Lois Lerner's emails.

[Jackalope]

Thanks for the clarification, C/D but what is described is not what I observed. I saw tapes that were an inch wide and on reels about a foot in diameter. Running on what looked like a giant tape recorder.

Perhaps this article from 2007 will better explain what is in use to you. Also note that the article never even mentions email.

http://news.cnet.com/IRS-trudges-on-with...75657.html

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.

The article is from 2007 and it does not seem as if they have made much in the way of progress..... although I'm sure the consultants have made a fortune.

Point taken - however their email systems likely do not run on those old dinosaurs. If they are indeed running Exchange, I'd say it's damn near certain that they don't.

It ain't easy getting rid of old entrenched systems, that's for sure.

[Minimalist]

As they noted,

The IRS has since deployed more than 500 separate computer systems to handle facets of the process by which some 200 million tax returns are vetted every year. Many of them were designed throughout the years simply to provide workarounds or extract particular data from Master File and IDRS, which it considers the heart and soul of its operations.

I can attest to this. I had 17 separate passwords for 17 different systems at one point - and I retired in 2005 - and all of those passwords had to be changed every 3 months and they had to be 12 letters long(at least) with various characters. The workforce was aging rapidly and no one could remember that shit so everyone wrote all their passwords down..... which was a definite no-no according to the computer security assholes...but the alternative would have been endlessly applying for replacements.

No one would believe how fucked up it all was. Which is why I smiled today when I heard that half of the IRS' computers were still running X-P. As far as I know the only smart thing that they did was avoiding VISTA. Even the IRS wouldn't fall for that!

You can't make this shit up.

[Jackalope]

I can attest to this. I had 17 separate passwords for 17 different systems at one point - and I retired in 2005 - and all of those passwords had to be changed every 3 months and they had to be 12 letters long(at least) with various characters. The workforce was aging rapidly and no one could remember that shit so everyone wrote all their passwords down..... which was a definite no-no according to the computer security assholes...but the alternative would have been endlessly applying for replacements.

No one would believe how fucked up it all was. Which is why I smiled today when I heard that half of the IRS' computers were still running X-P. As far as I know the only smart thing that they did was avoiding VISTA. Even the IRS wouldn't fall for that!

You can't make this shit up.

No, you can't make it up - but let me tell you, working in the private sector (and I have worked in the public sector, both in the military and as a civilian), it's about as fucked up. I have logins on at least a couple dozen systems, with similar password requirements. We're straying far off topic now, but the grass ain't always greener on the other side.

Single sign-on? Ain't nobody got time for that. I've been pushing for single-sign-on for nearly 15 years - but it's not a revenue generator, so no one thinks it's important.

Avoiding Vista was likely lucky happenstance.

[Tonus]

The article is from 2007 and it does not seem as if they have made much in the way of progress..... although I'm sure the consultants have made a fortune.

I can remember a meeting we had with a client back in 1997 or 1998 regarding a state project to build an extension of a subway line in Manhattan. The project was supposed to run 12 years and cost $20 billion (I think those are the numbers, but not 100% sure), and the first thing the guy making the presentation said was that everyone knew that this really meant more like 20 years and $40 billion. He seemed to say it in a half-joking manner, but everyone just nodded as if they understood that yeah, long delays and enormous cost overruns were the norm with government projects.

Seventeen years later, it's still an active project.

[Jaysyn]

This Ars-Technica article sheds a lot of light on what happened here.

For Starters:

Exchange and Outlook (at least as the IRS implemented them until 2011) are at the heart of the IRS e-mail fiasco. Prior to the Lerner e-mail episode, the agency’s IT department placed a 150MB limit on each users’s mailbox (today, IRS employees have a 500MB cap on their e-mail). To keep mailboxes within size limits, employees were told to archive e-mails locally in Outlook .PST mailbox files—including messages that they thought met the definition of “official correspondence” for retention purposes.

For comparison, I have over 8GB of emails in my Outlook PST file, & I work for a mid-size engineering firm.

[Heywood]

Lerner sought IRS audit of sitting US GOP senator

Now in all fairness....since this was a unique incident(as far a we can tell), there is no way no to know if Lerner would have suggested an exam if it were Harry Reid's wife who was being offered the free trip. Still, in light of this scandal, it doesn't make her look any less biased against conservatives that's for sure.

[Heywood]

Does anyone actually believe these emails were "lost".





I can access my emails from any computer connected to the internet because mine are stored on a server. I find it hard to believe that these emails have been lost because her computer crashed.

What do guy think?

Shenanigans here or are the republicans just on a witch hunt?

Update.....seems 30,000 missing emails have been found.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/30k-mi...le/2556522

[A Theist]

I worked for the IRS. No one would believe how antiquated the computer systems are. I once crashed the entire Brooklyn District travel voucher reporting program because instead of hitting Y or N on a question I missed and hit M and entered it without noticing. It took them until the following morning to get it back up.

I take it, that's why you're no longer working for the IRS?