobol. This is a code that issues social insurance numbers, manages payments and even faces the total amount of beneficiaries who should receive for various services, say a former SSA technologist who worked at the office of the information director. Even diminutive changes can cause cascade failures in all programs.
“If you have not worried that the whole group of people will not receive benefits, will not receive the wrong benefits, you will not get the wrong rights or you have to wait, then continue to continue,” says Dan Hon, director of Little Gravitas, advisory of technological strategy that helps the government to modernize services in the scope of completing such migration in a brief time.
It is not clear when the migration of the code begins exactly. A recent document widespread among SSA employees establishing the agency’s priorities through May does not mention this, instead calling other priorities, such as the end of “insignificant contracts” and the adoption of artificial intelligence to “increase” the administrative and technical magazine.
At the beginning of this month, Wired informed that at least 10 Doge agents were currently working in the SSA, including many youthful and inexperienced engineers such as Luke Farritor and Ethan Shaotran. At that time, the sources informed Wired that Doge agents would focus on how people identify to access their online benefits.
SSA sources expect the project to start seriously when Doge identifies and means other beneficiaries as the dead and combining various agency databases. In Thursday morning submission of the court, Statement From the SSA administrator, Leland Dudek, he said that at least two Doge agents are currently working on a project formally called the “Are You Alive” project, which is aimed at what these agents consider to be incorrect payments and fraud in the agency system, calling individual beneficiaries. The agency is currently fighting for sweeping access to SSA systems in court to complete this work. (Again, the 150-year-olds do not collect social insurance benefits. This particular age was probably a quirk of Cobol. It does not cover this type of date, so the dates are often encoded with a specific reference point-May 20, 1875, the date of the international conference determining the standard held in Paris, known as the convention of the substantial mètre.)
To migrate the entire Cobol code to a more newfangled language in a few months, Doge would probably have to utilize some form of generative artificial intelligence to assist translate millions of code lines, Wired. “Doge believes that if they can say that they got rid of all of Cobol in the months, then their path is proper and we all just sip for not breaking shit,” says SSA technologist.
Doge would also have to develop tests to make sure that the fresh system exits match the previous one. It would be arduous to solve all possible cases of advantage in a few years, not to mention months, adds SSA technologist.
“It is a environment maintained with the Bail Wire and adhesive tape,” says Wired a former SSA technologist working in the office of the information director. “Leaders must understand that they are dealing with the house of cards or Jenga. If they start pulling out pieces, as they have already said, things can break.”