John Ko-Skin-Em at his lawerly best !!

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6/21/99 -- 9:54 PM

U.S. believes world is better prepared for computer bug

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NEW YORK (AP) - The United States believes the world is better prepared than it was six months ago to cope with the Year 2000 computer bug - even though key countries like Russia and China still face serious problems.

Six months after the first global conference on the millennium bug, experts from over 170 countries will meet Tuesday at the United Nations to assess progress in dealing with Y2K problems and preparations for coping with possible computer glitches.

``My sense is there has been a sea change in the preparedness of the world in the last six months since we pulled everyone together for the first time in December,'' John Koskinen, head of President Clinton's Council on Year 2000 Conversion, told reporters at a preview news conference Monday.

``Nobody is saying this isn't a problem. So what we now have, I think, is a race to the finish line,'' he said.

Russia was late in focusing on the problem, but has been addressing possible computer problems in the defense industry, Koskinen said.

China has also been ``very candid'' about its problems in the last six months, ``and I think they would be the first to tell you they have major challenges in getting that work done by the end of this year,'' he said.

The Year 2000 problem - also called Y2K and the millennium bug - occurs because some computer programs, especially older ones, may fail when the date changes to 2000. Because they were written to recognize only the last two digits of a year, such programs could read the digits ``00'' as 1900 instead of 2000.

At Monday's press conference, Y2K coordinators from Europe, Asia, the Americas and Australia provided a glimpse of some of the problems and challenges they face - from informing their public to verifying whether businesses have actually fixed their computers.

``Clearly, I think developing countries are going to have more problems than developed countries, but when the dust settles ... it wouldn't surprise me to find that we have more failures in developed countries because we have far more systems,'' Koskinen said.

The United States is probably spending $80 billion to $100 billion to cope with the millennium bug, he said.

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-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), June 21, 1999

Answers

"The United States believes the world is better prepared than it was six months ago to cope with the Year 2000 computer bug."

Gosh, I would hope so!!!

-- Gayla Dunbar (privacy@please.com), June 21, 1999.

Hmmm...wasn't it just last month that the Italians said their remediation situation was "hopeless", and that they plan on throwing a huge party instead?

-- a (a@a.a), June 21, 1999.

Listening to this clown isn't as bad as listening to WJC but it's getting close. Unthinking, uncaring gobbledygook. Patronizing offal revealing nothing but selfservice. God I hate these people! Think there will be a war crimes trial type opportunity?

Sorry, blood got up...

-- Carlos (riffraff1@cybertime.net), June 22, 1999.

This guy gives me a craving for Dramamine.

-- Gia (Laureltree7@hotmail.com), June 22, 1999.

The number of articles about Y2K and foreign countries went up quite a bit around April of this year. Having awareness is a necessary first step, but unfortunately, remediation will take more than a year at many organizations.

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), June 22, 1999.

"Think there will be a war crimes trial type opportunity? "

This is handled by the UN's World Court now...

...oh, I almost forgot, the NWO is a hoax. Never mind.

-- Anonymous99 (Anonymous99@Anonymous99.xxx), June 22, 1999.

``Clearly, I think developing countries are going to have more problems than developed countries, but when the dust settles ... it wouldn't surprise me to find that we have more failures in developed countries because we have far more systems.''

K-man's slipping. He let the truth out of the bag, and no one caught it.

-- regular (zzz@z.z), June 22, 1999.

http://www.tampabayonline.net/news/news1019.htm

Title of article: "Millennium bug on agenda of 170 countries - but too late"

Sorry I don't know how to do the link.

When I read that comment of Koskinen's quoted above I couldn't believe that he had said what he had. I caught it!

-- Diane (DDEsq2002@juno.com), June 22, 1999.