Ancient data banks toil away the years


Government computers are behind the curve
The IRS computers are old. Really old.

The Internal Revenue Service has been trying for years to upgrade its antiquated mainframe computers, which process Americans' tax returns by churning through millions of lines of assembly code written by hand in the early 1960s.

But after more than 20 years and over $5 billion, there's still no end in sight. Not all computer systems can talk to each other, information isn't available in real time, and tax returns filed on paper are often manually entered by typists.

An internal strategy document written seven years ago likened the upgrade task to redesigning and rebuilding a densely populated city like New York, without evacuating it first or disrupting the "daily pattern" of the residents' lives.

Putting aside the debate over if we actually need the IRS, let's look at what is happening in terms of Modern Management Techniques™.

What the article is describing is a hierarchal structure similar to almost every major corporation up through the first half of the 20th Century. Highly organized, all flowing towards a central trunk, and depending on the trunk to deliver information to all the nodes with control and feedback focused at one place on the trunk.

But since the late 1970s, the name of the game has been decentralization and distributed networks. Everything from telecommuting to JIT supply chains to real time finances depend on those assumptions.

One big advantage of DDN is that you can upgrade the nodes as needed without having to take the entire network down to replace the trunk.

Even if it is computers we're talking about, the IRS hasn't found their digital reality yet. I am not sure they can with the approach that they are taking.

On the other hand, it should prove that the income tax is oppressive. The only way for a centralized system to monitor income is for every single financial transaction to go through that central trunk.

Think about the implications for just a bit.

A central trunk, with decades old computer security.

A central system that is prone to error.

A system where the nodes can't even talk to each other.

All governed by a set of regulations so complicated that no one understands it.

Tailor made for chaos, wouldn't you say?

— NeoWayland

Posted: Fri - April 13, 2007 at 05:50 AM  Tag


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