Robert R.
I am currently taking a graduate data structures course, and we just covered this in class. No legitimate designer would ever build a database like this.
Social Security's database was clearly designed to hide and facilitate fraud.
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1888484555092312466
GluedToTheScreen
the SSN was/is not KEYED?
OMG...
Robert R.
Right? My jaw dropped too.
Temporary Name
@ILoveAmericaNews I've come across a lot of systems like this. People design trash and expect their code to take the weight, then the code is replaced. Sometimes people design a solid system but then a later person switches off all the safeguards because they cause problems.
Robert R.
It's mind blowing that a system as big as Social Security didn't check for that.
A lot of people had to be aware of it.
Temporary Name
@ILoveAmericaNews Over time, many people but still it's only the people involved intimately with the system design and maintenance not the users of the system.
Robert R.
I worked for 4 years on a really big government database when I was in the Air Force.
What you say is true, but this still should have never happened. People should go to jail for facilitating the fraud. It had to be intentional.
Weeniewawa
@ILoveAmericaNews I have heard this for years and their excuse was they got to capitalize on the taxation of the criminals paying taxes, instead of arresting these criminals by using these numbers to track them.
↯ Klaatu - Some Brave Apollo ↯
@ILoveAmericaNews there was an old 2600 magazine article on the SSN explaining its original layout which incorporated test data ranges, regional zone digits, issuance years, and other things you could decode from it.
They assumed people would die off quicker than they do and that numbers could be recycled within 10 years of your retirement. Also they were only issued once you entered the workforce at 16..21, not at birth like today nor used for greencard ids etc. which exhausts the pool.
Robert R.
I was a COBOL guy.
Don't want to waste anything in COBOL. lol
Heck, it might have been written by the same guy.
↯ Klaatu - Some Brave Apollo ↯
the original SSN format was
regional zone of issuance 3 digits
year of issuance 2 digits
sequence number in that zone/year 4 digits
Hence nnn-nn-nnnn
Not that much to work with eh?
Looks like bozos patterned it after the Bell Phone number system: area-exchange-phone but thats nnn-nnn-nnnn
I feel Cobol was involved here.
Robert R.
This is how Musk plans to fix it.
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1888484555092312466
Mr Funk 🇦🇺
@GluedToTheScreen @ILoveAmericaNews of course it’s not. First of all despite what they teach you in databases 101 your keys should *not* be business data they should be synthetic, secondly the database serves the beauracracy, and whoever built it would have been told to structure it around the kinds of terrible data they had elsewhere at the time which needed to be moved in.
GluedToTheScreen
@ILoveAmericaNews @Sophistifunk
I think we're talking about 2 different systems, Treasury and Social Security...
... though they undoubtedly work together to send out SS checks.
Robert R.
Treasury pays Social Security.
I think it's the same problem.
I linked the two posts because Elon Musk did with a quote post.
Robert R.
Musk quote posted the two posts together. That's why I think they address the same problem.
Mr Funk 🇦🇺
@GluedToTheScreen @ILoveAmericaNews I wasn’t commenting about government departments I was commenting about databases.
Robert R.
⚡Lord of Misrule⚡
GluedToTheScreen
@Sophistifunk @ILoveAmericaNews
ha ha ha ha ha...
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