Y2K Bug Could Strike Later
January 1, 2000 9:27 am EST

By Jonathan Oatis

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Y2K computer bug failed to bite as the new millennium rolled across the globe but experts warned business and governments not to drop their guard.

Russian and U.S. nuclear missiles stayed in their silos and passenger aircraft did not stray off course as the world's computers coped with the switch to the final zeros of the year 2000.

Eighty-nine of the 170 countries reporting their Y2K status to the International Y2K Cooperation Center said 11 sectors, including power and telecommunications, were operating normally, the Washington-based center said early on Saturday.

It said 106 countries had logged in using its Internet-based system, but reports had to be confirmed before being posted on the center's Web site (http://www.iy2kcc.org).

Russian and U.S. military officials working side by side at a joint command center set up at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado, to monitor nuclear missiles said there were no disruptions.

"We've gone through the rollover in Washington, D.C. without a glitch from Y2K," Air Force Major Thomas Goslin, director of operations of the U.S. Space Command in Colorado, told reporters. "There are no hiccups to speak of."

There was the occasional glitch -- eight U.S. utilities had problems with clocks, some Japanese nuclear power plants' data monitoring systems malfunctioned -- but actual power output was unaffected.

The Y2K computer bug was never going to be a spectacular happening like the firework displays celebrating the new millennium across the globe.

The bug, unless purged, will act more like a debilitating disease which insidiously weakens computer systems before finally toppling them, Gartner Group analyst Andy Kyte said.

The Gartner Group, a U.S. information technology research company, said fewer than 10 percent of all Y2K-related failures will occur during the two weeks surrounding January 1, 2000.

The millennium computer bug is a legacy of a short cut taken by computer programmers in the 1970s and 1980s. To save what was then valuable space they recorded dates with two digits, like 89 or 97. They realised that this method risked tripping over the two zeros in 2000 but they hoped that new technology would have made these computers obsolete by 2000.

They were wrong and the race was on to fix computer systems around the world. Companies and governments spent between $300 billion and $600 billion to fix the problem.

RUSSIA PASSES Y2K TEST

Russia apparently passed its Y2K test, defying doomsayers. In addition to the thousands of nuclear missiles, telephone networks and electricity grids across the vast country continued operations without disruption past midnight.

The global aviation industry passed a key test when air traffic control clocks worldwide struck midnight GMT without a single Y2K-related problem popping up anywhere.

In London, home of the Greenwich meridian, British Home Secretary Jack Straw said on Saturday millennium celebrations had gone very smoothly but government officials warned millennium bug computer faults could surface in coming weeks.

"It all went very well. It's gone better than we expected because of the huge amount of planning by the government," Straw told reporters.

But Margaret Beckett, the minister in charge of navigating Britain through any potential millennium bug problems, said that many bugs were more likely to surface over the coming days as people go back to work and indeed up until the leap day on February 29 -- when computer crashes have also been forecast due to the unusual date, which only occurs every four years.

"There have been some small scale problems (abroad), but nothing here," Beckett said. "We may continue to find more problems later in the day."

"As people get back to work, we could find more," she added, stressing that provisions to update computers in time for the millennium date change had been vital.

AIR TRAVEL DECLARED SAFE

U.S. Federal Aviation Administration chief Jane Garvey and President Clinton's top Y2K trouble-shooter, John Koskinen, took commercial flights during the changeover to reassure the public that air travel was safe.

"Success (stop)...Inform press (stop)," Garvey said in a message faxed to President Clinton by FAA's operations center.

The U.S. Federal Reserve, the central bank for the world's largest economy, said it saw no early sign of Y2K-related financial system problems.

Bangladesh took the honor of having the globe's first stock exchanges to open smoothly on the first day of 2000. Trading began on the Chittagong Stock Exchange at 9:50 a.m. (0350 GMT) and on the Dhaka Stock Exchange at 10 a.m. (0400 GMT) with no problems reported in the first 30 minutes.

The U.S. Securities Industry Association in New York said operations were running smoothly early on Saturday. The top American futures exchanges -- the Chicago Board of Trade and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange -- where the first U.S. financial market trading of the new year will start Sunday night, reported no problems.

France, however, reported minor problems in its manufacturing sector.

The Middle East sailed smoothly into the new millennium with oil, the region's life blood, flowing normally through pipelines, shipping lines and refineries.

Brazil, Latin America's biggest economy, reported no impact on critical systems -- aviation, power, telecommunications and water. Other South American countries reported no problems, nor did Communist-run Cuba.

Canada also appeared free of Y2K problems in critical systems as midnight tolled, first in Newfoundland, then rolling westward to British Columbia five time zones away.

Link to original Reuters article

-- Nabi (nabi7@yahoo.com), January 01, 2000

Answers

Hey, Nabi...sounds like you're hoping for problems. In regards to 'predictions', you can't have your cake and eat it, too. Should i have Y2KPro remind the posting public of all the predictions about 1/1/00 again...some made my regulars here, some made by experts?

-- Bad Company (johnny@shootingstar.com), January 01, 2000.

Nabi didn't say a word. Hey, Bad Company...sounds like you're predicting there won't be any additional problems come Monday. I hope that's true but I'll just have to wait and see.

-- (Wait@n.see), January 01, 2000.

Thanks Nabi for posting this article, this is what this forum is for. There's no other way to keep informed other than spend endless hours searching the web for information, I don't have the time. Thanks again.

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), January 01, 2000.