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It is, I assume this post has been made because Elon recently said when he addressed the media next to Trump that they supposedly found people who were 150 year

It is, I assume this post has been made because Elon recently said when he addressed the media next to Trump that they supposedly found people who were 150 years old collecting social security payments. What has followed is people coming out of the woodwork to explain how this may have been reflected in the system since the system was written in COBOL and the reasons why those people were reflected that way the system, that they likely weren't actually having those payments made and it there wasn't the wastage of tax payers money as Elon claims. Whereby citizens that don't have a recorded age are represented with an age of 0 and COBOL backdates their age from 1875. It seems to be Elon's DOGE team having access to data that they have little experience in reviewing and understanding and are spreading claims that are false. Google it.

frugalmail 2y ago
They specifically said these people are getting payments. That means whether the cause is accurate representation in the database, or inaccurate representation in the database, this linchpin data should invalidate any payments.
- NoPicklez 2y ago
  Do they know that or do they think or assume that? There is supposedly an automated process to remove social security payments from people over the age of 115, unless there is an exception. https://secure.ssa.gov/poms.nsf/lnx/0202602578 https://secure.ssa.gov/poms.nsf/lnx/0202602578
  - fastball 2y ago
    Entirely possible that part of the system fails on whatever is causing there to be 150 year olds.
    - NoPicklez 2y ago
      There are a multitude of possibilities, of which none of them were addressed by Musk with no nuance at all.
      - fastball 2y ago
        I don't think it is useful to do that in a press conference.
        NoPicklez 2y ago
        Neither is it useful to make such claims as he did so blatantly
        fastball 2y ago
        Well, it is useful for him, as (if it turns out to be mostly true) then it highlights how poorly operations in our government are. The only reason you have to believe that Musk's statements are not correct is the aforementioned inaccurate assertion about COBOL.
        zimpenfish 2y ago
        > The only reason you have to believe that Musk's statements are not correct is [...] And his well documented history of spouting bullshit and flim-flam.
        chillingeffect 2y ago
        That's ingenuoua. He posted the ssa's process for culling 115 year olds above. Also, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Presently, there is no evidence. This is precisely why business and government are different entities. Business is a wealth-creating opportunity with less responsibility. Government may not be low-latency, but its aim is to be responsible and correct. Confusing the two is a major problem.
        fastball 2y ago
    - skissane 2y ago
      In fact, if you read that document, it mentions there are exceptions in which the automated process doesn't terminate someone for being >115, and the termination has to be done manually for: > Beneficiaries with other claimants active on the record; > Dually or technically entitled beneficiaries with a discrepancy among records (information pertaining to date of birth (DOB), suspension, and termination; or > Beneficiaries in an active pay status on a dually entitled record. What we don't know, is how many >115 records get pushed to manual processing, and how efficient that processing is. Is there a backlog? How big is it? It mentions that one thing that can prevent the automated process, is when they have multiple records for a person, and they have conflicting dates of birth – and then they have to follow some process to resolve the discrepancy. What happens if they get stuck and can't work out which date of birth is the right one? It also mentions how in some cases they need proof of death to carry out the manual termination. What if their attempts to procure such proof are unsuccessful? Speculation: maybe there are a cohort of individuals who are long deceased, but they fall into one of the exceptions to the automated termination at 115 process, SSA is missing proof of death, and if nobody is actually "cashing the checks", it might be administratively easier to just keep on "paying" them by printing the checks and then burying them at the back of a filing cabinet than to cancel their social security. Maybe that's who these "150 year old social security recipients" are. So nobody would actually be committing fraud, and the government isn't really losing any money (since the checks are never cashed). Not exactly good, but maybe not quite as bad as Musk et al make it sound either. And quite likely it is just a small handful of people who are a rounding error in the federal budget.
      - frugalmail 2y ago
        >...exceptions in which the automated process doesn't terminate someone for being >115 You gave a several good explanations about why the current automated processes don't mark the records as deceased. But those are excuses. Just because the design of the system is flawed, that doesn't mean the system isn't in error because the code implements the design. All those sound like it needs to be fixed to me. As somebody that deals with data for large enterprises that are nowhere near, obviously, as the government, but definitely companies with 100k employees and several in the Fortune 20. It's rudimentary to: - have a data staging area before data gets into any financial system intended for payment transactions. Those staging systems can be used for analytical, reporting, and especially data cleaning. - No use one record to represent the obligations to a completely different records of the same type. i.e. overloaded corrupt master data. Uncurated data systems should be treated completely differently than systems that actually impacts financial transactions. Just because it's taxpayer money, they shouldn't be able to avoid criticism because they're wasting the money. If anything they should be more accountable.
fastball 2y ago
You literally have that backwards. The misinfo is that COBOL would be back-dating to 1875, as is made clear by the linked StackExchange thread and anyone else that has actually used COBOL. Regardless, people without an accurate age in the Social Security database should not be getting payments either, even if they are not actually 150.
- NoPicklez 2y ago
  Okay regardless of whether I had it backwards the intent of my post was still correct. That there may have been people in the system that were 150 years old, due to the COBOL language. And who says they actually were being paid, was that just assumed or did they find that people were inappropriately being paid? It is been circulated that there is an automated component that prevents that from happening if people are aged past 115 years old https://secure.ssa.gov/poms.nsf/lnx/0202602578 https://secure.ssa.gov/poms.nsf/lnx/0202602578 It is irresponsible to stand up in front of the Whitehouse and spew that there are people receiving social security payments that are 150 years old, without performing a formal inquiry into the matter or communicating the detail appropriately.
  - skissane 2y ago
    > That there may have been people in the system that were 150 years old, due to the COBOL language. Yes, but this is the whole aspect that is misinformation: there is no evidence that (alleged) “150 year old social security recipients” has anything to do with COBOL. That appears to be simply some speculative and likely incorrect theory that some random cooked up, and people that don’t know any better are repeating as fact It is entirely possible that Musk/DOGE’s claims about this topic will turn out to be incorrect - but if they do, then I very much doubt that the actual reason, whatever it may turn out to be, will be due to any feature of the COBOL language (or the implementation of it SSA is using)
    - NoPicklez 2y ago
      The entire issue I have is that there was no substantiated evidence from Elon either, the public is left to speculate as to why. But Elon made a great headline for himself without any nuanced or substantiated view.
skissane 2y ago
> What has followed is people coming out of the woodwork to explain how this may have been reflected in the system since the system was written in COBOL There’s zero evidence these “people coming out of the woodwork” have any idea what they are actually talking about. No evidence they have ever worked for SSA or have any insider info on how its systems work. It appears these “people coming out of the woodwork” are just random nobodies speculating in public (likely incorrectly), and people are repeating their speculation because they like how it sounds and they don’t know enough about the topic to realise that it probably isn’t true
- computerthings 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - jklinger410 2y ago
    If you thought this was some kind of roast against one side, do me a favor and think about it for the opposite. That's what good posting vague quotes about totalitarianism does. You have to engage in specifics for your communication to be meaningful.
    - computerthings 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - jklinger410 2y ago
        Well if I can't tell what side you are criticizing with your broad quotes then my point is they aren't really effective. Which is why I said posting vague quotes about totalitarianism doesn't really do much.
        computerthings 2y ago
        That something has to be applicable to only one "side" is a goal of your own making, not mine.

frugalmail 2y ago

They specifically said these people are getting payments. That means whether the cause is accurate representation in the database, or inaccurate representation in the database, this linchpin data should invalidate any payments.

NoPicklez 2y ago
Do they know that or do they think or assume that? There is supposedly an automated process to remove social security payments from people over the age of 115, unless there is an exception. https://secure.ssa.gov/poms.nsf/lnx/0202602578 https://secure.ssa.gov/poms.nsf/lnx/0202602578
- fastball 2y ago
  Entirely possible that part of the system fails on whatever is causing there to be 150 year olds.
  - NoPicklez 2y ago
    There are a multitude of possibilities, of which none of them were addressed by Musk with no nuance at all.
    - fastball 2y ago
      I don't think it is useful to do that in a press conference.
      - NoPicklez 2y ago
        Neither is it useful to make such claims as he did so blatantly
        fastball 2y ago
        Well, it is useful for him, as (if it turns out to be mostly true) then it highlights how poorly operations in our government are. The only reason you have to believe that Musk's statements are not correct is the aforementioned inaccurate assertion about COBOL.
        zimpenfish 2y ago
        > The only reason you have to believe that Musk's statements are not correct is [...] And his well documented history of spouting bullshit and flim-flam.
        chillingeffect 2y ago
        That's ingenuoua. He posted the ssa's process for culling 115 year olds above. Also, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Presently, there is no evidence. This is precisely why business and government are different entities. Business is a wealth-creating opportunity with less responsibility. Government may not be low-latency, but its aim is to be responsible and correct. Confusing the two is a major problem.
        fastball 2y ago
  - skissane 2y ago
    In fact, if you read that document, it mentions there are exceptions in which the automated process doesn't terminate someone for being >115, and the termination has to be done manually for: > Beneficiaries with other claimants active on the record; > Dually or technically entitled beneficiaries with a discrepancy among records (information pertaining to date of birth (DOB), suspension, and termination; or > Beneficiaries in an active pay status on a dually entitled record. What we don't know, is how many >115 records get pushed to manual processing, and how efficient that processing is. Is there a backlog? How big is it? It mentions that one thing that can prevent the automated process, is when they have multiple records for a person, and they have conflicting dates of birth – and then they have to follow some process to resolve the discrepancy. What happens if they get stuck and can't work out which date of birth is the right one? It also mentions how in some cases they need proof of death to carry out the manual termination. What if their attempts to procure such proof are unsuccessful? Speculation: maybe there are a cohort of individuals who are long deceased, but they fall into one of the exceptions to the automated termination at 115 process, SSA is missing proof of death, and if nobody is actually "cashing the checks", it might be administratively easier to just keep on "paying" them by printing the checks and then burying them at the back of a filing cabinet than to cancel their social security. Maybe that's who these "150 year old social security recipients" are. So nobody would actually be committing fraud, and the government isn't really losing any money (since the checks are never cashed). Not exactly good, but maybe not quite as bad as Musk et al make it sound either. And quite likely it is just a small handful of people who are a rounding error in the federal budget.
    - frugalmail 2y ago
      >...exceptions in which the automated process doesn't terminate someone for being >115 You gave a several good explanations about why the current automated processes don't mark the records as deceased. But those are excuses. Just because the design of the system is flawed, that doesn't mean the system isn't in error because the code implements the design. All those sound like it needs to be fixed to me. As somebody that deals with data for large enterprises that are nowhere near, obviously, as the government, but definitely companies with 100k employees and several in the Fortune 20. It's rudimentary to: - have a data staging area before data gets into any financial system intended for payment transactions. Those staging systems can be used for analytical, reporting, and especially data cleaning. - No use one record to represent the obligations to a completely different records of the same type. i.e. overloaded corrupt master data. Uncurated data systems should be treated completely differently than systems that actually impacts financial transactions. Just because it's taxpayer money, they shouldn't be able to avoid criticism because they're wasting the money. If anything they should be more accountable.

fastball 2y ago

You literally have that backwards. The misinfo is that COBOL would be back-dating to 1875, as is made clear by the linked StackExchange thread and anyone else that has actually used COBOL. Regardless, people without an accurate age in the Social Security database should not be getting payments either, even if they are not actually 150.

NoPicklez 2y ago
Okay regardless of whether I had it backwards the intent of my post was still correct. That there may have been people in the system that were 150 years old, due to the COBOL language. And who says they actually were being paid, was that just assumed or did they find that people were inappropriately being paid? It is been circulated that there is an automated component that prevents that from happening if people are aged past 115 years old https://secure.ssa.gov/poms.nsf/lnx/0202602578 https://secure.ssa.gov/poms.nsf/lnx/0202602578 It is irresponsible to stand up in front of the Whitehouse and spew that there are people receiving social security payments that are 150 years old, without performing a formal inquiry into the matter or communicating the detail appropriately.
- skissane 2y ago
  > That there may have been people in the system that were 150 years old, due to the COBOL language. Yes, but this is the whole aspect that is misinformation: there is no evidence that (alleged) “150 year old social security recipients” has anything to do with COBOL. That appears to be simply some speculative and likely incorrect theory that some random cooked up, and people that don’t know any better are repeating as fact It is entirely possible that Musk/DOGE’s claims about this topic will turn out to be incorrect - but if they do, then I very much doubt that the actual reason, whatever it may turn out to be, will be due to any feature of the COBOL language (or the implementation of it SSA is using)
  - NoPicklez 2y ago
    The entire issue I have is that there was no substantiated evidence from Elon either, the public is left to speculate as to why. But Elon made a great headline for himself without any nuanced or substantiated view.

skissane 2y ago

> What has followed is people coming out of the woodwork to explain how this may have been reflected in the system since the system was written in COBOL There’s zero evidence these “people coming out of the woodwork” have any idea what they are actually talking about. No evidence they have ever worked for SSA or have any insider info on how its systems work. It appears these “people coming out of the woodwork” are just random nobodies speculating in public (likely incorrectly), and people are repeating their speculation because they like how it sounds and they don’t know enough about the topic to realise that it probably isn’t true

computerthings 2y ago
[flagged]
- jklinger410 2y ago
  If you thought this was some kind of roast against one side, do me a favor and think about it for the opposite. That's what good posting vague quotes about totalitarianism does. You have to engage in specifics for your communication to be meaningful.
  - computerthings 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - jklinger410 2y ago
      Well if I can't tell what side you are criticizing with your broad quotes then my point is they aren't really effective. Which is why I said posting vague quotes about totalitarianism doesn't really do much.
      - computerthings 2y ago
        That something has to be applicable to only one "side" is a goal of your own making, not mine.