U.S. sets leap day computer monitoring plan

WASHINGTON, Feb 24 (Reuters) - The United States and about a dozen countries will work together to track any automated-system failures sparked by a leap day next week that occurs only once in 400 years, the U.S. government said on Thursday. "It's a real issue that we feel obligated to keep track of," John Koskinen, President Bill Clinton's chief aide for the Year 2000 technology challenge, told reporters at a $50-million Y2K monitoring station.

Koskinen said he did not expect any major system failures, largely because organizations typically checked for leap year compliance while trouble-shooting for the so-called Y2K bug.

"If there are difficulties in many cases it will result in minor or modest glitches that can be remedied quickly if people catch it quickly," he said.

To keep tabs internationally, Koskinen will take part in scheduled conference calls every eight hours over a three-day period with national Y2K coordinators on the steering committee of the World Bank-funded International Y2K Cooperation Center.

This group includes Britain, Bulgaria, Chile, Gambia, Iceland, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, the Netherlands and South Korea. Australia and New Zealand have also been invited to take part because they can give early warning shortly after Feb. 29 dawns at the International Date Line.

The $50 million information coordination center set up under White House auspices to track Y2K glitches will be operational from Feb. 28 to March 1. It will be staffed from 7 a.m. (1200 GMT) to 9 p.m. (0200 GMT) by about 75 federal workers per shift, about half as many as for the century date change, when it ran around the clock.

The greatest leap day risk is to customized software used for record keeping or billing, especially where the number of days is central to the process being carred out, such as computing interest, Koskinen said.

Unlike the Y2K issue -- where the use of only two digits to signify the year was standard practice -- the potential leap year problem results from misunderstanding the rule for when an extra day is added to the calendar.

Under the little-known three-step rule, February picks up a 29th day in years divisible by 4 except when the year is divisible by 100 -- unless the year is divisible by 400.

Thus, the Year 2000 is the first leap year of its kind since 1600. The three-step rule was crafted for the calendar introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 to better synchronize with the cycle of the seasons. The years 1700, 1800 and 1900 were not leap years.

Koskinen said previous testing found that some software programmers knew enough of the leap year rule to get to its second step. That would mean they could have coded 2000 as a normal year, in which Febrary had 28 days, instead of the 29 required.

Koskinen, who chairs the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion, said he would brief the press on any glitches at 2 p.m. (1900 GMT) Feb. 29 and March 1.

At the final briefing, he said he would announce White House plans for the future of the state-of-the-art computer systems built for the rollover watch post.

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Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), February 24, 2000

Answers

Ray ... I'm thinking .... What a place for all those viruses that the hackers/disgruntled programmers/employees didn't put in for Jan. 1, 2000 .

Line of reasoning ... Janruary 1 was supposed to be such a big problem date , we'll drop it in on the 29th ; that way , if 1-1-2000 is a bust, they will expect the 29th to be the SAME !

Also , our viruses may not be given DUE CREDIT on 1-1-2000 ( for the egotisticly challenged ) , as they could be all mixed up in the real stuff. And , it gives us time to cover our tracks ... see what happened on the 1st of Jan. 2000 and plant them where they think programs are all running perfectly .

There has to be some problems with the 29th in some systems , so if they don't want anyone looking for them ,it could be a cover . Any thoughts on this and the above ? Eagle

-- Hal Walker (e999eagle@FREEWWWEB.COM), February 24, 2000.

Folks, If a single "leap year" problem proves significant enough to report on CNN, CBS, or NBC, that's one more than I expected.....

-- FactFinder (FactFinder@bzn.com), February 24, 2000.

FactFinder--youre still here! Glad to see you. We've still got those beenies-weenies if you need them after the 29th! :)

-- Ann M. (hismckids@aol.com), February 25, 2000.