Millennium Bug talks to avoid another Korean war

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

From the BC (London)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/asia%2Dpacific/newsid%5F277000/277679.stm

Thursday, February 11, 1999 Published at 13:48 GMT

Millenium Bug talks to avoid another Korean war

The threat posed to computer systems by their failure to recognise the year 2000 -- the Millennium bug, as it's called -- has been raised by military officials on the Korean peninsula.

The talks, involving officials from the American-led United Nations Command and North Korea, focussed on efforts to avoid accidental armed clashes.

South Korean officials fear that North Korea's old Soviet-made Scud missiles might be launched in error because of obsolete computer software, triggering another war.

They want the North to accept a proposal to hold a computer experts' meeting to address the problem.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service

Cut and pasted by

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), February 13, 1999

Answers

So something good might come out of all this - at least the nations are talking to each other.

-- (me@somewhere.com), February 13, 1999.

North Korea has been hanging on by its fingernails for years to get to the day they can attack South Korea with odds in their favor. Y2K will more than put the odds into the North's favor, if only the regieme can last that long. Can the North Koreans can bluff, stall and get food aid to hang on for this last year?

That's why they're at these talks. Every time they've showed up at the negotiating table, it seems the Clinton Administration has given them a year's worth of food and oil. Why not go to the well one more time? They could win big just by showing up and who knows what kind of concessions the Clintonistas might give them?

South Korea and it's major ally, the US are going to hurt seriously from Y2K. North Korea will not feel much if any pain from systems failures. North Korean military systems don't rely on high-tech, while the US and South Korean systms depend on the "force multiplier" of technology. North Korea has troops, now massed along the border and in echoes of 1952, there are Chinese troops massed along the Yalu River.

I'm fully convinced that the North Korean leadership "Got It" on Y2K several years ago and is ready to take full advantage of it. I'm sorry to think that a lot of good folks I know will probably be caught-up in any coming conflagration there.

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), February 13, 1999.


Do you think Cuban cigars are better than the other type? Personally I prefer the Cuban ones. They have a far more resonant flavor.

-- Jerry (jwhite@zamboni-machine.com), February 13, 1999.

Moderation questions? read the FAQ