I'm starting this thread because I think this forum needs somewhere to put hard, cold information.

Selfishly, my motive is to gather hard info I can put into a brochure I'm writing about y2k. I want to make a mass-market pamphlet, about four pages, quoting important-sounding people to give The Facts. And yes, I'm talking Infomagic here.

I also need to write a shorter analysis to convince potential investors that y2k panic IS about to become a big thing. If anyone wants to post here or send me info that could prove/disprove that, then please do so.

Anyway, the main focus of this thread is to put all the objective info and fully-reliable information -from the Pollyanna side AND the Paul Milne side, just not the subjective opinions if they can be filtered out- about the possibility and severity about y2k. This thread can be the one we direct newcomers to when they ask "how serious is y2k going to be?"

Post, post, post ;)

--Leo

-- Leo (leo_champion@hotmail.com), December 01, 1998

Answers

Steve's PowerPoint Presentation is full of hard-hitting quotes from "important" sounding ppl. Steve, do you "upgrade" your info as new & worse/better quotes come out? Maybe Steve will post his latest & greatest link here. Thanx!
xxxxxxx xxxxx

-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), December 01, 1998.

Leo: Regarding the brouchure: Tom posted an incredible source of links to great articles/testimonies in one of the threads from willie (all caps). Scroll through those threads until you see a whole bunch of links. If I were writing a brouchure that is where I would start. Also, the readyforY2K site has a link of 'Y2K Quotes' that will get folks attention, regardless of if they are DGIs, FIs (forget its) or DWGIs (Don't wanna get its). Good luck.

-- Rob Michaels (sonofdust@net.com), December 01, 1998.

OK, here is Part 1 of a text version of my latest PowerPoint presentation. It is too large to send in one post. Good luck, Leo. Feel free to use whatever you like.

Y2K Myths  There's plenty of time  Someone will find a quick fix soon  Only mainframe computers are affected  We are throwing enough money and people at the problem to fix it  With so many new computers out there, we can't be vulnerable to a problem created 40+ years ago  Large companies will make it; small ones won't  With luck, it won't affect me

The problem: 2 digits instead of 4  To save valuable memory and limited space on punch cards, programmers dropped the first two digits on all year fields  The first two digits were assumed to be '19'  It was known that this would cause problems in the year 2000, but everyone assumed the problem would be dealt with  In 2000, '00' will be interpreted as '1900', not '2000', causing bad data

The "simple" solution: Expansion vs. Windowing  Expanding all year fields to 4 digits is the preferred method, but is more costly and time-consuming than windowing  Windowing keeps 2-digit year fields, but uses a "pivot date"-- numbers less than the pivot are assumed 21st century, greater than the pivot are assumed 20th century  Both methods are being used, resulting in a lack of standardization of date formats

Why are dates so important?  Determine if someone should receive something:  Social Security  Medicare  Retirement benefits  Salary increases  Tax refunds  Seniority  Etc.  Used in industry to control:  Manufacturing processes  Maintenance schedules  Machine operations  Shelf life/expiration  "Just in time" inventories  Etc.  Business applications:  Invoicing  Payroll  Fiscal year calculations  Ordering  Forecasting trends  Etc.  Banks and finance:  Interest calculations  Due dates  Delinquent accounts  Mortgages  Stocks  Etc.

Why are dates so important? An example  If you were born in 1962, today you are 36 years old (98-62=36)  In 2000, a non-compliant computer thinks you will be -62 years old!! (00-62=-62)  How will the computer interpret this result?

How hard is it to simply change the dates?  Have to change every reference to a date, in every program and file in use, archived, and stored  Massive logistics problem  40% of companies no longer have their original "source" code

Why is there justification for pessimism?  The IT industry has a consistent track record for being substantially behind schedule and over budget for "normal" projects over the past 40 years  Y2K projects are the largest and most complex projects undertaken by most organizations  Even if they do finish in time, the IT industry has a consistent track record of delivering buggy software - on average, one defect per function point after testing

If it's technically simple to fix, why are Y2K projects so difficult?  Pervasiveness of dates in applications  Interdependence: Computers do not operate in isolation  Inconsistency: Must inspect every line of code (LOC)  Size: Most large corporations and government agencies have thousands of programs containing millions of LOC  At least 600 programming languages  A programmer can fix about 100,000 LOC per year; roughly 200 billion LOC to fix; translates to 2 million person years!!  500,000 mainframe programmers in U.S., most are NOT working on a Y2K project  No agreed-upon date standard  No coordinating agency with the power to impose sanctions for failing to comply  No agreement on definition of compliance

Project Time and Cost Breakdown  Awareness is 1%  Inventory is 1%  Assessment is 5%  Solution Design and Planning is 15%  Development and Modification is 20%  Testing is 40-70%

The main reason companies won't finish on time? They started late! "An enterprise starting in 1997 is likely to get through only about 80% of its applications; if it waits until 1999, only 30%. And even conceding that only 30% of the applications may be critical to the business of the enterprise, that 30% is probably attached by data to another 40% of the other applications that won't make the transition in time. At best, the organization will be crippled; at worst, it will no longer exist." -Peter de Jager, Managing 00: Surviving the Year 2000 Computing Crisis

The "Domino Effect"  Global economy relies on computer networks communicating reliably and efficiently  "A chain is only as strong as its weakest link"  What if your company is compliant but not all of your suppliers and vendors are?  What if the US is compliant but Europe, Asia, South America, etc., aren't?  Impact of corporate "fortressing"

Y2K is already here  Numerous examples of Y2K failures:  Water plants failed or "dumped" toxic chemicals  Smith Barney deposited $10 trillion into accounts  Tons of food destroyed  GM robotics "froze"  Chrysler security gates locked  Prison doors defaulted to "open"  Numerous power plant date rollover tests have crashed the system, resulting in plant "shutdown"  44% of businesses surveyed have had Y2K failures in production environment, 67% in test environment

Topics to discuss  The Power Grid and Nuclear Power  Telecommunications  Banking and the Stock Market  Government  Transportation  Health Care  Food Supply  Imported data  Embedded chips/systems  PC's  Testing  Global perspective  Personal preparedness  This list is not comprehensive!

The Power Grid "Reliable electrical supply is the most basic linchpin of a civilized, modern society." -Ed Yourdon, Mainframe programmer; co-author, "Time Bomb 2000" "Nobody in authority is talking about the relation of Y2K and the electrical power generators of the world. Yet there is no issue more critical to our survival... All it would take is 60 days without electricity to pull the plug on this civilization -- and this may be too optimistic." -Gary North, author and historian "Having an interconnected system really makes for more efficient use of our natural resources and keeps the cost down. But it means when something goes wrong, it can cascade through the system." -Lynn Baker, spokeswoman for Bonneville Power Administration, which oversees the power grid in the Pacific Northwest, after a single short-circuited line caused by an overgrown tree in Idaho caused 15 western states and parts of Canada and Mexico to lose power in July, 1996 "It [the North American power grid] is a very complex system. It's probably the most complex system ever invented by man, more complicated than a moon shot." -Michael Gent, president, North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) "While these utilities [nation's 10 largest] are proceeding in the right direction, the pace of remedial efforts is too slow and the associated milestone dates are so distant that there is significant cause for concern... Firms are not confident that they have a complete and accurate picture of their present Y2K compliance, making assurances of timely Y2K compliance little more than a hope." -Executive Summary of survey conducted by the Senate Special Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem "The state of year 2000 readiness of the utility industry is largely unknown... Failure to fully understand now the potential seriousness of the issue for energy companies may be the greatest problem we currently face." -James Hoecker, chairman, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission "The interlinking nature of utilities, with gas-fired generators, systems that rely on telecommunications and electrical equipment throughout the supply chain, makes guarantees impossible." -Energy Intensive Users Group (EIUG), as quoted in Business Day, 10/15/98 "We have a lot of work to do... I can't make you feel 100% confident that everything is going to function." -Tom Clark, Year 2000 Project Leader, Ontario Hydro "I am genuinely concerned about the prospects of power shortages as a consequence of the millennial date change... It's a certainty that if the year 2000 were to hit us today at the state of readiness we are in today, the power grid would fail." -Senator Bob Bennett, Chairman, Special Senate Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem "Quite honestly, I think we're no longer at the point of asking whether or not there will be any power disruptions, but we are now forced to ask how severe the disruptions are going to be." -Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Vice-Chairman, Senate Special Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem "For each electric company that's deeply involved in the task at hand, there are two peers who are struggling with either starting a program or proceeding beyond Y2K inventory... It's time for the non- IT sector of the electric utility business to get out of denial, and start understanding and accepting the scope of this problem." -Rick Cowles, author, "Electric Utilities and Y2K"; Director, Industry Y2K Solutions "You'll never get us to say that CU [City Utilities] is 100 percent Y2K compliant. This is a huge problem." -Brenda Putman, the chairwoman of CU's Y2K task force "Automated systems are indeed widespread throughout power utilities. Exposure to the industry would in my opinion rate as extreme... Any suggestion that power systems don't use dates or could not be affected by the Year 2000 problem is at best ill-informed." -John Catterall, Year 2000 Project Manager, Western Power "Embedded logic control is the dirty little Y2K secret of all production facilities (manufacturing and utilities) that has the most significant potential to bring whole companies to their knees... The 'party line' of the industry remains: everything's OK, this isn't a big deal, we'll get it fixed. However, anyone in the industry who understands the total scope of the problem, and who will speak off the record, is scared to death." -Rick Cowles, author, "Electric Utilities and Y2K"; Director, Industry Y2K Solutions "The energy sector is extremely dependent on information technology systems. For all practical purposes, there really are no longer any manual alternatives... The industry's Achilles heel is that it is virtually impossible to test Y2K compatibility because the system must be kept online all the time." -Edward Yardeni, Chief Economist, Deutsche Bank Research "The electric-power industry has an enormous amount of work to do, and it is doing a terrible job of getting ready for Y2K... Many power- industry experts admit privately that they think large-scale and extended power outages, beginning in January, 2000, are inevitable." -Jim Seymour, PC Magazine article, 10/6/98 issue "Never before has there been a threat to the power system of such sweeping scope and magnitude as Y2K... It is already too late to finish Y2K remediation for many companies, but it is not too late for disaster preparations." -Dick Mills, who has created software for power plants for over 30 years "I think it is axiomatic that there are going to be power failures due to Y2K. The only thing that is uncertain about it is how many are you going to have and the extent to which the problem cascades." -John Pike, analyst with the Federation of American Scientists, a Washington D.C., think tank "Will the lights go out? The answer is that no one knows for certain yet what the effects of Y2K will be. The risks that Y2K may impact electrical system operations are real... Y2K poses the threat that...failures...may result in stressing the electric system to the point of a cascading outage over a large area... An individual electric utility that invests tens of millions of dollars in solving Y2K problems could be affected in a major way by an outage initiated in neighboring systems that have not been as diligent... The industry will succeed or fail together in its readiness for Y2K." -Excerpts from the NERC (North American Electric Reliability Council) report, 9/98 "Not one of the utilities in any of the hearings I have attended have told the audience how well they are being graded by a teacher (an outside consultant whose job it is to grade them)... Self-grading does not make a utility a Y2K success. We are 100% in the dark as to how well any of our utilities are doing from a teacher's scoring standpoint." -Roleigh Martin, founder, The Year 2000 Paul Revere Community Alert Campaign on the Y2K Threat to Core Infrastructures, responding to the 9/98 NERC report "Customers and residents must realize that every major power company in the nation is connected to "the grid". We anticipate that there may be Y2K-related grid problems... Unfortunately, there is no way to know exactly what the grid will do when Y2K comes... If other power companies go down, they could take us down with them." -Washington Water Power (WWP) "Every test I have seen done on an electrical power plant has caused it to shut down. Period. I know of no plant or facility investigated to this date that has passed without Y2K problems." -David Hall, an embedded-systems consultant at Cara Corporation, Netly News, 5/13/98 "An attorney for a major electric utility said the company is encouraging its customers to look into alternative energy sources, including home generators, in anticipation of power failures as a result of the [Y2K] problem... Mari Nahn, an attorney with Madison- based Alliant Corp.-Wisconsin Power & Light Co., said power failures are likely, as are failures of municipal water systems." -From a story in The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 10/7/98. An Alliant spokesman backed away from this statement the next day, stating "It was not meant to reflect the advice we are giving our customers." "Power failures are possible. Anyone who has told you they have fixed the problem -- guaranteed -- is not understanding the scope of the problem." -David Giroux, spokesman, Alliant Energy Corp. of Madison [Wisconsin] "We're working very hard to make sure this is a non-event, but we won't know until Jan. 1, 2000... It's not possible for Wisconsin to be ready and to be OK." -Pamela Wegner, executive vice president of Alliant Corp.-Wisconsin Power and Light Co. "We are doing everything possible to provide continuous service, but it's difficult to predict if power interruptions will occur. The fact that the nation's electric and natural gas systems are closely interconnected makes us vulnerable to the problems of other utilities and suppliers... We encourage you to learn as much as you can about the issue and to develop your own back-up plans for necessities. If you choose to purchase a back- up generation system, be sure to verify that the unit is Year 2000- compliant and that the fuel source will be readily available." -Erroll B. Davis Jr., President and CEO, Alliant, in a letter sent to all of its customers "When it comes to Y2K and any of our critical public infrastructure industries such as power, water, and gas, we won't know what's going to happen until it actually does or doesn't happen. It's not because the individual companies or industry groups can't predict the future with any certainty - if they can't, who can? I believe it's because the current financial stakes are simply too high for a publicly held company like Alliant, or its brethren, to say anything Y2K-negative in a public forum, for fear of having institutional investors run for the exits on the industry as a whole." -Rick Cowles, author, "Electric Utilities and Y2K"; Director, Industry Y2K Solutions "The Year 2000 problem has many elements and potential consequences, some of which may not be reasonably foreseeable, and there can be no assurances that every Year 2000 problem will be identified and addressed or that unforeseen consequences will not arise. Unanticipated factors while implementing the changes necessary to mitigate Year 2000 problems...could result in unanticipated interruptions in certain core business activities or operations of Wisconsin Energy." -From Wisconsin Energy Corp.'s [Wisconsin Electric's parent company] 11/98 10-Q filed with the SEC "How come so many utility company employees and executives are ordering generators from the sellers of backup power or wind generators? How come so many engineers in Public Utility Commission offices nationwide--who are studying this problem--are ordering backup power generators?" -Roleigh Martin, founder, The Year 2000 Paul Revere Community Alert Campaign on the Y2K Threat to Core Infrastructures "I am convinced there is a 100% chance that a major portion of the domestic electrical infrastructure will be lost as a result of the Year 2000 computer and embedded systems problem. The industry is fiddling whilst the infrastructure burns." -Rick Cowles, author, "Electric Utilities and Y2K"; Director, Industry Y2K Solutions  About 8,000 power plants, none compliant  Much of industry still in assessment phase (over 90% of the work still remains)  Some utilities have no formal Y2K plan  Grid in US, Canada, and part of Mexico is interconnected  Plants rely on regular rail shipments of coal  Over 5,000 water plants (36% of which have no formal Y2K plan) rely on power

Nuclear Power "The major reactor accidents--Three Mile Island and Chernobyl--both began as fairly benign events that were seriously aggravated by operator errors. Thus, it is possible that the year 2000 problem could cause a computer failure that could in turn cause operator errors with some serious consequences." -David Lochbaum, nuclear safety engineer, Union of Concerned Scientists

"We don't have any problems yet. We'll deal with the problem in the year 2000." -Vladislav Petrov, a spokesman for the Russian Nuclear Power Ministry, Russia Today, 7/7/98  Nukes supply 20% of power in US  Every nuclear facility which has not conclusively proven Y2K compliance (none currently have) may be required by the NRC to shut down before the end of 1999 for safety reasons  If this happens, cascading effect could take down the entire grid prior to 2000

Telecommunications "The global telecommunications infrastructure is the central nervous system of modern society... I have great concerns that [it] can ride out the millennium date change without significant disruptions." -Senator Bob Bennett, Chairman, Special Senate Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem "You may have products in compliance, but the interfaces with other equipment may not be in compliance. It may result in dropped calls. We don't know what will happen." -Bill Nichols, Director of service planning, Federal Telecommunications Service "It's like a food chain. Everything's interconnected. If the phone company's not working, it doesn't matter if the banks are because you won't be able to send wire transfers to get money." -Juan-Francisco Roque, an economist based in Washington, with a computer consulting operation in Bolivia "This is a problem of gigantic dimensions and with so many complexities that it's very hard to think something will not slip." -Bichlien Hoang, executive director of Year 2000 network solutions at Bellcore, a communications software, engineering, and consulting firm "[I am]...concerned that the year 2000 problem has the potential of disrupting communications services worldwide... Every sector of the communications industry--broadcast, cable, radio, satellite, and wireline and wireless telephony--could be affected." -William Kennard, FCC Chairman "The potential problems are further compounded by the global nature of today's telecommunications systems, which rely on seamless connections among widely scattered and widely diverse networks... Year 2000 failure in the telecommunications infrastructure would bring potentially disastrous consequences." -Congressman Steven Horn, Subcommittee on Government Management, Information and Technology "We must ensure that the international system is ready for the Year 2000 -- because one weak link in the system will hurt us all." -Al Gore, Vice President, in a speech to the U.N. International Telecommunications Union (ITU), October 13, 1998  Over 1,400 providers in US, none compliant  Many network devices made before 1996--including bridges, routers, gateways, multiplexers, private branch exchanges (PBX) and E-mail servers--have a 90% chance of failure in 2000  Large providers have hundreds of millions of lines of code  Can not test the entire system

Banking "The year 2000 issue is potentially the biggest challenge ever faced by the financial industry." -Central bankers of the G-10 top ten industrialized countries "The lack of concern and action on the part of the international banking community is particularly distressing. The ability of international banks to operate effectively after the Year 2000 is, in our estimate, seriously in question." -Larry W. Martin, CEO, Data Dimensions, testifying before Congress "It will only take 5 to 10 percent of the world banks' payment systems to not work on that one day [1/1/2000] to create a global liquidity lock-up. I don't think the markets have quite grasped the implications of what will happen if the entire system goes down." -Robert Lau, managing consultant, PA Consulting, Hong Kong "I do not think it would be possible to overstate the importance of the Year 2000 problem as an issue for financial markets. The Year 2000 problem is an issue for every country, firm, organization, government agency, bank and piece of critical infrastructure in the world." -William McDonough, President, Federal Reserve Bank of New York "The largest banks on earth are in Japan, where 70 percent of the computer systems use customized code, as opposed to 30 percent in the U.S., making repair more difficult. The repercussions of their failure could be felt here for a generation or more." -Scott Olmsted, software engineer, founder of prepare4y2k.com "My suspicion is that we're going to run into a lot of problems... We have ordered a very major increase in the currency available. I have no question that we're going to have very unusual things occurring." -Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve Chairman "Nobody can give the Congress a 100 percent guarantee that this problem will be fixed until you get to January 2 of the year 2000." -Eugene Ludwig, Comptroller of the Currency "We gotta be careful not to construct catastrophic scenarios, but the fact is that a bank that is unable to transact business in a country that's experiencing financial difficulties in 2000 creates greater problems -- and there's a national security dimension out of that instability." -George Tenet, head of the Central Intelligence Agency "If you're prudent, you'd like a little money on hand, wouldn't you? The problem is that if everyone in the U.S. decides to act prudently, we'll run out of cash." -Larry W. Martin, CEO, Data Dimensions "There's only a finite amount of currency available in the U.S. If a problem arises, there will probably be a rationing of currency." -Lee Ann Paladino, chief investment officer, Empire Corporate FCU, Albany, N.Y., as quoted in Credit Union Times, 11/9/98 "There is not one compliant bank on earth, and they all must share data with each other. The day the data cannot safely be shared is the day the entire industry collapses." -Gary North, author and historian "This is not a prediction, it is a certainty -- there will be serious disruption in the world's financial services industry... It's going to be ugly." -London's The Sunday Times  Over 11,000 Banks in US, a few compliant  15% of large banks, 35% of small banks did not have Y2K plans in place in 1997; at least 12% are late, according to 10/98 survey  Federal Reserve to add $100 billion to reserves as "precautionary measure" in '99  Australia, New Zealand, Canada and UK printing extra currency; others may follow  Mergers and "poison pills"

Fractional Reserve Banking  Deposit obligations--what people "think" they have safely saved in their checking and savings accounts: $3.7 trillion  Total dollars in circulation around the world (only 1/3 is in US): $480 billion  Actual cash reserves--what banks actually have on hand as cash: $43.2 billion  The only thing that can save this system from collapse is if the public maintains confidence in the system and does not withdraw funds

Stock Market "With what we know now, I wish it was 1995 again." -Michael Tiernan, Vice President of Credit Suisse First Boston, a brokerage firm, and chairman of a Year 2000 committee "You only have to look at international markets at present to see how dependent they are on confidence. The year 2000 will undoubtedly be a confidence factor in 1999... It is important for financial firms and governments to be aware of that issue and have sensible plans to deal with those concerns." -Tim Shepheard-Walwyn, Global 2000 Coordinating Group "Any company that neglects this looming problem is simply asking for trouble. If a firm is eventually hit by a Year 2000 breakdown, it will probably be put out of business--not by the authority of any regulator, but by the power of the market itself. And it's not just the institutions I'm concerned about. It's the investors who do business with them. A Year 2000 breakdown could do incalculable damage to investors' finances, and could undermine their confidence in our entire financial structure." -Arthur Levitt Jr., Chairman, Securities and Exchange Commission "It is not, and will not, be possible for any single entity or collective enterprise to represent that it has achieved complete Year 2000 compliance and thus to guarantee its remediation efforts. The problem is simply too complex for such a claim to have legitimacy. Efforts to solve Year 2000 problems are best described as 'risk mitigation'. Success in the effort will have been achieved if the number and seriousness of any technical failures is minimized, and they are quickly identified and repaired if they do occur." -Securities and Exchange Commission  5,160 securities firms surveyed by National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD): 21% had not prepared a Y2K plan in 1997  SEC fined 37 firms for failing to report readiness, NASD fined 59 firms for late filing (10/98)  Beta test (7/98) was a test of the testing methodology, not a full blown test: 10% errors, 1% Y2K-related  "Tier I" Test is a full test scheduled for March-April, 1999: 16% of Securities Industry Association (SIA) is not scheduled to participate  "Tier II" Test in May, 1999 for "stragglers"

Government "As we ring in the 21st century, we will be ushering in the mother of all computer glitches - one which could cripple critical government functions." -U.S. Representative Constance Morella "The Year 2000 computer crisis is now upon us and the federal government is even more woefully unprepared than the rest of society." -Steve Forbes, publisher and likely Presidential candidate in 2000 "The public faces a high risk that critical services provided by the government and the private sector could be severely disrupted by the Year 2000 computing crisis. Financial transactions could be delayed, flights grounded, power lost, and national defense affected." -Joel C. Willemssen, Director of Information Resources Management, US General Accounting Office (GAO) "If federal computers fail because they cannot understand the year 2000, the distribution of benefit checks could be disrupted, the air traffic control system could become gridlocked, and computerized records could be lost or damaged... More than one-third of the federal mission-critical systems will not be ready in time... At best, we may face a major headache; at worst, an electronic disaster." -US Congressman Stephen Horn, Chairman, House Government Management, Information and Technology Subcommittee "Failure to complete year 2000 conversion could result in billions of dollars in benefits payments not being delivered. Potential problems states cited were that new recipients could not be added to the recipient file, eligibility for new applicants could not be determined, recipients could be denied benefits, payments could be underpaid or overpaid and payments could be delayed." -General Accounting Office (GAO) report, "Year 2000 Computing Crisis: Readiness of State Automated Systems to Support Federal Welfare Programs", from Government Executive Magazine, 11/10/98 "Eighty-four percent of all technology projects are finished late or not at all. Y2K is the largest technology project in history and it has a fixed deadline. Why is the government trying to convince us it is about to pull off the greatest technical miracle in history?" -Jim Lord, retired software engineer; author, "A Survival Guide For The Year 2000 Problem" "The federal government is not going to finish its Y2000 project. No maybes, no ifs, ands, or buts. No qualifiers, no wishy-washy statements like "unless more money is spent" or "unless things improve". We're not going to avert the problem by appointing a Y2000 Czar or creating a National Y2000 Commission." -Ed Yourdon, Mainframe programmer; co-author, "Time Bomb 2000" "About half of all government agencies in North America won't solve the year 2000 problem in time so you have to plan for failure." -GartnerGroup  11/98 "report card": Overall grade of D  15 of the 24 major federal agencies are significantly behind schedule  States have no coordinated effort and are generally in very poor shape  No government above county level is compliant (only a few counties are)  At current rates of progress, these agencies will not complete their Y2K Projects until:  2019: Department of Energy  2019: Department of Labor  2012: Department of Defense  2010: Department of Transportation  2004: Department of Treasury  Mid-2000: Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)

Government: The "best"--The Social Security Administration  Only agency to get consistent grade of "A"  Began assessment in 1989  Began actual renovation in 1991 of roughly 30 million lines of code (LOC)  400 full-time programmers assigned  By June, 1996, it had fixed 6 million LOC  In November, 1997, SSA "found" 33 million additional LOC in its state offices

Transportation "We don't have the people to handle a major systems failure anymore. Maybe we should make sure crews can still handle the sextant and Morse code." -Malcolm Gosling, Head of Electrical Services at Royal Dutch's Shell Trading and Shipping Company "From the beginning stages of awareness regarding the effects created by the Year 2000 computer problem, most organizations, both public and private, have been slow to respond. The enormity of the tasks involved have been dramatically underestimated, miscommunicated or ignored... The condition of the National Airspace System is past a timeline for an orderly assessment and renovation phase. Contingency plans must be constructed for all potential occurrences -- up to and including complete system-wide breakdown... At the current pace, disaster avoidance will rapidly become disaster recovery." -Daniel G. Thorsen and Chris Monaldi, National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) "What we found in our inventory was that practically everything at the airport was potentially affected... What we know about other airports is that for the most part they have started their programs later than we have, and are planning to spend fewer resources... Congress should defer other national issues if necessary to focus on developing a comprehensive emergency plan for the country." -Paige Miller, commissioner, Port of Seattle, which is responsible for the Seattle-Tacoma airport (SeaTac), and which began its Y2K project in 1993 "The attitude of the insurance industry will play the dominant role in what happens to airlines at the end of the century... If insurance companies say they will not cover an airline for a year 2000 problem, airlines will not be able to cover themselves." -Andy Kyte, GartnerGroup, 11/3/98 "I'm fearful that we will not be ready in time; there will be delays and detours. Planes will stay on the ground and this means capital will not be generating money. Within a half a year some airlines will be facing bankruptcy." -Max Rens, Chief Information Officer, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines  Over 500 airports in US, none compliant  35% of US airports have no plan for Y2K as of 9/98!!  Several airlines have already announced they may cancel flights in January, 2000  More than 16,000 chips in a Boeing 747  Manual railroad switching no longer possible  Large ships have hundreds of chips, 20% are defective  Most auto manufacturers have been silent about potential problems (newer cars have 20-50 embedded systems, such as fuel injection and power train)

Health Care "Anybody who still does not believe the millennium bug exists should take a trip to University College hospital in central London. Large luminous green stickers warning employees of year 2000 faults within hospital equipment can be spotted plastered all over a disturbingly prominent number of devices." -From a story in England's Sunday Business "There are medical machines that will fail in ICU units. There are hospitals that are far enough away from other hospitals that they have no backup, and if they have a failure in some of their machines or in some of their supplies, there will be people who will be affected by that in terms of patient care." -Senator Bob Bennett, Chairman, Special Senate Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem "When Mrs. Smith brings in her prescriptions on Saturday January 2, 1999, I will know pretty quickly if the system is compliant. If it is not, the expiration date of January 2, 2000, will cause an error and reject the prescription." -Richard Carbray, American Pharmaceutical Association "The healthcare industry will probably only be through the assessment phase by the end of 1998. I wish I could point to a leader, but they're few and far between." -Gary Clark, a consultant on Y2K readiness "Only one-third of state systems that manage federal welfare programs are ready for the year 2000, with about half of these systems yet to be even tested for potential Y2K glitches. Medicaid was the worst; only 16 percent of its systems are currently ready for the millennial onslaught." -From Newsweek, 11/16/98 issue, citing a GAO report to Congress "HCFA [Health Care Financing Administration] and its contractors are severely behind schedule in repairing, testing, and implementing the mission-critical systems supporting Medicare... As of June 30, 1998, less than a third of Medicare's 98 mission-critical systems had been fully renovated, and none had been validated or implemented... It is highly unlikely that all of the Medicare systems will be compliant in time to ensure the delivery of uninterrupted benefits and services into the year 2000." -US General Accounting Office (GAO) Report to Congressional Requesters, "Medicare Computer Systems: Year 2000 Challenges Puts Benefits and Services in Jeopardy", 9/98 "The doctors who I have talked to tell me we have long since quit dealing with HCFA with paper. All of our interconnections with HCFA are electronic, and if that system goes down, the ripple effect will be tremendous." -Senator Bob Bennett, Chairman, Special Senate Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem  Over 5,000 hospitals in US, none compliant  10/98 GartnerGroup survey: 36% of US hospitals have not even begun dealing with the problem!!  US hospitals receive roughly half their revenues from Medicare/Medicaid  50% of medical equipment will fail either completely or through inaccurate diagnosis  10,000 to 15,000 medical devices affected  As of 10/98, 88% of 16,000 manufacturers refused to respond to FDA survey on the Y2K status of their products

Food Supply "I expect to see a great deal of panic buying, particularly in the last few weeks of December [1999]. That's not difficult to foresee... Imagine how long the lines would be if we had to run around getting price checks on every single item, hand-write receipts, manually calculate sales tax and total, etc.... In all honesty, I would lock the doors." -Store Manager, requesting anonymity, of a large grocery store chain "Food suppliers, like so many businesses, are heavily dependent on computerized processing and information exchange... Any interruption along this farm-to-fork chain can result in a direct loss to those who supply food. That can mean more expensive, less available food supplies." -From USDA's website, "The Y2K Problem and the Food Supply Sector" "Our country and most others do not have a significant, on-hand supply of food. And since most of the food production is done by a handful...of food producers, it wouldn't take much to disrupt the supply. And further, if you can't get the food to the people who need it, it really doesn't matter how much you have." -Michael Hyatt, author, "The Millenium Bug: How to Survive the Coming Chaos"  Typical grocery store is restocked every 72 hours  Will farmers have access to information, seeds, fertilizer, feed, and credit?  Will disruptions in our energy supply chains hamper the ability of farmers to grow crops and feed livestock?  Will distribution channels operate without delays?  Can food supply chain cope with a wave of panic buying?  Will railroads be able to operate at full capacity?  Will ships move freely in and out of ports?  Can we provide food assistance to nations overseas?

Imported Data "Even if an organization fixes all of its IT systems and embedded chips so that they recognize "00" as 2000 and not 1900, those systems can be instantly and severely impaired by bad data coming from external sources." -Edward Yardeni, Chief Economist, Deutsche Bank Research "A program can fail in one of two ways. The first is simply when a program stops working and the failure is recognized immediately. The second, more insidious, is for the program to continue to run, generating false information, thus spreading the equivalent of a 'virus'." -GartnerGroup, "The Domino Effect of Hidden Year 2000 Problems"  There is no agreed-upon date standard  How can systems and data integrity be maintained?  Federal agencies have 500,000 data exchanges with no filters or bridges  Beach's Law of Vulnerability

Embedded Chips/Systems "There is another Year-2000 risk. It is distinct from the more widely reported risks concerning impending failures of computers and software... This risk involves embedded processors and logic arrays, dedicated electronic control and monitoring logic incorporated into larger systems. These are essential to the operation of a vast portfolio of infrastructures; from medical equipment, to buildings (phone, security, heating, plumbing and lighting), to transportation, to financial networks, to just-in-time delivery systems, and so on." -Mark A. Frautschi, Ph.D., Embedded Systems and the Year 2000 Problem "The true nature of the Y2K story has been misunderstood. After all the effort put into chasing down those pesky little monkeys (mainframes and desktop computers), a Nine Hundred Pound Gorilla has emerged on the scene. He is called embedded processor and he looks like one very tough dude... The embedded processor component of Y2K could be as much as two to four times as severe as the mainframe and desktop components COMBINED." -Jim Lord, retired software engineer; author, "A Survival Guide For The Year 2000 Problem" "The list of Y2K challenges facing our society will be long unless industries operating our nation's infrastructure take action. For example, communication, security and emergency services may be temporarily disabled - transportation may be disrupted and even water and sewage services may be suspended - all due to the failure of certain embedded systems, or the failure of connected systems to communicate. All of these effects will have a direct impact on the average American." -Robert Holleyman, President and CEO, Business Software Alliance (BSA) "More than 50 million embedded-system devices worldwide will exhibit year 2000 date anomalies." -GartnerGroup "It is very serious. And the reason is you don't know where the embedded chips are embedded." -Andy Grove, CEO, Intel (largest producer of chips in the US), when asked "How serious is the Y2K problem?" "The failure of automated equipment and machinery controlled by embedded computer chips could result in serious injury or even death... The risk is very real." -Andrew Lindberg, chief executive, WorkCover, an Australian workplace safety company "Discovering problems with embedded systems is much harder than with software. Embedded timing devices have no visual display of date/time, nor any means of input to see that a date/time has been installed at factory creation time." -Roleigh Martin, founder, The Year 2000 Paul Revere Community Alert Campaign on the Y2K Threat to Core Infrastructures "Testing of embedded systems is so complex, expensive, problematic, and unpredictable, we have adopted the following strategy: If the vendor says their embedded system is compliant, believe it and move on... If the vendor doesn't know or will not/cannot answer the question, assume the system is not Y2K compliant. Retire, replace, or repair the system." -From the City of Albuquerque, NM, Y2K Project Monthly Status Report, August, 1998 "The embedded system remediation problem is the key to understanding the economic consequences of the Year 2000." -Dennis Grabow, CEO, The Millennium Investment Corporation  1-4% of all embedded chips will fail  8 billion chips were made in 1997 alone, estimated 30-50 billion chips total  Many chips can't be replaced easily (underwater oil drilling) or at all (satellites)  GartnerGroup report: only 11% of companies had even begun to investigate potential Y2K-related problems in embedded systems in 1997

PC's [Microsoft] "failed to grasp the importance of how its products are date-sensitive and critical to customers' operations... In the past, Microsoft has told customers that all of its products were Year 2000 compliant. Those statements were...inaccurate." -Jason Matusow, Microsoft's Year 2000 strategy manager "Computer companies had been marketing machines as Year 2000 compliant for several years in the knowledge that the machines could fail if they were left on overnight at the changeover to the new millennium." -Joseph Tomasi, consultant, Survive 2000, who also noted that 95% of PC's sold as "compliant" failed Y2K tests  Basic Input/Output System (BIOS): 93% of all PC's made before 1997 will produce incorrect dates in 2000; 47% made in first half of '97  Operating system  Software applications  User data  Data exchange capabilities  Only 2% of the world's 300 million PC's have been checked for compliance as of 10/98

Testing "Even if we fixed all of the systems on this planet, we would still have failure because all of the systems have to be tested one against the other. And we basically have glued this global computer network together over a 40-year period." -Edward Yardeni, Chief Economist, Deutsche Bank Research "Testing is particularly laborious because the modified software must be tested in conjunction with all possible combinations of other software programs it interacts with to ensure functioning has not changed." -Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress, "The Year 2000 Challenge" "As one group of programmers works to make the system Y2K compliant, the far larger group maintains existing data and procedures. It updates data. But the two groups' work will affect the performance of the repaired code. Disrupting changes can be introduced by either group. That's why the final product must be tested. That's why final testing and repairing takes 40% to 70% of the project's resources. Any large organization that doesn't test the final code product is doomed." -Gary North, author and historian "The idea of using untested software represents more than just a risk; it is plain silly." -Graeme Inchley, CEO, Australian Y2K Industry Program  40-70% of any project is testing  Crucial industries (telecommunications, electric) can't perform real-time testing  GartnerGroup survey: Of 15,000 companies in 87 countries who are doing Y2K repairs, 50% of those surveyed "won't perform a lick of Y2K testing"!!

Does it ALL have to be fixed? "We do not know or cannot really realistically make an evaluation of what the economic impact is as a consequence of the breakdowns that may occur. We do not know the size. We do not know the contagion and interaction within the system. And we do not know how rapidly we can resolve the problem... Ninety-nine percent readiness for the Year 2000 will not be enough. It must be 100 percent." -Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve Chairman  If 99.9% accuracy is good enough, then:  2 million documents would be lost by the IRS annually  650,000+ shares of stock would be mishandled daily  81,000 faulty rolls of film would be loaded annually  22,000 checks would be deducted from the wrong bank accounts hourly  18,322 pieces of mail would be mishandled hourly  1,212 phone calls would be misplaced every minute  12 babies would be given to the wrong parents daily  5 airplanes would crash daily

Year 2000 Readiness in the United States, 2nd Quarter, 1998 (Source: Software Productivity Research) Industry On-Time Lagging Urban governments 10% 90% Water companies 20% 80% Hospitals/Health care 20% 80% Electric power 30% 70% State governments 30% 70% Federal government 30% 70% Manufacturing 35% 65% Telephone companies 65% 35% Banks 80% 20% Overall U.S. 40% 60%

-- Steve Hartsman (hartsman@ticon.net), December 02, 1998.

And part 2:

Global Perspective "Y2K could be the event that could all but paralyze the planet." -Newsweek, June 2, 1997 cover story entitled "The Day the World Shuts Down: Can We Fix the Year 2000 Computer Bug Before It's Too Late?" "It is entirely possible that every organization in America could get its own computers fixed, its own embedded chips discovered and replaced, and still have major problems. And the world as a whole is almost doomed to have major problems because other countries are way behind us--however badly prepared we are--in their thinking and planning for Y2K." -Senator Bob Bennett, Chairman, Special Senate Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem "Today, Asia is toast. In the year 2000, Asia will be burnt toast. In Asia, they have a year 1998 problem... They have totally been distracted and resourced away from dealing with the year 2000 problem." -Edward Yardeni, Chief Economist, Deutsche Bank Research "One thing misleading governments in developing countries is they think that they won't be as affected. They may not have the most modern systems, but what they have is basic and critical." -Carlos Guedes, Deputy Controller, Inter-American Development Bank "Y2K denial is still everywhere. The unwillingness of the entire world to face up to this historically unprecedented, simultaneous, worldwide risk is indicative of the blindness of this era. Seeing, they will not see." -Gary North, author and historian "We could have...something that is very much like a hurricane on the East Coast, an earthquake in San Francisco, massive forest fires in Montana, and flooding on the Mississippi River happening all at once. In addition to that, we could have...countries where there's civil unrest because the government can't provide basic services... Will we have the capacity and the resources to deal with them all at once?" -John Koskinen, US Y2K "czar" "Even if most domestic supply chains are fixed, it is very likely that breaks in the global supply chain will occur. This is bound to disrupt production of just-in-time manufacturers everywhere, unless they quickly implement just-in-case contingency plans." -Edward Yardeni, Chief Economist, Deutsche Bank Research "Why is the U.S. less confident? Because they have seen the size of the problem." -Geoff Unwin, vice chairman, Cap Gemini, Europe's biggest software and services group, referring to an 11/98 survey which noted the paradox that companies and countries that have made the greatest efforts to fix the Y2K problem are the least confident that their attempts will succeed. "You're...going to have countries--and I say countries--that will simply drop off the radar screen on January 1st, with enormous problems... What are we going to do when the more compliant countries start getting reports of people starving, dying, water purification problems, lack of power, and so on, in countries all over the world?" -Senator Bob Bennett, Chairman, Special Senate Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem  US is leader; Canada, Britain, Belgium, Australia, Netherlands, Israel and Sweden 6 months behind  Rest of world is 6-12 months or more behind  "Euro" monetary conversion project is higher priority in Europe (1/1/99 deadline)  Severe shortage of qualified personnel  No coordination of efforts  Most countries haven't started or aren't done with assessment phase (only 7% of project)

Y2K corporate failure rate: Predictions by country Level 1 (15%): Australia, Belgium, Bermuda, Canada, Denmark, Holland, Ireland, Israel, Switzerland, Sweden, U.K., U.S. Level 2 (33%) Brazil, Chile, Finland, France, Hungary, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Portugal, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan Level 3 (50%): Argentina, Armenia, Austria, Bulgaria, Colombia, Czech Republic, Egypt, Germany, Guatemala, India, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Malaysia, North Korea, Poland, Puerto Rico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, Yugoslavia Level 4 (66%): Afghanistan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Chad, China, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Fiji, Indonesia, Kenya, Laos, Lithuania, Morocco, Mozambique, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Romania, Russia, Somalia, Sudan, Thailand, Uruguay, Vietnam, Zaire, Zimbabwe -GartnerGroup, 11/98

Y2K corporate failure rate: Predictions by Industry Level 1 (15%): Insurance, Investment services, Banking, Pharmaceuticals, Computer Manufacturing Level 2 (33%): Heavy Equipment, Aerospace, Medical Equipment, Software, Semiconductors, Telecom, Retail, Discrete Manufacturing, Publishing, Biotechnology, Consulting Level 3 (50%): Chemical Processing, Transportation, Power, Natural Gas, Water, Oil, Law Practices, Medical Practices, Construction, Transportation, Pulp & Paper, Ocean Shipping, Hospitality, Broadcast News, Television, Law Enforcement Level 4 (66%): Education, Health care, Government Agencies, Farming & Agriculture, Food processing, Construction, City & Town Municipal Services

Other topics  There is no "Silver Bullet"  "Brain drain", "golden handcuffs", and "death marches"  Litigation (estimated at $1 trillion)  Insurance  Corporate Disclosure: "The Full Monty"  Triage and Contingency Planning  GPS and other "spike dates"  Solar flares  Time dilation (Crouch-Echlin Effect)  Police, the military and Martial Law  Global politics and Terrorism  Media coverage  This is still just the "tip of the iceberg"

Any good news? Yes and No  Pacemakers  Home appliances  Visa/Mastercard  Macintosh, Dell, and Compaq PC's  M&I Data Services  List of publicly traded compliant or "soon-to-be" compliant companies: www.sy2k.com/index.y2k  Assurances from government, utilities, and corporations that "We will be ready!"

Quotes "Fourteen years seems a long time. The gut reaction to this problem is to hope that it will go away. Somebody else will fix it. None are prepared to do anything about it... No terrorist organization or disillusioned hacker could plant a more skillful, destructive or international boobytrap." -Chris Anderson, South African computer consultant, from an ad placed in a Computer magazine on June 30, 1986, under the headline "The Timebomb in Your IBM Mainframe System". The ad drew four responses; two were serious. One was from IBM, which threatened action. The ad never ran again. "It is naove to hope that the systems that were built over 20 and 30 years can be repaired and restored in a few hours, weeks, or months... This will not be like anything we've ever seen before. This is a discontinuity in time, a peak event, a shift in reality and all of a sudden, at a minute after December 31, 1999, the rules change." -Cory Hamasaki, mainframe programmer "What will amaze historians of the future is that anything this huge could have been ignored for so long and then, when discovered, been denied so universally." -Gary North, author and historian "The average person assumes [the year 2000 problem] has nothing to do with his or her life, but the average person doesn't know how dependent we are on computers." -Ed Yourdon, Mainframe programmer; co-author, "Time Bomb 2000" "It sounds stupid that a couple of little numbers could cause this much trouble... The idea that the technology could fail threatens our fundamental beliefs that progress works and technology works and human beings can solve any problem that we're confronted with." -Doug Carmichael, Y2K consultant, on ABC's Nightline, 10/20/98 "The worst case could be widespread patient care problems that result in deaths... The Third World War really needs to be a war on Y2K. We need to mobilize, we need to communicate, we need to get everyone active and working on this." -Joel Ackerman, Information Systems specialist, on Nightline "There's an old Chinese curse: 'May you be born in interesting times'. We are headed for some of the most interesting times you could ever imagine." -Peter de Jager, Year 2000 Information Center "The largest and heaviest users of technology are exposed to the greatest risk of Year 2000 failures. A combination of short term focus, lack of effective leadership, and unavailability of accurate information will result in more problems than we have ever seen on Jan. 1, 2000. We are still debating what to do. We are still trying to choose a captain. We are losing this race against the clock." -Joe Boivin, former Director of CIBC's (Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce) Year 2000 program; founder, Global Millennium Foundation "In a 'normal' world, Y2K would be a minor annoyance. In a world that is overautomated, overinformed, undermined by monetary and political disorders, where only the short term prevails, Y2K could be the coup de grace. From 1999 onwards, rational anticipations as well as millennium fears, coupled with manifestations of the glitch, may trigger a worldwide disaster." -Thierry Falissard, French software developer "Year 2000 is not just a technical problem. It's really a business problem, and what we're doing is trying to save the business and keep it alive... It's what you don't know that is going to hurt you, and that's the big issue." -Lloyd Green, senior director, LGS Group Inc., a Canadian consulting firm "We know the time and place this enemy will attack. It has the capability to shut down our fuel system, command and control, logistics and resupply -- everything an enemy would go after." -John Hamre, Deputy Secretary of Defense "Our only conclusion given the evidence...is 'The Year 2000 Bug' constitutes a clear and present danger. Our governments will be powerless to stop the repercussions from computer failures as local economies fail and impact on social structures. Goods and services as we have known them in the past will...cease to exist, creating shortages in food, power, communication, transportation and medical attention... It is far easier to believe that someone else will fix the problem, or that there is no problem, than it is to become motivated enough to take steps to ensure that the impact will be minimized by our own pro-active intervention." -Timothy J. Wilbur, author, "The Year 2000 Millennium Bug report"; founder, Beyond 2000 Awareness Project "It only takes 10% of Australian small business to fold at one time to bring on a recession. There is a strong possibility that the figure will be much greater than 10% because of the failure of small business to act. We are not just talking recession but major economic meltdown." -Graeme Inchley, CEO, Australian Y2K Industry Program "The Y2K problem is both trivial and overwhelming at the same time... The Y2K virus has infected all the vital organs of our global body... The problem is time. All the money in the world will not stop January 1, 2000, from arriving at the rate of 3,600 seconds per hour." -Edward Yardeni, Chief Economist, Deutsche Bank Research "As the year 2000 crisis has progressed, I've noticed that many of the people who were previously operating under a "denial phase" - basically ignoring the problem - have since made the transition into the "blame phase". Unfortunately, neither phase is particularly productive... If vital public- or private-sector services fail, people won't care whose fault it is." -Larry A. Olson, CIO, State of Pennsylvania "It is clear that not every mission-critical system will be compliant by January 1, 2000. You can debate which ones won't be and which ones are even critical, but everyone knows that we're not going to have all of them ready, whether in government or in business." -Former Senator Sam Nunn "We're engaged in a high wire act. We need to get people around the world to take the problem seriously, but, at the same time, we don't want them to unnecessarily panic and take actions that would be counterproductive." -John Koskinen, US Y2K "czar" "There is very little realization that there will be a disruption. As you start getting out into the population, I think most people are again assuming that things are going to operate the way they always have. That is not going to be the case." -Sherry Burns, director of Year 2000 Office, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) "The millennium bug is one of the most serious problems facing not only British business but the global economy today. The impact cannot be underestimated." -Tony Blair, British Prime Minister "In the millennium bug, we have developed a technology equivalent to natural forces. If it is anywhere, it is everywhere. Nowhere at any time in human history has there existed such a problem." -G.K. Jayaram, chairman, Transformation Systems "The costs of fixing the Year 2000 problem appear to constitute the most expensive business problem in human history." -Capers Jones, Software Productivity Research, who estimated the worldwide cost to be as high as $600 billion (Cap Gemini estimate is $858 billion, 11/98) "The Year 2000 problem is real. It's going to cause real failures, even for companies that have slaved for years to clean up their Year 2000 act. Some companies won't be prepared. Some companies won't survive." -Frank Hayes, in Computerworld magazine "On January 1, 2000, the consequences could be catastrophic for businesses who have not prepared their systems or do not have adequate contingency plans." -Maurice Newman, Year 2000 Steering Committee Chairman, Australian Federal Government "Nobody wants to talk about the "dark side" of Y2K... What if Y2K leads to massive corporate bankruptcies, heralding a long-term economic recession/depression? What if it leads to breakdowns in international telecommunications, or a shut-down of the world's airports for six months? There are numerous plausible Y2K scenarios that are far worse than a mere speed bump." -Ed Yourdon, Mainframe programmer; co-author, "Time Bomb 2000" "We no longer have even 1/1000 of the work force that would be necessary to push enough papers or flip the switches to even begin to match the job now being done by computers crunching numbers, by computers routing electricity, pumping water, directing sewage treatment, routing telephone calls, data transmission, and railroad shipping, oil refinement from well head to gas station pump, transferring credit and calculating interest and payments in the banks and stock exchanges." -Joseph Foreman, founder, y2kchaos.com "The problem is far worse than even the pessimists believe... The year 2000 problem is a people- and time-resource issue, not just a financial one. You can't buy the time at any price." -Peter G.W. Keen, Computerworld magazine, June 16, 1997 "Let me go on record publicly with what those in the know are thinking and saying privately. We are worried. As a society, we are on the point of conceding failure." -Harris Miller, president, Information Technology Association of America "Frankly, we as a nation do not know where we stand on key infrastructure areas like power, water, and telecom. . . There's a lot of talk but when you get beneath that talk there is no underlying data." -Congressman Steven Horn, Subcommittee on Government Management, Information and Technology "After studying the potential impact of Y2K on the telecommunications industry, health care, economy, and other vital sectors of our lives, I would like to warn that we have cause for fear. For the failure to address the millennium bug could be catastrophic." -Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan "Could this long anticipated and seemingly benign change of the calendar really devastate our economy, undermine our national security and jeopardize our domestic safety? The simple answer is yes, it could." -Senator Dick Lugar "Y2K remediation provides all kinds of opportunities for someone with hostile intent to understand how your computer network works, how your business works, what your vulnerabilities are. So we're watching it very, very carefully." -George Tenet, Director, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) "The SBA [Small Business Administration] warns participants that the most critical part of Y2K preparations is to have a contingency plan to stay in business. Their main advice is to expect everything to fail, including failures by suppliers and customers." -World Net Daily, 10/21/98 "Instead of wondering if they can get on the Internet or if they can dink around on their computers, people should be wondering if the lights will come on, if they will have a job 90 days after January 1 [2000] because will my company survive?" -Information systems manager, who requested anonymity, as quoted in the Seattle Times "Many businesses think it is just to do with PC's. They haven't understood the issues of embedded systems, supply chains or infrastructure risks, such as power failures. They haven't thought about contingency plans and they are very vulnerable to glitches that could put them out of business." -Gerard Long, senior manager, year 2000 program at Midland Bank, as quoted in England's Sunday Times, 11/1/98 "Some people without technological expertise think the whole 'millennium bug' issue is overblown. Don't you believe it. Comments that doubt the seriousness of the problem are dead wrong." -Edward Kelly, Federal Reserve Board "At each one of our factories there are catastrophic problems. Amazingly enough, machines on the factory floor are far more sensitive to incorrect dates than we ever anticipated. When we tested robotic devices for transition into the year 2000, for example, they just froze and stopped operating." -Ralph Szygenda, Chief Information Officer (CIO), General Motors, April, 1998 "I know so many people that don't have a clue about computers and they're running the show. It's not in the public consciousness that computers [can] fail." -Lorne Williams, Central British Columbia Preparedness Council "I am very fearful. Experts predict that only half [of all organizations] will be ready. I think that's overly optimistic... They [business people and government officials] don't seem to be really worried; in fact, they're not really being involved in it." -Tommy Thompson, Governor of Wisconsin and possible Presidential candidate in 2000 "I'm getting nervous. I'm scared to death. I truly believe local governments could let down the families in our communities who depend on us." -Kevin Crawford, Mayor, Manitowoc, Wisconsin "We're expecting Y2K problems. There are so many what-ifs that there certainly will be problems, and we're putting plans together." -Colonel Kerry Denson, deputy adjutant general for the Wisconsin Army National Guard "The only thing we do know is that there will be problems. We don't know what will fail. It could affect a small area or a big area or the entire state... I don't want to scare the public, but when we start talking about mobilizing the National Guard, people should realize how serious this is." -Sheryl Albers, Wisconsin State Assembly Representative "It's pretty up in the air what will happen at 12:01 a.m., but the possibilities are endless. I don't think people realize how big of a problem this has the potential for being. This could be a real disaster, and we should have the National Guard out to deal with any problems." -Jeff Plale, Wisconsin State Assembly Representative "It is increasingly evident that an appreciable part of the nation's infrastructure could be adversely affected in some way, by what is commonly referred to as the Y2K problem... The Year 2000 challenges present an emergency scenario unlike any other in our nation's history... Any significant disruption of our computer dependent infrastructure could result in a significant societal disruption." -Major General Edward Philbin, Executive Director, National Guard Association of the United States "We want all of our officers to be available. We're not looking at this as being doomsday or alarmist. We're talking about being prepared." -Sgt. Mike Gaudet, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), which has cancelled leave between mid-November 1999 and late March 2000 for its 16,000 officers "As police, fire and other civilian emergency services make their own plans, military commanders have been told that meeting the threat of the Year 2000 bug is their highest priority and will be the focus of all training from January [1999] on. Equipment purchases that do not contribute to the effort are to be postponed." -From a story in Canada's The Global Mail, 10/27/98, referring to "Operation Abacus" "Somewhere--no one knows where--something will fall apart. I truly believe that someone is going to die because of this problem." -Leonard P. Levine, professor of computer science and electrical engineering, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) "The state needs to work with local governments to develop a network of "safe havens" where people can go if essential services such as power, gas and water are disrupted by year 2000 computer problems." -From a story in The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 10/15/98, citing Pamela Wegner, an executive vice president of Alliant Corp.-Wisconsin Power and Light Co. "No company is an island unto itself... The bad news is if a system goes down anywhere, it probably affects everyone. This is an international, global problem... At least 70% of the world hasn't done anything... I feel really good about people who are still operating in the Stone Age, who don't have computers." -John Koskinen, US Y2K "Czar" "There are no industry statistics on completed vs. delayed Y2K projects... There is a basic lack of data from which statistics might possibly be created. The corporate world, spurred on by well- intentioned lawyers, is co-operating in a convergence, not a conspiracy, of silence." -Peter de Jager, Year 2000 Information Center "Already, government agencies and companies are moving into their spin-control mode. They cannot afford to tell us the truth--they don't want to create panic... As a result, you are going to have to make a decision about what to do without having as much honest information as you would like. And the longer you postpone making a decision, the more you will pay for your procrastination." -Michael Hyatt, author, "The Millennium Bug: How to Survive the Coming Chaos" "Most of what we're being told is dis-information, homogenized truth- lets mixed with wishful thinking, optimistic status reports... Let's mark this one compliant because, well, we hope to get to it next month and we need some good news, the boss wants it." -Cory Hamasaki, mainframe programmer "More people will want to lie and cover-up the problems than fix them. This effect gets stronger the higher in an organization you go. The pressure to cover-up and distort the state of [Y2K] preparedness (or lack of preparations) in an organization is also greater the closer one gets to a lawyer and the further one gets from a programmer." -Robert Cook, P.E., programmer "Some readers still operate under the assumption that concealing the truth is not a fundamental aspect of civil government. They want to believe government officials who come with vaguely hopeful news about Y2K and government preparedness... Governments lie as a matter of policy. The more politically threatening the facts, the more self- consciously the bureaucrats in charge will lie." -Gary North, author and historian "I believe there is a 70% probability of a global recession in 2000... The time has come to act as though we are preparing for a war... Only naove optimists can assume there won't be any malfunctions significant enough to disrupt our global economy... The problem will be a nonevent only if the global computer network is 100% fixed." -Edward Yardeni, Chief Economist, Deutsche Bank Research "The Year 2000 Problem lies at the heart of our economy. To delay our efforts to address this problem is to be inexcusably reckless... Don't panic, but don't spend a lot of time sleeping either." -Senator Bob Bennett, Chairman, Special Senate Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem "There have always been forecasts of impending doom, and those who deliver them again and again are rightly treated with skepticism. But this happens to be a well-documented problem, the first global disaster to unfold right on schedule." -Scott Olmsted, software engineer, founder of prepare4y2k.com "The problem with Y2K is that there aren't a noisy bunch of survivors and relatives of victims who have organized themselves into a cause. Y2K doesn't have a sad-eyed emaciated poster child... The closest we have are a couple big dollar consulting companies that didn't make their revenue projections... Y2K is a leaderless, come as you are, crisis... The good news is that hard times will forge new leaders... The bad news is that people will go hungry, kill, and die." -Cory Hamasaki, mainframe programmer "I would be the last person to suggest we're not going to have some nasty surprises, because I definitely think we will. This is going to have implications for American society and the world that we can't even comprehend... I'm startled to see how little thought our allies have given to the security aspects of Y2K." -John Hamre, Deputy Secretary of Defense "We don't even know yet what we don't know about how Y2K will affect defense. The latest estimates say only twenty-nine percent of our mission-critical systems are now Y2K-compliant." -Retired Lt. Gen. Albert J. Edmonds, former director of the Defense Information Systems Agency, as quoted by The Orlando Sentinel, 11/2/98 "Y2K is like the El Nino of the digital age. It's going to come through, and we don't necessarily know all the patterns that are going to emerge." -Lieutenant General Kenneth Minihan, head of the U.S. National Security Agency "The problem is that normally when people say the end is near, that you should flee to the hills of New Mexico, you can laugh and say the meteor is not going to hit the world. In this particular case, you cannot say, 'No, no, no, that will never happen.' I mean, it is in fact possible, certainly if you stopped everybody's work today and nobody did anything else from now till the end of the next year." -John Koskinen, U.S. Y2K "czar", in the Chicago Tribune, 11/16/98 "The reality of the problem is trivial to prove, the consequences are sure and soon, and it is the most technical, informed, and involved practitioners who are most worried... The difficulties can't be finessed, buried, re-scoped, bought off, reorganized away, or dragged out until they're finally fixed. There is too much complexity to handle, too much damage to undo, too little time to allocate, and too few people to deploy." -Bruce Webster, Chief Technical Officer, Object Systems Group; Chair, Washington, DC Year 2000 Group "If the infrastructure fails--that is, if there is no power, there's no water, no telephone service, no transportation service, it doesn't matter whether an organization is Y2K ready, because nothing else will work... We want to pretend that everything's fine and hope against hope that...somehow we can get it fixed." -Senator Bob Bennett, Chairman, Special Senate Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem "America's infrastructures are a complex array of public and private enterprises with many interdependencies at all levels. These many interdependencies among governments and within key economic sectors could cause a single failure to have adverse repercussions." -Joel C. Willemssen, Director of Information Resources Management, US General Accounting Office (GAO) "From shipping facilities, to global navigation satellites, air traffic control, and customs facilities, the smooth functioning of international trade is dependent upon computer systems and embedded chips. Disruptions in supply lines can quickly shut down entire manufacturing operations... Disruptions and even failures are inevitable." -The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) "I have come late and somewhat reluctantly to the view that we cannot be confident we can deal with all the problems... It is important to prioritize the areas of greatest concern and draw up contingency plans to minimize the difficulties that will arise." -Margaret Beckett, the UK government minister with overall responsibility for Y2K readiness "There's no point in sugarcoating the problem. If we don't fix the century-date problem, we will have a situation scarier than the average disaster movie you might see on a Sunday night... If we don't,...there will be 90 million people...who won't get refunds. The whole financial system of the United States will come to a halt. It's very serious. It not only could happen, it will happen if we don't fix it right." -Charles Rossotti, IRS Commissioner "Failure to achieve compliance with Year 2000 will jeopardize our way of living on this planet for some time to come." -Arthur Gross, former Chief Information Officer, IRS (resigned February, 1998) "For many people, the Year 2000 Crisis is so improbable and so horrifying, it simply cannot be accepted... If a doctor told you there was a 5% chance you had a life-threatening cancer, would you get an X-ray?... I see the Y2K problem in exactly those terms but I believe the probability of deadly consequences is much higher than 5%... I believe it could be the most dangerous and widespread technical calamity ever faced by mankind." -Jim Lord, retired software engineer; author, "A Survival Guide For The Year 2000 Problem" "I think public officials are at some point... going to have to tell the public that they cannot assure them of the food supply, they cannot assure them that the lights will be on, they cannot assure them that the phone system will work, and that they need to make preparations at their community levels to deal with these issues." -Edward Yardeni, Chief Economist, Deutsche Bank Research "What happens if the computers in Los Angeles county don't work and no welfare checks go out?... We have to be prepared for the very real possibility of some kind of emergency legislation and emergency crew put together in the first quarter of 1999 to look at this." -Senator Bob Bennett, Chairman, Special Senate Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem "Systems are very unforgiving. Computer programs, software programs do not allow for single mistakes. You cannot be approximately correct. You are either right or you are wrong. And if the program is wrong, the system, one form or another, breaks down." -Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve Chairman and former programmer "What we don't know is which of the operations in our 75 agencies will fail, but what we do know is that some will fail." -Suzanne Peck, Washington, D.C. Chief Technology Officer "Some systems are going to collapse completely and some will be immune, and we don't know which ones are which until it happens." -Peter Neumann, SRI International, a nonprofit think tank "To the lawyers, this is better than cigarettes made with asbestos. Year 2000 will be the biggest boon to the legal profession in history." -Peter de Jager, Year 2000 Information Center "The more unaware the American people are of this problem, the greater the impact the problem will have later in the year 1999. Eventually the media's going to make this...a major issue. My concern is if they wait until March or June or whenever they hop on this thing and really make it a frontline story...that you can panic people." -Larry Burkett, author and financial teacher "We do not want to confront the frightening truth that we have let computers become essential to our well being, our safety, our health, our very way of life... There is not one shred of evidence, or one success story, that should give anyone the idea that all will be well." -Ed Meagher, Co-host, "The Y2K Advisor", a Washington, DC radio business talk show "I would not allow my family to be in New York City for millennium weekend... I expect New York to resemble Beirut if even a subset of the Y2K infrastructure problems actually materialize." -Ed Yourdon, Mainframe programmer; co-author, "Time Bomb 2000" "I believe that Government is underestimating the seriousness of this extraordinary problem. This is especially true of the vast effort needed, throughout the entire economy, to resolve it. It is wholly unprecedented -- and must be achieved within a desperately short timescale. Yet computing has a dreadful record of missed deadlines. And it is particularly worrying that the resource needed for a comprehensive solution is far greater than can be made available... Don't harangue millennium gurus for preaching fire and brimstone. They're telling the truth!" -Robin Guenier, Executive Director, Task Force 2000 UK "Y2K will be a seminal event of the 20th century of the same importance as the two World Wars and the Great Depression. It will be the principal accelerate in the advent of the Information Age which will alter society and government in ways as profound as the American and French Revolutions. Y2K will be a wild ride." -Anonymous response to survey conducted by the Washington, DC Year 2000 Group "Would you declare a state of emergency if you were informed today that millions of meteors...were due to strike Earth on January 1, 2000? Metaphorically that is the situation we face... Please Mr. President, send the world a wake up call before it's too late." -Professor Leon Kappelman, Co-Chair, Society for Information Management Year 2000 Working Group, in an open letter to President Clinton "This is not a challenge that is susceptible to a single government program or an easy fix... The American people have a right to expect uninterrupted service from government and I expect them to deliver... If we act properly, we won't look back on this as a headache, sort of the last failed challenge of the 20th century. It will be the first challenge of the 21st century successfully met. That is the American way, and together we can do it." -Bill Clinton, in his only speech on Y2K, delivered to the National Academy of Sciences, July 14, 1998 "It is now clear that a large number of Federal computing systems will simply not be prepared for January 2000. At the same time, the utilities industry, the financial services industry, the telecommunications industry, vital modes of transportation, and other indispensable industrial sectors are all at risk. It is time for the President to declare that the Year 2000 Problem is a National Priority. If sufficient progress is not made by an intermediate deadline, he may even need to escalate the Year 2000 Problem to a National Emergency." -Congressman Steven Horn, Subcommittee on Government Management, Information and Technology, 10/8/98 "It's unknowable. You don't really know how big or small the problem is. In truth, it could be only a minor disruption, or the government could crash on a giant scale...Year 2000 is total downside risk for Clinton and Gore. If nothing goes wrong, they get no gain whatsoever. If they [government computers] crash and burn, Mr. Information Superhighway has a real problem and will get a lot of heat." -Newt Gingrich, Speaker of the House "If the critical industries and government agencies don't start to pick up the pace of dealing with this problem right now, Congress and the Clinton Administration are to have to make some very tough decisions to deal with a true national emergency." -Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Vice-Chairman, Senate Special Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem "Leadership has been shockingly absent. If calamity takes place, they [political leaders] will all be blamed. They are wimping out and hoping it will go away by itself... It's outright pathetic that there hasn't been any leadership from a global politician." -Edward Yardeni, Chief Economist, Deutsche Bank Research "The media remain woefully ignorant about Y2K and consistently fail to ask the right questions of those who choose to try and baffle us with waffle and spin. That will all change in the next few months as the extent of the crisis begins to unfold." -Ed Meagher, Co-host, "The Y2K Advisor", writing for y2ktoday.com "The truth is beginning to sink in that we are facing a task of gargantuan proportions, rife with complexities and obstructed by our fear of litigation and personal reprisal... We stayed in denial too long, spent too little and delegated responsibility for solving the problem to the point where triage and contingency planning are now every bit as important as remediation." -Tony Keyes, author, President of The Y2K Investor, in testimony before the House Subcommittee on Technology "The Year 2000 crisis is distinct from any challenge that humanity has faced to date... Wishful disbelief and blind optimism won't shield us from the very real and likely consequences of Y2K. In fact, it could well make them worse." -Bruce Webster, Chief Technical Officer, Object Systems Group; Chair, Washington, DC Year 2000 Group "If today were December 31, 1999, and our systems were in the current state they are in today, tomorrow our economy worldwide would stop. It wouldn't grind to a halt. It would snap to a halt... Come January 1st, if it isn't fixed, it is broken." -Peter de Jager, Year 2000 Information Center; author of "Doomsday 2000" article published in Computerworld in 1993 "The Y2K repair job cannot be done in the time remaining... When the major breaks happen, they will happen so fast and take so much out at the same time that the village will be swept away before we realize what's happened... When the failures occur, the damage will be done and will be irreversible." -Cory Hamasaki, mainframe programmer "The widespread mantra I hear over and over again is "Bill Gates will fix it". The official position of Microsoft is that this is a problem that everyone must fix on his own. It is too big and overwhelming for even Microsoft." -Edward Yardeni, Chief Economist, Deutsche Bank Research "Whenever someone brings up the possibility of our entire computer- based economy collapsing because of this year 2000 thing, it just makes me laugh. All Congress needs to do is instead of calling the year 2000 the year 2000, call it 1950. That way, we have another 50 years to solve the problem." -Dan Quayle, former Vice President "There's a way of fooling the system by just taking all the dates you put in and subtracting 30 years before you put them in and adding 30 years when you put them out. There are some clever ways to get around it." -Bill Gates, Chairman, Microsoft, in response to a question on what companies can do about Y2K "Anyone who says that Y2K is a solvable problem ought to be able to present a technically workable solution...as well as a politically acceptable way to persuade every organization on earth to adopt it and apply it in the time remaining, including all those that have started their repairs using conflicting standards and approaches." -Gary North, author and historian "Now ask yourself who's profiting by this Y2K panic mentality? Who becomes more essential to the culture if computers become our focal point? Computer geeks! Propeller heads! Systems and Engineering staff! Aren't they those inscrutable people with offices in the basement who sip soup out of thermos bottles and watch "The Flintstones" late at night? Yes, Y2K is the "Revenge of the Nerds"!" -Tony Kornheiser, syndicated columnist

Six steps to Y2K awareness  Realize isolated failures of critical infrastructure components are likely  Acknowledge and understand the interdependence of global infrastructure components  Realize the significance of every infrastructure component being struck at the same time (simultaneity)  Acknowledge your own dependence of infrastructure components  Become aware of the thinness of the supply lines  Understand why public cannot be told the truth

Personal preparedness "A prudent man sees danger and takes refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it." -Proverbs 22:3 "There are no emergencies for those who are truly prepared." -James Talmadge Stevens "One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half." -Winston Churchill "The greatest antidote to worry, whether you're getting ready for spaceflight or facing a problem of daily life, is preparation... The more you try to envision what might happen and what your best response and options are, the more you are able to allay your fears about the future." -Senator John Glenn "There is simply no way to know with any certainty how it will unfold. The possible bad outcomes are so great, however, that it is rational to prepare for at least some of them." -Scott Olmsted, software engineer, founder of prepare4y2k.com "Pay attention to the things that are vulnerable in your life and make contingency plans." -Senator Bob Bennett, Chairman, Special Senate Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem "This the first time in human history we have had a global technical failure... The range of...possibilities is so severe that you can only...come to one judgment: This is something we ought to prepare for, even if it doesn't happen." -Jim Lord, retired software engineer; author, "A Survival Guide For The Year 2000 Problem" "Since there is no agency that's set up to handle nationwide emergencies, then that means we're going to be falling back onto our own resources in our towns and neighborhoods to meet what ever crises do occur." -Paloma O'Riley, founder, The Cassandra Project, an internationally recognized organization that is helping communities prepare for Y2K disruptions "What we do - as individuals, as societies and communities - over the next few months will make an enormous difference to how serious Y2K becomes... But what disturbs most is that the dominant message in our culture at the moment is not about Y2K preparedness." -Robert Theobald, author and economist "It's impossible for me to imagine an outcome without a lot of disruptions in the U.S. My precautions may be overkill, but I don't think what we do will be to no avail. I buy term life insurance each year. When I have to renew, I don't sit there regretting the fact that I haven't died so I could collect on the policy." -Jay Golter, founder, Northern Virginia Y2K Community Action Group "There are going to be some interruptions. I know what I'm going to do: get enough cash aside to run me two or three weeks, get food for a month. I'm going to do some short-term hedging. Anyone who doesn't is crazy." -Tom Soeder, chairman and CEO of RMM Inc., which produces software tools for making computer programs Y2K compliant "Orders are up about 1,000 percent since the first of the year. And the amount of people who will want a generator now is nothing compared to the amount of people who will want a generator later. Now with this Y2K thing it's gone crazy." -Loren Day, president, China Diesel Imports, the largest US distributor of diesel generators, whose shipments are 6 months behind as of 11/98 "Individuals should prepare for limited duration, localized failures of services and infrastructure rather than an apocalypse. The type and number of failures will vary geographically and cannot really be predicted. Individuals should ensure that they have at least two weeks' salary in cash and up to five days' contingency supplies of key consumable materials (e.g., medication, fuel and food) that they might need." -GartnerGroup, Year 2000 Risk Assessment and Planning for Individuals, 10/28/98 "The American people need to be aware and be involved. We must have ongoing and realistic assessments of the potential for problems across the plethora of impacted services. A public caught off-guard by major failures on January 1, 2000 could result in devastating long- term impact on the welfare of this great nation." -Sergeant John S. Powell, University of California Police Dept., testifying before the Senate Special Committee, 10/2/98 "The Y2K technology problem involves several dimensions and touches upon nearly every aspect of day-to-day business in the world. The efforts of emergency management and fire service organizations cannot be viewed as a substitute for personal responsibility and personal preparedness. Every organization and every individual, in public and private life, has an obligation to learn more about this problem and their vulnerability, so that they may take appropriate action to prevent a problem before it occurs." -Lacy Suiter, Executive Associate Director for Response and Recovery, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) How long will disruptions last? * minor - 2-3 days * moderate - a month * serious - a year * catastrophic - a decade Each of these time periods is an order of magnitude longer, and thus requires a qualitatively different strategy  Educate yourself!!!  Paper copies of all financial records, etc.  Have plenty of water available  Have extra provisions on hand (cash, food, alternative heat sources, medicine, etc.)  Get involved (write letters, educate others)  Prepare for the worst, hope for the best  The time to prepare is now!!!

Internet Resources "My Web site has moved from "ignored" (early '97) to "crackpot" (late '97) to "extreme" (early '98) to "alarming" (this has now begun). It will move to "controversial" (late '98) to "comprehensive" (early '99) to "widely quoted" (mid-'99) to...nothing (2000)." -Gary North, author and historian, who provides links to over 2,700 Y2K articles at his site (and adds 5-10 links daily)  Gary North (www.garynorth.com)  Latest headlines (www.y2knews.com)  Senate Special Committee (www.senate.gov/~y2k/)  Ed Yourdon (www.yourdon.com)  Ed Yardeni (www.yardeni.com)  Cory Hamasaki (www.sonnet.co.uk/muse/dcwrp.html)  Rick Cowles (www.euy2k.com)  Peter de Jager (www.year2000.com)  Westergaard Year 2000 (www.y2ktimebomb.com)  The Cassandra Project (www.millennia-bcs.com)  Numerous other websites, newsgroups, etc.

Other resources  Ed Yourdon, "Time Bomb 2000: What the Year 2000 Computer Crisis Means to You!" (1998)  Michael Hyatt, "The Millennium Bug: How to Survive the Coming Chaos" (1998)  Jim Lord, "A Survival Guide For The Year 2000 Problem" (1998)  Timothy J. Wilbur, "The Year 2000 Millennium Bug Report" (1998)  Peter de Jager, "Managing '00: Surviving the Year 2000 Computing Crisis" (1997)  Boy Scout Manual

Y2K Myths Revisited  There's plenty of time  Someone will find a quick fix soon  Only mainframe computers are affected  We are throwing enough money and people at the problem to fix it  With so many new computers out there, we can't be vulnerable to a problem created 40+ years ago  Large companies will make it; small ones won't  With luck, it won't affect me

Quotes "Long-run salvation by men of business has never been highly regarded if it means disturbance of orderly life and convenience in the present. So inaction will be advocated in the present even though it means deep trouble in the future. Here, at least equally with communism, lies the threat to capitalism. It is what causes men who know that things are going quite wrong to say that things are fundamentally sound." -John Kenneth Galbraith, Great Crash 1929 "We've arranged a society based on science and technology. But the population knows very little about science. This combustible mixture of power and ignorance is a frightening recipe for disaster." -Carl Sagan, The Charlie Rose "Owing to past neglect, in the face of the plainest warnings, we have now entered upon a period of danger. The era of procrastination, of half measures,...of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences...We cannot avoid this period, we are in it now." -Winston Churchill, 11/12/1936, Testimony to the House Of Commons: Debate on National Defense Posture "Competing pressures tempt one to believe that an issue deferred is a problem avoided. More often it is a crisis invented." -Henry Kissinger, Time Magazine, 1975 "If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization." -Gerald Weinberg, The Psychology of Computer Programming "More software projects have gone awry for lack of calendar time than for all other causes combined." -Frederick P. Brooks, Jr., The Mythical Man-Month "I believe that Y2K will either unify or polarize families and communities with each passing day--the difference will be whether or not we take prudent action now, or procrastinate further." -Craig Smith, founder, Y2KNET "Either you can ignore the Year 2000 Problem and go on with life...or you can begin now taking steps to prepare for what may be the worst disaster our world has experienced in centuries. If you choose the former, you may end up a victim. If you choose the latter, you may ensure that you and your loved ones survive this crisis in one piece. It's up to you." -Michael Hyatt, author, "The Millennium Bug: How to Survive the Coming Chaos"

-- Steve Hartsman (hartsman@ticon.net), December 02, 1998.

Jeeze -

I completely skipped over that. I'm sure it was comprehensive, though.

One thing you might want to include, Leo, would something like this:

http:// www.yardeni.com/public/y_19981130.pdf

This is an Ed Yardeni partial list of S&P 500 SEC10-Q Y2K statements. These are the statments that companies make to the US government regarding their status. And they don't all sound like PR brochures.

You can also find these filings elsewhere...

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), December 02, 1998.