A rather interesting video on how the IRS's stone age computer system upchucked

[WLJ]

I subscribe to this guy's channel and this popped up. Just in time for tax time.
Now he's not saying the actual computers are that old but the system the system is built around is.

Gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling about just where the heck all that money going to the IRS for equipment is going.

How the 60-Year-Old IRS Computer System Failed on Tax Day
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qL5ut8o5pfs

[sumpnz]

Back in the late 90's I worked for a company called HMT Technology as an engineering intern.  The made disks for hard drives. Almost all were the then typical 3.5" disks.  I worked on the process for the aluminum substrate.  Anyway, they also made some large disks.  By large I mean around 15" diameter, IIRC.  Those were for repairing the IRS's hard drives.  Mind you, as large as the disks were I think they held around 1% of the data as the 3.5" disks.  I think they said the IRS's hard drives dated to the 70's.  Wonder if those are still in use...

[Firethorn]

Gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling about just where the heck all that money going to the IRS for equipment is going.

IT guy here, and having read a number of case studies about government and non-government IT projects, I have to say that given the scope of the problem "all that money" is equivalent to handing a guy $2.50 to get lunch for himself in NYC and then wondering why he ended up with only a bowl of ramen or such.

In short, even for a competently run program(never assured, especially on shoestrings), the money they have for modernization is woefully inadequate.

In the old days they were seriously funded for big iron and got big iron.  Today they're expected to replace said big iron with the latest and greatest without adequate funding.

[Pb]

Don't our nuclear weapons systems run on really old computers also?   

[Firethorn]

Don't our nuclear weapons systems run on really old computers also?   

They do indeed, but the old computers for it are unhackable, EMP resistant, and the nuclear mission hasn't changed in decades.

The IRS gets new rules every year and more tax returns.

[makattak]

They do indeed, but the old computers for it are unhackable, EMP resistant, and the nuclear mission hasn't changed in decades.

The IRS gets new rules every year and more tax returns.

That was my thought: I don't really want our nuclear weapons using the latest hardware/software. I want them using something stone-cold reliable and unhackable. (EMP resistant is one I didn't immediately think of, but that's a good thing, too.)

[Firethorn]

That was my thought: I don't really want our nuclear weapons using the latest hardware/software. I want them using something stone-cold reliable and unhackable. (EMP resistant is one I didn't immediately think of, but that's a good thing, too.)

They are programmed using paper/vinyl tape.

Let's see some script kiddie figure that out.

[MechAg94]

I have a solution!  Abolish the IRS and then nuke the IRS Building in D.C. 

Getting rid of the income tax would take away the need for upgrades. 

[Firethorn]

I have a solution!  Abolish the IRS and then nuke the IRS Building in D.C. 

Getting rid of the income tax would take away the need for upgrades. 

That's a bit like telling a family that in the red spending wise that their primary breadwinner should quit his job.

Like it or not, we need to cut the spending first.

[WLJ]

That's a bit like telling a family that in the red spending wise that their primary breadwinner should quit his job.

Like it or not, we need to cut the spending first.

Some people need the credit cards taken away from them to accomplish that