{"id":47290,"date":"2025-04-02T15:32:47","date_gmt":"2025-04-02T19:32:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=47290"},"modified":"2025-04-02T15:32:47","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T19:32:47","slug":"rebuilding-the-social-security-administrations-codebase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/04\/02\/rebuilding-the-social-security-administrations-codebase\/","title":{"rendered":"Rebuilding the Social Security Administration’s Codebase"},"content":{"rendered":"

Makena Kelly<\/a> (Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

This proposed migration isn’t the first time SSA has tried to move away from COBOL: In 2017, SSA announced a plan to receive hundreds of millions in funding to replace its core systems. The agency predicted<\/a> that it would take around five years to modernize these systems. Because of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, the agency pivoted away from this work to focus on more public-facing projects.<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

As recently as 2016, SSA’s infrastructure contained more than 60 million lines of code written in COBOL, with millions more written in other legacy coding languages, the agency’s Office of the Inspector General found<\/a>. In fact, SSA’s core programmatic systems and architecture haven’t been “substantially” updated since the 1980s when the agency developed its own database system called MADAM, or the Master Data Access Method, which was written in COBOL and Assembler, according to SSA’s 2017 modernization plan<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

When the original X.com merged with PayPal, Musk wanted to rewrite the code and switch everything from Unix to Windows. Part of the thinking, if I recall, was that it would be easier to hire Windows developers. The original PayPal engineering team rejected this and maneuvered to have him replaced as CEO.<\/p>\n\n

It probably is<\/em> a good idea to modernize old government systems and get them off COBOL, but Musk is not known for the careful approach that doing this properly would require. Still, it’s interesting to think about how this should<\/em> be done. I wonder if they could run the new system in a sandbox for a year, feeding it all the same inputs, and see whether it generates the same outputs.<\/p>\n\n

Note that the existing system is tested but not problem-free. It seems to be pretty reliable about dispensing payments, but there have been multiple multi-month periods where I was not able to log into my account or I could log in but it wasn’t functional.<\/p>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n