The government doesn't use SQL

Someone needs to explain to Musk how to debug with the JSON so that the ipv6 GUI does not overflow into the git API front-end

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/09/12/the-batshit-crazy-story-of-the-day-elon-musk-decided-to-personally-rip-servers-out-of-a-sacramento-data-center/

That man will be doing to same thing to important shit right now.

Sounds like he got confused looking at a view of a join.

If SSN based fraud is the program then let's establish an actual federal identification number. Even the Social Services bureau tried to get everyone to not use it as the end all source of truth. They only created it for social security benefits, literally only that purpose.

He got community-noted for being wrong. Per usual, it's only a matter of time before he deletes his post.

It's hard to figure out what he's talking about , when he says the "whole social security database". Like in which tables are they duplicated? Does it mean the entire row is duplicated or just the SSN, it might make sense to be duplicated depending on the schema. Is it an append only db, so there might be updated columns on the same ssn and you need to filter by the latest update timestamp? Who knows.

But also, saying that there's a "social security database" and then following that up by the govt "doesn't use SQL" so.. the db is actually just a spreadsheet? A .txt file? The SSNs are just written down in someone's notebook? Lol

https://xcancel.com/elonmusk/status/1889062581848944961

thought the replies would be better. Some people deducted that it uses plain text.

Of course. Everyone who's ever used a DB knows it's BS. As long as the data is structured - which it a) is because he was able to make assertions about it and b) fucking Excel files are enough - it CAN be imported and SQL'd on. Even Excel has built in support for fuck's sake, not to mention Python and PowerQuery.

The dude is a self-certified moron - he probably struggles with the concept of PKI, too.

Ok genuine question, what is the difference between a SQL database and a simple Excel spreadsheet?

He used to be regarded as tony stark. Nah he is Justin Hammer. Steals ideas implements them shit and has no idea about anything

"Our databases only store in RAM because I AM THE ELECTRICITY BATTERY MASTER"

Whenever Elon speaks of programming, he just spouts the most delusional Point-Haired Boss bullshit imaginable. Truly, he has been promoted to the level of his incompetence.

(It is also highly ironic considering the Dilbert creator's politics.)

Musk seems to think Musk is a tech genius, but really he was just born into money and used it to buy a bunch of companies. In fairness he was able to recognise which companies to buy, doesn't mean he knows anything about databases though.

The worst kind of stupid doesn't need to learn about databases because it's just common sense.

As someone who does systems administration which includes numerous government owned database servers, this is news to me.

dis what you get for working with 19 year old kids with inflated egos whom you only hired to worship you. Also when someone who is not an expert in a field has the confidence to make grand claims about practices in that field, it is a very nice litmus paper telling you that person is generally bullshitting.

REAL GOVERNMENTS USE EXCEL SHEETS /j

Wasn't it the uk or something that messed up a vote due to excel's row limit?

Calling someone a retard for believing something that's obviously true is straight out of the flat-Earther playbook.

Sure as hell did when I worked there

Oh, I'm calling it now. This one is going to be used as an attack of trans people. Throw out the archaic and manual process of updating names in federal databases, and keep it simple by making the records immutable. Then hit them with a lovely

"You MUST use your REAL NAME (MAIDEN NAME) on government forms. If the name does not match, you will be denied."

I remember seeing this after he bought Twitter

DROP TABLE Musk

Elon is basically what a dumb kid thinks smart people sound like

Everything uses SQL. The world fucking runs on SQL

(yes I know SQL isn't something that you can "run" something on yadda yadda...)

Isn’t Oracle a big government supplier with millions if not billions worth of contracts?

Elon is a fraud but for someone who claims he created one of the Web’s first e-commerce sites this level of ignorance is embarrassing

You know, the thing that always seemed really scary about the OG Nazis is that they were competent, intelligent, put-together people that were just fucking evil. Then you look at the US Nazis and the fucking bozo density is off the charts, but they seem to be succeeding anyway.

Three possibilities come to mind:

• These bozos are going to find out, hard and soon.
• The OG Nazis were actually bozos too.
• Competence and intelligence doesn't actually matter in running a fascist regime

All government data is processed using sed.

I'm sure folks on here know this, but you know, there's also that 10K a day that don't so...

What makes this especially funny, to me, is that SSN is the literal text book example (when I was in school anyway) of a "natural" key that you absolutely should never use as a primary key. It is often the representative example of the kinds of data that seems like it'd make a good key but will absolutely fuck you over if you do.

SSN is not unique to a person. They get reused after death, and a person can have more than one in their lifetime (if your id is stolen and you arduously go about getting a new one). Edit: (See responses) It seems I'm misinformed about SSNs, apologies. I have heard from numerous sources that they are not unique to a person, but the specifics of how it happens are unknown to me.

And they're protected information due to all the financials that rely on them, so you don't really want to store them at all (unless you're the SSA, who would have guessed that'd ever come up though!?)

It's so stupid that it would be hilarious if people weren't dying.

“Your tax dollars are being stolen”

Rare moment of clarity from our global barony.

Elon’s shock and fury about the database key sounds like he got a report from an out-of-breath 20 year old DOGE kid who thinks they’re hot shit and discovered some massive flaw.

Elon also seems like the kind of person that believes a database schema is all that’s needed to govern a population.

Elon starting to comment on technical matters was the moment I learned he was actually completely beyond incompetent, since I have some actual expertise on the subject. Right around the time he bought Twitter and commented publicly on its architecture.

This is further evidence to that point

A government official known for performing a nazi salute just broadcast an ableist slur.

Cool cool cool

As someone who has literally helped the government use SQL for over a decade, this is huge news.

SQL is not web-scale

Maury determined that this was a lie.

😅

Lmao we’re gonna get to watch eel-on-musk and all of his dipshit wünderkinds speedrun through all of the pitfalls a junior DBA / data engineer is liable to make, and they’re gonna do it on prod, and prod is the US government.

What could possibly go wrong

Jesus Fucking Christ !!!

What does Elmo think the government use ? MongoDB, because its Web Scale [0]?

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2F-DItXtZs

Musk doesn't understand database design (or the existence of PRIMARY KEY ()), surprise.

That's what he does. Not understand things.

SSNs are literally just handed out to hospitals and social security offices in batches and given out in sequential order. They were specifically and intentionally designed to be a terrible system of ID numbers because people actually used to care about their privacy. There are countless people who've gone their whole lives using the wrong social security number and gotten their benefits just fine, because unlike everyone else in this dumpster fire of a country the social security office has never been stupid enough to rely on just a single number.

Maybe Musk needs to learn about data normalization and natural keys.

I'm curious what the actual data looks like. I've spent quite a bit of time auditing large data systems.

I would expect these databases to be largely denormalized with very wide tables, I would expect them to favour natural keys like a SSNs, and built around per department use cases.

I would not expect them to be highly normalized because then when you need something from another department you need them to ensure consistency.

These systems probably have like 50 years of legacy code or more in them too.

Maybe it’s all just one big .xlsm file?

Seemingly every interaction this man has with a normal person is him finding newer and more interesting ways of declaring himself an absolute moron.

How the fuck is he the de facto president of the USA?

I've worked on projects for the government as a contractor. There is SQL; SQL as far as the eye can see. I'm sure the NSA has some novel solutions to crunching shittons of big data, but day to day, at least in my experience, it is a lot of relational CRUD and reporting queries.

For the curious, it does clearly exist:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/govcloud-us/latest/UserGuide/govcloud-rds.html

Also that's not how deduplication works.

He means/thinks that SSN is not unique (which is not a problem, just different design).

Of course he's wrong about lots of stuff, just the nerd in me could not not explain it.

You guys are idiots, they use dbeaver and pgadmin not sql.. Or maybe its Acess yes they use Acess

Felon Musk is such a fucking moron lol

I'm sure he has an alternative, like tattooing it on the forearms of 'undesirables'.

Is retard a bait/dog whistle word?

He is the embodiment of big-money trolling in politics, right?

What is that a database is not de-duplicated?