Charpie said:

---

Wasn't this whole date thing attributed to the programing language being in COBALT and the fact that some of the birthdates were blank?

---

COBOL

COmmon Business Oriented Language

Burrus86 said:

---

360+ years and voted democrat since Washington first ran for president.

---

So I decided to research who was born in 1685 to find the culprit. I am not convinced it was Queen Anne who is using this as some type of evil plot of revenge for the end of the Stuart line being replaced by the Hannovers (now Windsor). It's probably got some type of Illuminati thing mixed in.

List of suspects

Charpie said:

---

Many of us have. Please read the thread from the beginning. Heck there are many on this thread that have said that this was a known problem but it was too costly to fix. I worked for a company for many years that wanted modernize really bad. Their customers literally would not let them. Their backend is still being run in PICK BASIC. It's costly and their top engineers are in their 60s.

---

I've read every post on this thread. Your postings indicate denial at best and goaltending at worst.

I don't care WHY there was a problem. I don't care for your excuses. Time to expose the roaches and fix the problem.

Agreed. Let's fix the crap

20 million or so folks over 100 years old collecting SS. Guess we know where Biden got all his fake votes now. Some folks need to be strung up.

Trajan88 said:

---

A 17th century man or woman... probably rubbed elbows w/ Paul Revere, Sam Adams, Ben Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock, and Betsy Ross.

---

As a history nerd, I have soooo many questions.

DP

This woman quit before she got fired.



Social Security head steps down over DOGE access of recipient information, sources say
https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/17/politics/social-security-head-steps-down-doge-access/index.html

Quote:

---

The Social Security Administration's acting commissioner has stepped down from her role at the agency over Department of Government Efficiency requests to access Social Security recipient information, according to two people familiar with the official's departure who were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
Acting Commissioner Michelle King's departure from the agency over the weekend after more than 30 years of service was initiated after King refused to provide DOGE staffers at the SSA with access to sensitive information, the people said Monday.
The White House has replaced her as acting commissioner with Leland Dudek, who currently works at the SSA, the people said.
CNN has reached out to the Social Security Administration for comment.
White House spokesperson Harrison Fields released a statement Monday night saying: "President Trump has nominated the highly qualified and talented Frank Bisignano to lead the Social Security Administration, and we expect him to be swiftly confirmed in the coming weeks. In the meantime, the agency will be led by a career Social Security anti-fraud expert as the acting commissioner."
Fields added, "President Trump is committed to appointing the best and most qualified individuals who are dedicated to working on behalf of the American people, not to appease the bureaucracy that has failed them for far too long."

---

Jeeper79 said:

---

Red Fishing Ag93 said:

---

Jeeper79 said:

---

The most logical explanation is not fraud. The most logical explanation is fat fingering birthdays and other bad data.

Seriously, if someone were trying to defraud the government, there are better ways to fly under the radar than pretending your immortal.

Doesn't mean there aren't things that should be fixed, but a lot yall jump to fraud way too fast.

---

12.4 million times? Doubtful.

Also, why even have social security numbers if duplicity has been allowed this whole time. What did these people even do at work.

---

Hanlon's razor:

Do not attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

Other wise you're suggesting that 1 out of every 30 people is defrauding SS. Which sounds more plausible? That? Or that SSA just doesn't have their act together?

---

Does this apply when you are dealing with a large group of godless and depraved hate fueled individuals who support chopping off the breasts of confused 13 yr old girls, LOVE and celebrate widescale abortion, and cry when literal gay p0rn comic books are removed from elementary schools?

Most on the left wanted my life ruined and for my family to suffer greatly bc I would not get the useless trash "vaccine" that they had been brainwashed into believing i had to get in order for theirs to magically work.

Malice ia a major cornerstone of the modern degenerate liberal pagan religion, along with deceit. They are consumed with malice.

While we are here John Tyler has a grandson that is still alive.

ABATTBQ11 said:

---

CanyonAg77 said:

---

Charpie said:

---

That's not the way COBOL works, from what I understand. It allows for blank values like that.I mean, it's COBOL

---

I haven't done programming since BASIC, but I'm pretty damn sure you could write a program in any language that rejects a value for being blank.

---

You can, but there are people who legitimately don't know their DOB and don't have documentation, and they could have and probably was an accepted norm for quite awhile.

For one, a lot of states weren't issuing birth certificates until the early 20th century, and a lot of children born in that era weren't born in hospitals. It's very likely that there's a large handful of very old people who legitimately never got one due to poor record keeping, and early SSN issuance may have not required it if you didn't know because in the 1930's there would have been a lot more people who didn't have those kinds of records.

For two, you could also have immigrants and refugees who've gotten citizenship over the last 90 years that also lack that documentation. If you were fleeing South Vietnam and ended up in the US, you may not have had any kind of birth documentation to begin with or you may have been forced to leave it behind. Same for a lot of other places.

For a lot of SS's history, record keeping wasn't digitized and probably wasn't very stringent. With much of it on paper or punch cards, it wouldn't shock me that mistakes were made and never caught or incomplete data was just looked over. I work with data and I see this kind of stuff a lot. Even a lot of companies with digital records have terrible record keeping and really dirty data sets because the people entering and recording it never thought of how it might be used later and just didn't care to make sure it was all accurate. I've worked with systems that have a lot of market share in my industry that will allow some wild date information and other stuff, like contracts or transactions from the 1600's or 2300's. Some of it you can't just go in and fix either. The system won't allow you to change the date because other records reference it, and sometimes you can't even correct it in the DB (assuming you have permissions) because of accounting rules. It may have to be fudged to the current date or earliest open accounting period to properly recognize it. Point being, this is not an issue unique to SS or the government.

---

The SSA actually has policies to deal with scenarios where the DOB is not known or a certificate was not issued. But that isn't the only reason there are 64+ million active SSNs more than the population of the US. The SSA IG identified these problems twice before, and now Elon has "discovered" it again for a third time. The number of active SSNs is continuing to grow.

infinity ag said:

---

This woman quit before she got fired.



Social Security head steps down over DOGE access of recipient information, sources say
https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/17/politics/social-security-head-steps-down-doge-access/index.html

Quote:

---

The Social Security Administration's acting commissioner has stepped down from her role at the agency over Department of Government Efficiency requests to access Social Security recipient information, according to two people familiar with the official's departure who were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
Acting Commissioner Michelle King's departure from the agency over the weekend after more than 30 years of service was initiated after King refused to provide DOGE staffers at the SSA with access to sensitive information, the people said Monday.
The White House has replaced her as acting commissioner with Leland Dudek, who currently works at the SSA, the people said.
CNN has reached out to the Social Security Administration for comment.
White House spokesperson Harrison Fields released a statement Monday night saying: "President Trump has nominated the highly qualified and talented Frank Bisignano to lead the Social Security Administration, and we expect him to be swiftly confirmed in the coming weeks. In the meantime, the agency will be led by a career Social Security anti-fraud expert as the acting commissioner."
Fields added, "President Trump is committed to appointing the best and most qualified individuals who are dedicated to working on behalf of the American people, not to appease the bureaucracy that has failed them for far too long."

---

---

Michelle King was in the job for a month, likely at the end of a 30+ year career. Exactly what would she be fired for after one month? Nothing, exactly. I'm personal friends with one of her direct reports. I don't know why she quit, but it wasn't over fear of being fired for fraud. Probably didn't want to deal with defending herself against sensationalism, or participating in consolidation of power by the executive branch.

I'm all for rooting out fraud as well, but posting half-baked snippets isn't the way to do it. Gather data, write an actual report, use experts, plan indictments...you know, the way that people who give a crap conduct their business. This populist "trial by internet" approach will reap the whirlwind.

94chem said:

---

infinity ag said:

---

This woman quit before she got fired.



Social Security head steps down over DOGE access of recipient information, sources say
https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/17/politics/social-security-head-steps-down-doge-access/index.html

Quote:

---

The Social Security Administration's acting commissioner has stepped down from her role at the agency over Department of Government Efficiency requests to access Social Security recipient information, according to two people familiar with the official's departure who were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
Acting Commissioner Michelle King's departure from the agency over the weekend after more than 30 years of service was initiated after King refused to provide DOGE staffers at the SSA with access to sensitive information, the people said Monday.
The White House has replaced her as acting commissioner with Leland Dudek, who currently works at the SSA, the people said.
CNN has reached out to the Social Security Administration for comment.
White House spokesperson Harrison Fields released a statement Monday night saying: "President Trump has nominated the highly qualified and talented Frank Bisignano to lead the Social Security Administration, and we expect him to be swiftly confirmed in the coming weeks. In the meantime, the agency will be led by a career Social Security anti-fraud expert as the acting commissioner."
Fields added, "President Trump is committed to appointing the best and most qualified individuals who are dedicated to working on behalf of the American people, not to appease the bureaucracy that has failed them for far too long."

---

---

Michelle King was in the job for a month, likely at the end of a 30+ year career. Exactly what would she be fired for after one month? Nothing, exactly. I'm personal friends with one of her direct reports. I don't know why she quit, but it wasn't over fear of being fired for fraud. Probably didn't want to deal with defending herself against sensationalism, or participating in consolidation of power by the executive branch.

---

The SSA is already part of the Executive Branch. For reference:

https://www.usgovernmentmanual.gov/ReadLibraryItem.ashx?SFN=Myz95sTyO4rJRM/nhIRwSw==&SF=VHhnJrOeEAnGaa/rtk/JOg==

G Martin 87 said:

---

ABATTBQ11 said:

---

CanyonAg77 said:

---

Charpie said:

---

That's not the way COBOL works, from what I understand. It allows for blank values like that.I mean, it's COBOL

---

I haven't done programming since BASIC, but I'm pretty damn sure you could write a program in any language that rejects a value for being blank.

---

You can, but there are people who legitimately don't know their DOB and don't have documentation, and they could have and probably was an accepted norm for quite awhile.

For one, a lot of states weren't issuing birth certificates until the early 20th century, and a lot of children born in that era weren't born in hospitals. It's very likely that there's a large handful of very old people who legitimately never got one due to poor record keeping, and early SSN issuance may have not required it if you didn't know because in the 1930's there would have been a lot more people who didn't have those kinds of records.

For two, you could also have immigrants and refugees who've gotten citizenship over the last 90 years that also lack that documentation. If you were fleeing South Vietnam and ended up in the US, you may not have had any kind of birth documentation to begin with or you may have been forced to leave it behind. Same for a lot of other places.

For a lot of SS's history, record keeping wasn't digitized and probably wasn't very stringent. With much of it on paper or punch cards, it wouldn't shock me that mistakes were made and never caught or incomplete data was just looked over. I work with data and I see this kind of stuff a lot. Even a lot of companies with digital records have terrible record keeping and really dirty data sets because the people entering and recording it never thought of how it might be used later and just didn't care to make sure it was all accurate. I've worked with systems that have a lot of market share in my industry that will allow some wild date information and other stuff, like contracts or transactions from the 1600's or 2300's. Some of it you can't just go in and fix either. The system won't allow you to change the date because other records reference it, and sometimes you can't even correct it in the DB (assuming you have permissions) because of accounting rules. It may have to be fudged to the current date or earliest open accounting period to properly recognize it. Point being, this is not an issue unique to SS or the government.

---

The SSA actually has policies to deal with scenarios where the DOB is not known or a certificate was not issued. But that isn't the only reason there are 64+ million active SSNs more than the population of the US. The SSA IG identified these problems twice before, and now Elon has "discovered" it again for a third time. The number of active SSNs is continuing to grow.

---

They do now, but that may not have always been the case and maybe of those policies may not have been followed before electronic record keeping, which would leave you with a lot of bad records that you're stuck with. I've had this issue many times before where very important information wasn't filled out because the current policies requiring it weren't in place when it was entered and now no one remembers what it was.

This is only in reference to people with no or incorrect birth dates. That's what I quoted and responded to, so this has nothing to do with the surplus of active SSN's.

Quote:

---

Michelle King was in the job for a month, likely at the end of a 30+ year career. Exactly what would she be fired for after one month?

---

You're either part of the problem or part of the solution. Michelle exposed herself as part of the problem.

ABATTBQ11 said:

---

G Martin 87 said:

---

ABATTBQ11 said:

---

CanyonAg77 said:

---

Charpie said:

---

That's not the way COBOL works, from what I understand. It allows for blank values like that.I mean, it's COBOL

---

I haven't done programming since BASIC, but I'm pretty damn sure you could write a program in any language that rejects a value for being blank.

---

You can, but there are people who legitimately don't know their DOB and don't have documentation, and they could have and probably was an accepted norm for quite awhile.

For one, a lot of states weren't issuing birth certificates until the early 20th century, and a lot of children born in that era weren't born in hospitals. It's very likely that there's a large handful of very old people who legitimately never got one due to poor record keeping, and early SSN issuance may have not required it if you didn't know because in the 1930's there would have been a lot more people who didn't have those kinds of records.

For two, you could also have immigrants and refugees who've gotten citizenship over the last 90 years that also lack that documentation. If you were fleeing South Vietnam and ended up in the US, you may not have had any kind of birth documentation to begin with or you may have been forced to leave it behind. Same for a lot of other places.

For a lot of SS's history, record keeping wasn't digitized and probably wasn't very stringent. With much of it on paper or punch cards, it wouldn't shock me that mistakes were made and never caught or incomplete data was just looked over. I work with data and I see this kind of stuff a lot. Even a lot of companies with digital records have terrible record keeping and really dirty data sets because the people entering and recording it never thought of how it might be used later and just didn't care to make sure it was all accurate. I've worked with systems that have a lot of market share in my industry that will allow some wild date information and other stuff, like contracts or transactions from the 1600's or 2300's. Some of it you can't just go in and fix either. The system won't allow you to change the date because other records reference it, and sometimes you can't even correct it in the DB (assuming you have permissions) because of accounting rules. It may have to be fudged to the current date or earliest open accounting period to properly recognize it. Point being, this is not an issue unique to SS or the government.

---

The SSA actually has policies to deal with scenarios where the DOB is not known or a certificate was not issued. But that isn't the only reason there are 64+ million active SSNs more than the population of the US. The SSA IG identified these problems twice before, and now Elon has "discovered" it again for a third time. The number of active SSNs is continuing to grow.

---

They do now, but that may not have always been the case and maybe of those policies may not have been followed before electronic record keeping, which would leave you with a lot of bad records that you're stuck with. I've had this issue many times before where very important information wasn't filled out because the current policies requiring it weren't in place when it was entered and now no one remembers what it was.

This is only in reference to people with no or incorrect birth dates. That's what I quoted and responded to, so this has nothing to do with the surplus of active SSN's.

---

I love how the opposition instantly shifts to a new excuse the moment they’re proven wrong.

"But, but, not everyone has been assigned an SS certificate!"

Did they even bother to check how Social Security handles that? It’s not like SSA just shrugs and says, "Oh well, guess… https://t.co/KABSRw30oe pic.twitter.com/qKbu2x05bd

— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) February 16, 2025

G Martin 87 said:

---

ABATTBQ11 said:

---

CanyonAg77 said:

---

Charpie said:

---

That's not the way COBOL works, from what I understand. It allows for blank values like that.I mean, it's COBOL

---

I haven't done programming since BASIC, but I'm pretty damn sure you could write a program in any language that rejects a value for being blank.

---

You can, but there are people who legitimately don't know their DOB and don't have documentation, and they could have and probably was an accepted norm for quite awhile.

For one, a lot of states weren't issuing birth certificates until the early 20th century, and a lot of children born in that era weren't born in hospitals. It's very likely that there's a large handful of very old people who legitimately never got one due to poor record keeping, and early SSN issuance may have not required it if you didn't know because in the 1930's there would have been a lot more people who didn't have those kinds of records.

For two, you could also have immigrants and refugees who've gotten citizenship over the last 90 years that also lack that documentation. If you were fleeing South Vietnam and ended up in the US, you may not have had any kind of birth documentation to begin with or you may have been forced to leave it behind. Same for a lot of other places.

For a lot of SS's history, record keeping wasn't digitized and probably wasn't very stringent. With much of it on paper or punch cards, it wouldn't shock me that mistakes were made and never caught or incomplete data was just looked over. I work with data and I see this kind of stuff a lot. Even a lot of companies with digital records have terrible record keeping and really dirty data sets because the people entering and recording it never thought of how it might be used later and just didn't care to make sure it was all accurate. I've worked with systems that have a lot of market share in my industry that will allow some wild date information and other stuff, like contracts or transactions from the 1600's or 2300's. Some of it you can't just go in and fix either. The system won't allow you to change the date because other records reference it, and sometimes you can't even correct it in the DB (assuming you have permissions) because of accounting rules. It may have to be fudged to the current date or earliest open accounting period to properly recognize it. Point being, this is not an issue unique to SS or the government.

---

The SSA actually has policies to deal with scenarios where the DOB is not known or a certificate was not issued. But that isn't the only reason there are 64+ million active SSNs more than the population of the US. The SSA IG identified these problems twice before, and now Elon has "discovered" it again for a third time. The number of active SSNs is continuing to grow.

---

Good that he's bringing awareness to it and it is currently going viral though right? I think every American should know about this, and deserves to. We as individuals are held to much harsher standards and are scrutinized way more than our supposed "public servants".

At this point, I don't care if gross incompetence or malfeasance and corruption. Actually I do care a little...jailtime for the former and public executions for the latter.

Quote:

---

I love how the opposition instantly shifts to a new excuse the moment they’re proven wrong.

"But, but, not everyone has been assigned an SS certificate!"

Did they even bother to check how Social Security handles that? It’s not like SSA just shrugs and says, "Oh well, guess… https://t.co/KABSRw30oe pic.twitter.com/qKbu2x05bd

— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) February 16, 2025

---

It's like they were speaking directly to Jeeper there.

The fact that EVERY SINGLE LIBERAL on social media is goaltending for these institutions when, at a very minimum, this is jaw-dropping incompetence of the highest order, is WILD.

So much potential or apparent fraud and waste being uncovered by DOGE, and EVERY SINGLE LIBERAL is angry that these efforts are even being made.

It just further shows how they reflexively adopt the opposite stances or positions, no matter what. It's a warped hate-fueled religion.

If Obama had a group doing the exact same thing, they would view him as a hero. Libs are horrible people.

Could we see where these checks are going?

Find out who is living off them?

94chem said:

---

infinity ag said:

---

This woman quit before she got fired.



Social Security head steps down over DOGE access of recipient information, sources say
https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/17/politics/social-security-head-steps-down-doge-access/index.html

---

"Michelle King was in the job for a month, likely at the end of a 30+ year career. Exactly what would she be fired for after one month?" .....

---

Do you not see the contradiction in your own statement? She could have retired because 30 years is a good run, which I think is your point, but she could also be leaving because she committed fraud / neglect in her roles for the 30 years prior to her promotion, and she's embarrassed what DOGE is finding.

I'm pretty disappointed that we had so many government employees blindly going along with absolute waste and fraud in government spending, and no one raised their hand to say - "we have a problem here."

AgsMnn said:

---

Could we see where these checks are going?

Find out who is living off them?

---

I was hoping Elon would pull up that information without naming recipients. He can just say "A 150 year old man from XYZville, New York for paid $2500.00."

infinity ag said:

---

AgsMnn said:

---

Could we see where these checks are going?

Find out who is living off them?

---

I was hoping Elon would pull up that information without naming recipients. He can just say "A 150 year old man from XYZville, New York for paid $2500.00."

---

To that end, SS numbers denote where they were issued in the first three numbers. Or at least the states where they were issued. Compare those numbers with Census numbers.

Heineken-Ashi said:

---

Charpie said:

---

Heineken-Ashi said:

---

Charpie said:

---

jwhaby said:

---

Jeeper79 said:

---

Ol_Ag_02 said:

---

Jeeper79 said:

---

The most logical explanation is not fraud. The most logical explanation is fat fingering birthdays and other bad data.

Seriously, if someone were trying to defraud the government, there are better ways to fly under the radar than pretending your immortal.

Doesn't mean there aren't things that should be fixed, but a lot yall jump to fraud way too fast.

---

Yippee!! It's not fraud that's wasting our money, just gross negligence and incompetence!

---

There probably is money being wasted, but that's not what Musk is reporting here.

---

What is Musk reporting? You say he's not reporting on waste, then you say he's not reporting on fraud (only some forum posters are). So if it's not waste/incompetence or fraud/abuse, then what is it? Please enlighten us.

---

I think that's the point. He's posting random *****

---

No, that's more what you are doing. He is attempting to audit the waste, fraud, abuse, and theft of tax dollars. The only people who have a problem with it are people who want it to continue.

---

Who specifically on this thread has indicated has a problem with it? If you are insinuating that I have a problem with it, you couldn't be more wrong. There is a ton of waste in government. What I do have a problem is saying half truths and bs in order to inflame.

---

Well you sure haven't provided anything to refute him other than derailing the thread about how you read a book once. In fact, nobody has clearly stated exactly what Elon is doing wrong with any factual basis. And we've asked, multiple times, for you smarter people to explain what we're missing.

---

You can tell who is old and who is really old in this thread.

I started my first job as a COBOL programmer in 1998. Thank you Y2K for my first job, working on an IBM Mainframe for a Fortune 100 Company.

We have database experts on here talking about SQL and that is fine and dandy. I am currently employed as a database designer. The COBOL program is probably not using a relational database.

We have people talking about data types and whether dates are supported in the many variations of the COBOL language. This is also missing the point.

The early COBOL systems were processing fixed width flat files, think of a txt file in Notepad. The record was defined by file width. For example the first 9 spaces would be the SSN. The next 20 spaces would be the first name. The next 8 would be birth date, the next 8 would be death date.

So it would look like this if I died today and was born in 1951

123456789Tumble Weed 0101195102182025

The COBOL program has to loop through all records in the file and read each one individually.

COBOL can use a relational db, such as DB2, or any other flavor, but these programs are probably using flat files. It is likely so antiquated that you can't just state "select * from customer where birth date < '01/01/1900'".

Elon isn't doing anything wrong. He has the technical understanding to process the data that he sees.

The cool thing is that Elon is showing all of us the problems in real time.

Rachel Maddow and Mark Cuban and all of the other leftist lives will tell us that we just don't understand the data properly. Instead, they should be saying we have a serious problem and we need to fix it. But no, they would just rather blame and find some excuse to not believe anything is real.

aggiehawg said:

---

infinity ag said:

---

AgsMnn said:

---

Could we see where these checks are going?

Find out who is living off them?

---

I was hoping Elon would pull up that information without naming recipients. He can just say "A 150 year old man from XYZville, New York for paid $2500.00."

---

To that end, SS numbers denote where they were issued in the first three numbers. Or at least the states where they were issued. Compare those numbers with Census numbers.

---

Oh that is interesting, wasn't aware.

So if I take my SSN and add 1 to it, does it mean that the person with that SSN was born close to where I was born and maybe the same day? Or this is totally random and sequence means nothing?

Googled and found this

Quote:

---

A Social Security number (SSN) is a nine-digit number that is made up of three parts: an area number, a group number, and a serial number. The parts are usually separated by hyphens.

Area number

• The first three digits of an SSN, which indicate the geographical region where the application was filed
  

Group number

• The middle two digits of an SSN, which range from 01 to 99 within each area number
• Group numbers are not assigned in consecutive order

Serial number

• The last four digits of an SSN, which run consecutively from 0001 through 9999 within each group

The Social Security Administration stopped using numerical sequencing for assigning SSNs.

Before 1972, the area number indicated the state where the card was issued

Since 1972, the area number is based on the ZIP code of the applicant's mailing address

---

Tumble Weed said:

---

Heineken-Ashi said:

---

Charpie said:

---

Heineken-Ashi said:

---

Charpie said:

---

jwhaby said:

---

Jeeper79 said:

---

Ol_Ag_02 said:

---

Jeeper79 said:

---

The most logical explanation is not fraud. The most logical explanation is fat fingering birthdays and other bad data.

Seriously, if someone were trying to defraud the government, there are better ways to fly under the radar than pretending your immortal.

Doesn't mean there aren't things that should be fixed, but a lot yall jump to fraud way too fast.

---

Yippee!! It's not fraud that's wasting our money, just gross negligence and incompetence!

---

There probably is money being wasted, but that's not what Musk is reporting here.

---

What is Musk reporting? You say he's not reporting on waste, then you say he's not reporting on fraud (only some forum posters are). So if it's not waste/incompetence or fraud/abuse, then what is it? Please enlighten us.

---

I think that's the point. He's posting random *****

---

No, that's more what you are doing. He is attempting to audit the waste, fraud, abuse, and theft of tax dollars. The only people who have a problem with it are people who want it to continue.

---

Who specifically on this thread has indicated has a problem with it? If you are insinuating that I have a problem with it, you couldn't be more wrong. There is a ton of waste in government. What I do have a problem is saying half truths and bs in order to inflame.

---

Well you sure haven't provided anything to refute him other than derailing the thread about how you read a book once. In fact, nobody has clearly stated exactly what Elon is doing wrong with any factual basis. And we've asked, multiple times, for you smarter people to explain what we're missing.

---

You can tell who is old and who is really old in this thread.

I started my first job as a COBOL programmer in 1998. Thank you Y2K for my first job, working on an IBM Mainframe for a Fortune 100 Company.

We have database experts on here talking about SQL and that is fine and dandy. I am currently employed as a database designer. The COBOL program is probably not using a relational database.

We have people talking about data types and whether dates are supported in the many variations of the COBOL language. This is also missing the point.

The early COBOL systems were processing fixed width flat files, think of a txt file in Notepad. The record was defined by file width. For example the first 9 spaces would be the SSN. The next 20 spaces would be the first name. The next 8 would be birth date, the next 8 would be death date.

So it would look like this if I died today and was born in 1951

123456789Tumble Weed 0101195102182025

The COBOL program has to loop through all records in the file and read each one individually.

COBOL can use a relational db, such as DB2, or any other flavor, but these programs are probably using flat files. It is likely so antiquated that you can't just state "select * from customer where birth date < '01/01/1900'".

Elon isn't doing anything wrong. He has the technical understanding to process the data that he sees.

The cool thing is that Elon is showing all of us the problems in real time.

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Good excuse for the Govt to get off mainframes and into 2025. I am not sure the cloud platforms like AWS, GCP, Azure are secure enough. And depends on a company. It has to be on-prem. Rebuild the database.

WE may find out this is all for nothing, but the fact that social security shows someone is 350 is a concern. Of the 30,000,000 I don't expect all to be receiving benefits, but if there is a large percentage that is they need to be addressed.

You wouldn't pass an audit with bad information like this, so the government should not either. Too long the government has been treated like they can do no wrong and can't get fired instead of acting like a business and putting the shareholders (taxpayers) first

infinity ag said:

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Tumble Weed said:

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Heineken-Ashi said:

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Charpie said:

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Heineken-Ashi said:

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Charpie said:

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jwhaby said:

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Jeeper79 said:

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Ol_Ag_02 said:

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Jeeper79 said:

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The most logical explanation is not fraud. The most logical explanation is fat fingering birthdays and other bad data.

Seriously, if someone were trying to defraud the government, there are better ways to fly under the radar than pretending your immortal.

Doesn't mean there aren't things that should be fixed, but a lot yall jump to fraud way too fast.

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Yippee!! It's not fraud that's wasting our money, just gross negligence and incompetence!

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There probably is money being wasted, but that's not what Musk is reporting here.

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What is Musk reporting? You say he's not reporting on waste, then you say he's not reporting on fraud (only some forum posters are). So if it's not waste/incompetence or fraud/abuse, then what is it? Please enlighten us.

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I think that's the point. He's posting random *****

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No, that's more what you are doing. He is attempting to audit the waste, fraud, abuse, and theft of tax dollars. The only people who have a problem with it are people who want it to continue.

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Who specifically on this thread has indicated has a problem with it? If you are insinuating that I have a problem with it, you couldn't be more wrong. There is a ton of waste in government. What I do have a problem is saying half truths and bs in order to inflame.

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Well you sure haven't provided anything to refute him other than derailing the thread about how you read a book once. In fact, nobody has clearly stated exactly what Elon is doing wrong with any factual basis. And we've asked, multiple times, for you smarter people to explain what we're missing.

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You can tell who is old and who is really old in this thread.

I started my first job as a COBOL programmer in 1998. Thank you Y2K for my first job, working on an IBM Mainframe for a Fortune 100 Company.

We have database experts on here talking about SQL and that is fine and dandy. I am currently employed as a database designer. The COBOL program is probably not using a relational database.

We have people talking about data types and whether dates are supported in the many variations of the COBOL language. This is also missing the point.

The early COBOL systems were processing fixed width flat files, think of a txt file in Notepad. The record was defined by file width. For example the first 9 spaces would be the SSN. The next 20 spaces would be the first name. The next 8 would be birth date, the next 8 would be death date.

So it would look like this if I died today and was born in 1951

123456789Tumble Weed 0101195102182025

The COBOL program has to loop through all records in the file and read each one individually.

COBOL can use a relational db, such as DB2, or any other flavor, but these programs are probably using flat files. It is likely so antiquated that you can't just state "select * from customer where birth date < '01/01/1900'".

Elon isn't doing anything wrong. He has the technical understanding to process the data that he sees.

The cool thing is that Elon is showing all of us the problems in real time.

---

Good excuse for the Govt to get off mainframes and into 2025. I am not sure the cloud platforms like AWS, GCP, Azure are secure enough. And depends on a company. It has to be on-prem. Rebuild the database.

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One of his autistic savants probably parsed it in python and loaded it into a database in 30 minutes and then sent him a screenshot.

Charpie said:

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Agreed. Let's fix the crap

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I'm with you! Sorry for being histile.

No sweat

Thank you for the detailed explanation.