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Social Security Information Systems Near Collapse

Posted by Soulskill on from the not-unlike-social-security dept.

matty619 writes "An Information Week article warns that the computer systems that run the Social Security Administration may collapse by 2012 due to increased workload, and a half-billion-dollar upgrade won't be ready until 2015. One of the biggest problems is the agency's transition to a new data center, according to a report (PDF) by the SSA's Inspector General. The IG has characterized the replacement of the SSA's National Computer Center — built in 1979 — as the SSA's 'primary IT investment' in the next few years."

8 of 279 comments (clear)

  1. 2012 by Sooner+Boomer · · Score: 3, Funny

    So the world will end in 2012!

    --
    Chaos maximizes locally around me.
    1. Re:2012 by ikkonoishi · · Score: 4, Funny

      They already were. Nobody noticed.

    2. Re:2012 by Mitchell314 · · Score: 3, Funny

      And if I were an invasion, I would alien Britain first.

      --
      I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
    3. Re:2012 by mangu · · Score: 5, Funny

      If I was an alien, I'd invade the US first, and only the US.

      And I'd invade China and only China. Your planet would owe its ass to my planet.

    4. Re:2012 by slick7 · · Score: 5, Funny

      If I was an alien, I'd invade the US first, and only the US.

      If I was an alien, I'd invade France, always do the easy problems first.

      --
      The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
  2. obvious solution by outsider007 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Just use facebook ID's instead.

    --
    If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
  3. Flash... by Genda · · Score: 5, Funny

    In a related story, it has been reported that top officials at the Social Security Administration are prepared to reduced the entire Social Security System to a Web App and run it on the Amazon Cloud.

  4. Re:*HOW* Much?! by grimJester · · Score: 5, Funny

    Then again, a lot of it is written in COBOL, as the article states.

    Yes, and upgrading legacy code to become a modern data center is hard. Why, I remember how I struggled to turn a simple Pascal Hello World into a cafeteria. Can you believe there's no open source tool to translate for loops into pretzels?

    Hint: It's a building. With computers. And data.