I am posting this from the Yourdon forum

Not sure I've seen this question addressed. Other than the obvious voltage difference, is there something unique about power in the US? Or is the technology basically the same? If so, wouldn't the Y2k threat be the same?

I am posting this here, and may post it at euy2k as well if no one can answer these questions.

-- regular (zzz@z.z), April 21, 1999

Answers

I'll tell you.

Have you read about the situation in Russia? I was in Russia last fall. I feel sorry for those people. Nothing works, society is imploding.

So ... they simply don't have any time or mental energy to THINK about y2k. Therefore they are doing NOTHING about it. Therefore they're going to get smacked much worse than the US, which at least recognizes the problem and put some effort into fixing it.

Pray for the Russians. It is the only thing that will save them.

-- idontthinkso (idontthinkso@no.com), April 21, 1999.

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There are already massive outages in Russia. Mostly in the Russian Far East where little or no fuel was shipped in before winter due to lack of $$$. ...and this is before Y2K was even on their radar.

Got lots of exercise bikes?

-- (snowleopard6@webtv.net), April 21, 1999.

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I've knocked around zzz's point in past WRPs and in c.s.y2k. The heart of the matter is broader than power. Russia is a country with vast natural resources, fine universities, resilient people but something horrible has happened.

Without going into the specifics of ideology or morality, Russia has had an intellectual and organizational collapse. Sort of what some expect Y2K to bring to us.

Instead of smoothly working comms, comps, finance, and automatic commerce, they have and we might have these systems breaking down left and right.

Russia is a metaphor for our future and what Y2K might bring.

The denial butt-heads need to explain why the Russians can't simply fix their problems in, oh, 3 or 6 hours tops.

I'm hoping we can restart our big systems in 3 to 6 months. More in a future WRP....

-- cory (kiyoinc@ibm.XOUT.net), April 21, 1999.

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1)Haven't been paid in a year or more 2)No money to buy parts 3)No parts to be had period even if you had money 4)older systems that parts are no longer made for

Want me to go on or would you like to try to continue to draw false conclusions?

-- Roller Of Eyes (nicetry@cory.com), April 21, 1999.

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Cory, as always makes a good point.

Getting back to the original question though, I think it is typical USA thinking - "It can't happen here".

-- Anonymous99 (Anonymous99@Anonymous99.xxx), April 21, 1999.

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Before so much as ONE truly serious look at Y2K issues in this country was addressed in major media (assuming we can say one has now), a fairly good report was done by -- er, ABC? NBC? I don't know -- on Russia. It was a lot easier, I suppose, to tell people it would happen "over there." Get them used to the concept without the fear. Then later they can introduce us to our own issues... gradually. IMO.

PJ in TX

-- PJ Gaenir (fire@firedocs.com), April 21, 1999.

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The focus of answers so far has been the state of Russia. My question, however, was very different: Are there differences between US power generation/transmission/distribution systems and those in other parts of the world? Remember, large-scale power outages are predicted in many countries, not just Russia (I cited them as one example).

A related question: If there are no "show-stopper" failures in embedded systems, where is the threat coming from? Why did the industry's own self-appraisal from last year basically acknowledge that the possibility of outages was real?

I don't have knowledge of the complex issues involved beyond what I read. I can't help but feel, with the slew of recent statements from utilities that no real threat has been found that would threaten disruption, that some knowledge gaps remain. I'm trying to fill those gaps. Are there other systemic problems in the industry?

-- regular (zzz@z.z), April 21, 1999.

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Russian culture has always been authoritarian, top down. The 1917 Revolution didn't change that, it just changed the roster at the top. From then on, official corruption was the normal state of affairs. The Russian polity has no referent for any other behavior.

It's hard to imagine any way for them to lift themselves out of the hole they've dug.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), April 21, 1999.

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Regular - I know there have been (unverified) testimonials in the past on this forum from folks working on utility assessment who found problems that they believed would, in fact, interrupt operations. We have also heard that the Russian nukes do not have the plethora of safety controls that the US nukes do. Appreciate your question, and hope someone with technical experience (Robert?) eventually takes it on. You might try posting it on Rick Cowles forum, too.

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), April 21, 1999.

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Nobody ever said there was no threat to utilities. Only that the threat is being addressed appropriately here in the U.S.

-- Doomslayer (1@2.3), April 21, 1999.

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Doomslayer - I beg to differ - There have been a number of recent claims by the utility industry that embedded systems, at least, are not a real threat (statements which I am taking with a degree of skepticism for now). Glitches, but nothing that would have shut the system down. So Regular and I are still hoping for a technical discussion of what this means in terms of the hopeless scenarios presented for other countries like Russia.

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), April 21, 1999.

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Here is an example, from a trusted source of mine who works for a company which supplies error-logging equipment to many utilities. The equipment logs events with precision accuracy (to the millisecond). If there is a cascading failure, this log is crucial to reconstructing the source of the original failure, especially if there is a rapid, chain-reaction type failure. This piece of equipment is vital. He has told me, in no uncertain terms, that this device is not compliant, and will not work after the rollover. No compliant replacement will be made available, he said.

I cannot verify this information. I pass it along in the hopes that others with more knowledge can comment.

-- Anonymous, April 21, 1999

Answers

Taz thanks for the post. I was the poster of the original question, which was "If there's no threat to utilities, why are "experts" saying there will likely be massive outages in Russia, etc.?"

I also posted the last comment above, which isn't clear from Taz's post. I appreciate any feedback.

-- Anonymous, April 22, 1999

I think the simple answer to your question is that if nothing was done in any country heavily depended on computers there would be major outages. If there are no problems in US it is because of the remediation work that has taken place, changes that have occurred. In russia nothing is happening. The systems they where using 3 years ago are about the same as the systems that will see in the new year. this is why there are some optimistic people about the US and none optimistic about Russia. This pretty much what doomslayer is saying (I think). I was aware of the y2k problem in about 1992 (unfortunetaly did nothing) and i was very pessimistic for about 6 years, because no one was doing much to fix the problems. I feel a lot happier no as remediation is finally taking place, to some extent. The concern in China, russia and the like is that they are still not replacing/repairing vital systems. If i totally beleived what Taz wrote, i would be very concerned. And if i was cory, i would be even more concerned, denial butt heads indeed!!

-- Anonymous, April 22, 1999

I think I've posted this before, but I'll reiterate just in case.

Most of the computer technology in Russia was surrepititously obtained from the West. In other words, they reverse engineered and copied Western technology. They have their own versions of hardware developed in the U.S.; they have their own versions of DOS, VMS, et.al. You can kind of make the analogy to pirated software - there is no support, no one has a clue how much of it is out there, or how much of it is controlling critical applications.

My knowledge of the situation in Russia is admittedly limited. But my educated guess is that most of their power production and transmission systems do not have a whit of digital-based control. This is merely an informed opinion, though - some of our offshore friends may have better data. Menlo?

-- Anonymous, April 22, 1999