U.S. Says Y2K Computer Bug 'Squashed'

From Reuters at 5:49 PM

The Clinton administration declared Monday it had "squashed" the Year 2000 computer bug and began winding down an unprecedented operation to monitor automated systems worldwide.

"We can safely say what has been referred to as the Y2K bug has been squashed with regard to the key infrastructure systems in the United States," President Clinton's point man on the issue told reporters.

"We are likely to continue to see glitches pop up here and there in the coming days and weeks but I think they will be localized and transitory and will not pose a threat to the nation's economy," the trouble-shooter, John Koskinen, said.

Koskinen had set up a $50 million, 24-hour command post to track feared Y2K problems in the United States and abroad. No significant ones have been reported. He said he was ready "to declare victory" and "move on," scaling back monitoring operations effective immediately. The U.S. government spent more than $8 billion to cleanse its computer systems of the Y2K bug, a quirk of older computer systems that used software designed to read only the last two digits of a year.

If the glitch had been left uncorrected, systems could have misread 2000 as 1900, causing systems handling everything from air traffic control to Social Security pension payments to malfunction or even crash.

[ENDS]

-- John Whitley (jwhitley@inforamp.net), January 03, 2000

Answers

Open your mind, think about this: http://www.sonic.net/~kryptox/politics/carton.htm

-- Glitches don't mean (jackwhilethe lies@remain.com), January 03, 2000.

John, I have a great respect for the items you post. You have been even-handed all along. Yet, I am left to wonder why you embellish the title of this article with the cancer reference. This tactic only seems to be self-serving at this point and IMO, rings in as being unnecessary and quite possibly, a second helping of crow to any doomlit who'd embrace it.

-- Bad Company (Johnny@shootingstar.com), January 03, 2000.

That's a silly comment, BC. The purpose of this forum has not changed as far as I know. If you don't think Y2K is a serious issue, why are you here?

-- Dave (dannco@hotmail.com), January 03, 2000.

Dave, the question 'why are you here' is always posted by doomlits who have little defense other than 'stay out of our club'. Where's Spanky McFarlane? The issue isn't whether I think y2k IS a serious issue....I don't. The issue remains whether I thought y2k WAS a serious issue....I did.

For your own edification, I travel to this site to read basic, verifiable news accounts and at the same time...wish to amaze myself with those who simply can't let go. John isn't necessarily one of those types of individuals.

More than any one single poster here, it is unconscionable that prophets of doom would continue to make projections about y2k even after their most drastic predictions have crashed miserably. That a number of individuals would attach credence to the words of these types of individuals can only make one wonder what type of effect 2 years (or more) of anxiety have had on the individual in question's psyche.

The bunk goes on. Will it ever stop?

-- Bad Company (johnny@shootingstar.com), January 03, 2000.

We know that the information from square one has been managed. Why would it change now? No one quite knows what will happen as evidenced by the tremendous gov't and business preps at rollover. At Detroit Water & Sewage they turned on million of dollars worth of industrial strength generators. Either it was a PR stunt or they really thought that embeddeds could reek havoc. As they didn't know the scope of the embedded problem, they don't know the scope of the enterprise system situation. Can we expect the kind of discussions that we have on the forum between Kosky/Klinton and John Q. Public? Let's get real.

-- PJC (paulchri@msn.com), January 03, 2000.

Hey, Bad Company - that's a fair question. Here's a fair answer. Too much has been attempted over too short a period of time, a fact admitted by both 'sides' in this debate.

'Non-critical' programs were left unfixed in favour of 'critical' ones, and then the number of those actually tackled was steadily reduced - apparently to keep the 'success' percentages up.

The agglomerated effect of silent errors accumulating in unremediated 'critical' and 'non-critical' programs - in addition to those caused by faulty code introduced during the 'fix' phase - is bound to be considerable. We just don't know the critical mass[es] or the interactive relationships - yet. But we soon will.

Additionally, the vast mass of software [estimated at up to 80%] needing to be fixed was overseas, where efforts began much later than in North America and where there were often lower concentrations of 'techies' to do the trench work.

And that's not counting all of the massive amounts of pirated, unremediated software in China and other parts of the world.

So - leaving out oil, which is a separate issue - Koskinen has virtually created the impression in declaring "victory" that this has been a 'one day flu' - when, in fact, as the errors accomulate silently, it may just turn out to be a silent and deadly form of data 'cancer'.

[As a concession to the reasonableness of your protest, I made that a 'may'; I privately think that it should be a 'will']

And then we have the effects that such cumulative destruction of data, efficency, production, company viability, what-have-you, will have interactively upon a hyper-inflated stock market....

The elephant just turned around, that's all. We're just getting another perspective on a very big, overlapping, and inter- related problem.

Y2K hasn't occurred in a vacuum, as you'll readily concede, and I think we'll both agree that it hasn't played itself out yet.

I, for one, will be genuinely happy if the Pollies are right. I think the evidences are against that, though. I'm looking systemically at what is still a systemic problem.

To draw an analogy from the grand old Book, there appears to be a cloud on the horizon "about the size of a man's hand" - and you know what a storm that later developed into!

-- John Whitley (jwhitley@inforamp.net), January 04, 2000.

Hey John! I also appreciate your posts. Any ideas why the results so far seem to be the same for countries who spent billions and countries who spent nothing? SAme for companies.

Perhaps it is too early to tell. Perhaps it is because the whole embedded issue was completely blown out of proportion. However, many are using this to say that it was all a hoax and hype. Any thoughts?

-- JoseMiami (caris@prodigy.net), January 04, 2000.

Blimey! The return of reasoned debate in this forum. Long may it reign. Oops, I've just broken the charm. :)

Let me try and recover it. That phrase "what has been referred to as the Y2K bug" is interesting. Expectations as to how it will developed? "What had been referred to...", "alleged bug", "invented bug", "never existed bug"?

-- Servant (public_service@yahoo.com), January 05, 2000.