Y2K – believe us, we’d rather be wrong

1999-12-22

So that we can keep our last missive before Christmas full of seasonal cheer and good tidings, we thought we’d better round up the doom and gloom stuff on the penultimate news day for IT-Director.com before the Millennium. First off, is Y2K fact or fiction? Let’s look at some recent news stories, which may make up your minds.

- the US State Department announced on Monday that it would suspend visa processing at embassies worldwide, for the first two weeks of January. The reason cited was “Y2K issues.”

- On December 13, Wells Fargo & Co. sent 13,000 renewal-notices to its customers with the year 1900 printed on them. Apparently the error was down to a supplier forgetting to change the date on its printing machines.

- In June, a Y2K test caused four million gallons of raw sewage to be spewed onto the streets of Van Nuys, Southern California.

- A food distributor has discovered that its computer system was tossing out items that expired in 2000, thinking they had sat on the shelf for the past 99 years.

These are a selection of real events. A more speculative report from BSC Consulting in the UK has said that the world is categorically not ready for the challenges of Y2K. The reason it gives is that, despite the huge efforts that have been made, “many governments and business programs have been a mixture of incompetence and complacency.” The report also points out that significant problems will be caused due to the interconnectedness of compliant countries with others which have not resolved the problems. All talk? Well, maybe not. The Y2K readiness survey recently published by the United Nations’ International Y2K Cooperation Center stated that “because some businesses, schools, and governments will not be sufficiently ready, they, and some of the people who depend on them, will suffer economic harm from Y2K-caused errors. These local impacts will range from minor inconveniences to the loss of jobs.” The IYCC’s overall assessment may be summarised as “many Y2K errors, moderate impact.” Unfortunately we are getting mixed messages from the IYCC, who reported more recently that “health care services worldwide are at the greatest risk for Y2K disruptions … hospitals and the health care sector in general have been the slowest worldwide to ready themselves for the new year, and … some nations may be overwhelmed by the sheer size of the problem.” This perspective sounds a little more than the “moderate” point of view espoused by its Y2K readiness survey.

If these reports, produced by bodies with hands on experience, are to be believed then all will not be well in the Millennium. Even if the problem does not manifest itself in “complacent” Western countries, the in its survey IYCC warns of humanitarian crises which could have at least an indirect impact on just about everybody. Don’t get us wrong, we would love the harbingers of Y2K doom to be proved foolishly false, however we also think that the current levels of complacency are as misplaced as the visions of Armageddon.

What will happen? Nobody knows… yet. But New Zealand, the first industrialised nation on the dawn of the new Millennium has volunteered to keep us informed. Updates on Y2K issues will appear on http://www.y2k.govt.nz/, as they occur. Also, the IY2KCC’s own Web site will be host to a by-country breakdown of Y2K status. The European Union web site may be found at http://www.ispo.cec.be/y2keuro/year2000.htm. Finally, for the sceptics out there that believe that either (a) there is not a problem, or (b) we can trust our institutions to resolve it, it might be worth looking at the paper by Peter De Jager on the origins of the Y2K problem, at http://www.sciam.com/1999/0199issue/0199dejager.html. Clearly, according to the paper Y2K is a complex technical issue which is difficult to resolve even with the best will in the world.

Many years as a software tester are reason enough for myself to err on the side of caution when it comes to computer-related issues. Y2K is probably the biggest “computer-related issue” that the world will see for some time, and it is certainly the most important to date. Doom or dawn, it would not do to move into the new Millennium with anything other than a note of caution. I won’t be bothering with bunkers, but I shall be watching things very carefully as the New Year starts.

(First published 22 December 1999)