How would you like to obtain one million dollars without moving a finger? Well, customers of Smith Barney did much better than that. They found themselves $19 million reacher this January, when company computers added that amount into each client's account. Sorry folks, it was a computer mistake called Y2K.
The story does not say, however, how many clients cashed their accounts in a hurry, taking the money to their new overseas address. In this case the bug was quite generous. In most cases it's not.
The Millennium, or Year 2000 (Y2K) computer problem started to show recently its green teeth. When the air traffic controllers at an emergency meeting of the International Federation of Airline Controllers simulated the date change from December 31, 1999 to January 1st, 2000, their screens went blank.
Is there a quick vaccine for the dreaded Y2K? Sorry to disappoint: this is not a computer virus, but a programming mistake. It exists not only in mainframes, PC's, operating systems, software applications, embedded chips (and therefore in some computerized appliances everywhere), but also in the form of corrupt data. Although not a virus, it is however infectious -- a non-compliant system can severely affect a compliant one with which it communicates.
The U.S. Social Security Administration is working from 1991 to correct its lines of code. By 1996, the 400 programmers working on the problem completed only 6 million lines of checking, out of a total of 30 million, but most likely the agency will be ready on time.
Other government agencies and private corporations are not on schedule, however, as a result of their decision to delay the repair to a later date. Unfortunately too late, in a number of cases. Others did not know on time about the seriousness of the problem. Here is an excellent updated list of articles on Y2K, published by Peter de Jager on his Year 2,000 site.
More useful sites:
Ed Yardeni: Year 2,000 Problem
It is already the costliest computer mistake in history, and estimates run between US$ 300 billion to US$ 3.5 trillion worldwide to correct it. Most countries, governments, corporations, both private and public entities are involved and - with all the spending on this issue - the upgrade is behind schedule, or simply questionable in many cases.
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