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Spy satellite had Y2K glitch

Saturday, 1 January 2000 13:37 (GMT)

Subject: Spy satellite had Y2K glitch Date: Saturday, January 01, 2000 1:38:25 PM EST Message-ID:

Spy satellite had Y2K glitch

WASHINGTON, Jan. 1 (UPI) -- In the only significant Y2K problem reported, one of the Defense Department's reconnaissance satellites ran into millennium-related trouble last night shortly after 7:00 pm EST -- midnight Greenwich Mean Time -- and was down for a "few hours," Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre - the Pentagon's appointed "Y2K czar," said Saturday The satellite continued to function, but a ground station was unable to process its intelligence for two to three hours. The system continues to operate at less than full capacity, he said. "We had positive control the entire time," Hamre said. He said operators for the system -- which was not a missile early warning satellite - switched to a back up mode of processing and was able to restore functionality before midnight on the East Coast. "The problem was in the ground processing system," he said. Hamre also said a Defense Department base on Diego Garcia experiences a power outage, but it was not necessarily Year 2000 related. Besides the satellite, the next most serious glitch seems to have been a malfunctioning cash register at a base in Okinawa, Japan, Hamre said. "Operations are absolutely normal around the globe," he said. Defense Department computers are tempting targets for hackers normally, and there was a great deal of concern that Y2K would provide a chaotic opportunity for cyber intrusions. That fear turned out to be unfounded, as hacker activity was lighter than normal. "Every day we are skirmishing in cyber space with bad guys," he said. Y2K-related viruses were also an apparent no-show. "There is no confirmed evidence of a virus triggered by the calendar rollover," Hamre said. Nevertheless, the Defense Department is stopping short of declaring full victory, as business operations that begin Monday may yet be affected by the so-called Y2K bug, and the Pentagon still must shepherd its networks and weapons systems through the Leap Year, which adds an extra day to the end of February. Despite the ease with which this much ballyhooed millennial roll over occurred around the world -- even in places where few preparations were made to accommodate the new date in computer systems -- Hamre insists the $3.6 billion the Pentagon spent was well worth it. "This was an investment we had to make and it was well worth it," he said. "Did we overreact? Absolutely not." -- Copyright 2000 by United Press International. All rights reserved. --

-- Casey DeFranco (caseyd@silcom.com), January 02, 2000

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Really old news.

-- Truk (truk@loa.moc), January 02, 2000.