Why Is the Foreign Bug More Virulent?

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There are many inconsistencies in this area. Here's a disconnect for you to mull over.

Many industries in the US, despite spending millions on remediation, say that the bugs they found were minor. I've heard this from several power companies.

If all these defects involve mere inconveniences, such as the ubiquitous date-stamping errors we've all heard about, then why is there such concern about overseas institutions. Are their systems fundamentally different from ours or are their defects also trivial?

Here are some possibilities:

1. Systems are fundamentally the same in the US and overseas; then,

a. The US will have spent billions remediating a bunch of trivial date-stamping errors and foreign countries will be plagued by a locust-swarm of incorrect date-stamps; or,

b. The US institutions will have spent billions remediating date-stamping errors while foolishly relying on vendor certification of vital systems which will fail. And, as the State Dept., CIA and others have testified, similar vital systems in foreign countries will fail.

Or,

2. US systems are fundamentally different from foreign systems. US systems, surprisingly, have only trivial defects while foreign systems have infrastructure crippling defects.

Now I am aware that some companies admitted to finding major defects. I believe GM admitted to this last summer. Presumably GM has remedied their situation. But talk to a power company. Ask them about the seriousness of the defects they found. Read Nevada Power's 10-Q filed yesterday. Talk to Carolina Power & Light. Call your local provider. I bet they tell you that the defects were insignificant.

I realize that foolish consistency is said to be the hobgoblin of little minds, but this foreign/domestic disconnect is a little much.

-- Puddintame (achillesg@hotmail.com), July 28, 1999

Answers

I realize that I may get flamed by a polly whose lips got too tired to read my entire post, so let me spoon feed one point to the flamers. I know the US remediation effort is head-and shoulders above anything done overseas. It is certainly possible that the US has remediated itself out of any problems. My point is that massive complex companies in the US report that there were no significant problems to begin with. That's what I'm looking at, the initial unremediated inventory of defects.

-- Puddintame (achillesg@hotmail.com), July 28, 1999.

According to Harryn Schultz, the US is more vulnerable than other nations because of its higher dependecy upon computers.

http://www.gold-eagle.com/gold_digest_99/schultz072499.html

-- dave (wootendave@hotmail.com), July 28, 1999.


Puddintame, you know you needn't worry about my support : )

I can't figure out why the US wouldn't be the MOST vulnerable to Y2k disruptions.

Mike

=================================================================

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), July 28, 1999.


Gartner says the United States has 25% of the world's code. This would imply to me, that we also have 25% of the WORLD'S remediation to complete. The fact that we enjoy spouting off about being the furthest ahead of everyone seems naive. We have by far, the most work to complete. We are also the most dependent and the 'softest' of the world. We are wimps who can't survive one week without eating out or lounging in front of the boob-tube! Rural life has now become 5 acres off a paved road, but heaven forbid we go without SUV's. We have traded our tractors for riding mowers and our horses for quad-runners.

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), July 28, 1999.

Puddintame

The only possible reason for the foreign/domestic disconnect is that foreigners perhaps heard later than the English speaking world (BTW, I believe Great Britan may be ahead of the USA in remediating business code). Since English is the de facto language of the Internet, we may postulate that relevant populations learned about it in these countries first, hence the head start.

The situation is different with embeddeds. The Brits came to awareness about two years ahead of us, and that explains why some of the more advanced remediation tools are comming from there



-- K. Stevens (kstevens@It's ALL going away in January.com), July 28, 1999.



I was listening to John Gibson, on MSNBC, rant for a short time today and he was raging about every single thing he was checked out at Sears was made in China, even the paint! oopps!

-- gilda (jess@listbot.com), July 28, 1999.

How about the simplest reason: The problem has recieved more attention in the U.S. and other more economically prosperous countries such as Great Britian and Canada than it has in countries such as Russia and Brazil that are constantly teetering on the brink of financial and/or social disaster. You can only cope with so many crises at a time, and the better prepared countries may have had more energy to focus on Y2K simply because they had fewer other problems to distract attention away from the problem.

It's probably not the only reason, but it could be a significant factor. It sure isn't as if there is some Russian "strain" of date rollover problems that is somehow more problematic than those in the U.S. The root problem is the same pretty much everywhere. I believe that the differences in preparedness levels are rooted in the ability of each country's economy to focus on the problem.

-- Paul Neuhardt (neuhardt@ultranet.com), July 28, 1999.


Another factor to consider:

Many overseas systems are US hand-me-downs and are, on average, much older, possibly making them more difficult to remediate.

BTW, I've been wondering if the reason we're constantly seeing the "98% done" type of progress report isn't because of the way of measuring completion. For example, if my place of employment has a small LAN of 98 workstations and a server, and a mainframe with 6 million lines of code(I know, unlikely mix, so shoot me.), can I claim 99% compliance if I've patched the Novell server and NT workstations, but have yet to even look at the mainframe code?

-- ariZONEa (back@home.com), July 28, 1999.


http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000Xji

-- gerard blanc (sacre@bleu.fr.com), July 28, 1999.

Puddintame, you have hit the nail on the head. A very simple and direct question.

The TRUE answer is also real simple and direct: The reason why WE are going to be OK and THEY are going to be in DEEP DOO-DOO is because WE ARE WE and THEY ARE THEM. At its root, this is really the crux of this strange and warped belief. Call it the "Not Me" syndrome.

OBJECTIVELY, it is obvious that the power industry is going to potentially have HUGE problems, at both the level of what they control as well as things that they have no control over (telecommunications, suppliers, banking system). This is understood HERE with crystal clarity for places like India. But, everything will be fine, HERE. Because this is where WE live. So, its got to be OK. OK?

(I'm sure that some branch of psychology must exist to explain this "Not Me" Syndrome. Hmmmm ... maybe The Theory of Memes applies?... Whoa, could use a wet one tonight.)

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.com), July 28, 1999.


King, not to make light of victims because I take important things too much for granted far too often, but have you ever seen a disaster victim in the United Stated who did NOT utter words like, "I didn't think it could ever happen to me! or "This only happens on TV."

Our entire society is geared to avoiding anything slightly unpleasant. Our entertainment is, of course, repulsive, but in our real lives we hide the elderly, let foreigners pick vegetables, vote for pretty politicians and generally behave like spoiled children.

You're right. Something unpleasant just can't romp through our country. But it can easily affect Africa, Asia and S. America. They don't prohibit unpleasant stuff in those areas.

-- Puddintame (achillesg@hotmail.com), July 28, 1999.


Many reasons I think. Late start, funding problems, pirated software, lack of qualified people. It all adds up... <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), July 29, 1999.

Oooh, Puddintame. Those kind of enlightened statements should be made in a whisper. A self-righteous mob of Bubbas will come to take you away.

I've been thinking about your question. Regretfully, my response may be too inflammatory for some too handle.

-- PNG (Peter Gauthier) (png@gol.com), July 29, 1999.


The simple answer completes the rhyme "....pants on fire"

Chuck

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), July 29, 1999.


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