Dear EVERYONE/ANYONE, /B-R\ et al:

[I'll begin these questions with (b's) quote -below- (in a reply) from the NRC doc, that requested public feedback before Feb 15th:]

/// "The NERC drill in April is practice for handling possible telecom outages. From the URL you gave: "The PSN (Public Switched Network) is so vast and complex that it is impractical to perform a rigorous quantitative reliability analysis. Despite the fact that recent studies conclude that the probability of a widespread outage is low, there have been two widespread outages within the last year caused by network signaling software problems. Both of these outages were attributed to a company that provides network signaling capability to small telephone companies." "\\\ (endquote)

1) OK. Most of the Y2K spokespersons (Lord, et al) are stating that the GPS/telcom/utilities vulnerabilities/problems are very minor. Right? (Despite how problematic the NRC & NERC (etc) documents might sound in related sections.) Great.

2) BUT: Concern is ^also^ expressed by many others, that the utilities (NERC,telcom,etc) are *seemingly* not addressing the April 9th test (etc) in an ethical & responsible manner. [eg: choosing THAT very date, to TEST - when malfunctions might occur- anyway!- not to mention many other even more EXTREMELY valid-&-relevant questions...regarding same??? that I've read...herein & elsewhere.]

3) OK so: -Then- WHY is there NOT more information available, covering GOVERNMENT dialog with/between Telecommunications & Utilities, +concerning+ these issues? GPS etc.

(BECAUSE:) 4) WOULDN'T we have read Senate Hearings, (mucho ETC/Gov. reports similar) by now, *IF* these issues were actually as *vulnerable* as they sound...in the related NRC/NERC and documents???

[[[Alternatively, we'd have to assume that the lines of communication between these various agencies are regretably insulated, meager, problematic, or otherwise ... non-existent???!]]]

Right?

5) Finally: I am very confused to learn (via North's site) that ANY *pertinent* official information about GPS-(Y2K rollover in Aug.,)- on the web, is now kaput!? No longer available. No longer public domain. (Closed 'happy-face' statements - with no real Info available re: to all this....)

So what's the deal? /What is the real story? Am I braindead-stupid here?? Anyone in the KNOW care to educate me???

db

-- Anonymous, February 17, 1999

Answers

Another reasonable conjecture is that the lines of communication are in place, but have been closed to the public (as in the GPS site example). It's unlikely that anyone in a position of influence with unrestricted access to information has any more certainty of what to expect than those on this forum. Given a high level of official uncertainty, keeping all conversations and decisions under wraps is hardly surprising.

Watch what is done, not what is said.

-- Anonymous, February 17, 1999

Of course the same response might be likely if those in charge are quite certain that coming events wil not be trivial.

-- Anonymous, February 17, 1999

Personally, I'm confused about the amount of information (or lack of) that the government seems to have. I've been struck by a statement I keep reading. Various government representatives keep saying that they have NO authority or control to "force" utilities or pharmaceutical companies or oil companies into seeking Y2K compliance. They can only....ask. However, in the past, the government has certainly stepped in when the airlines were striking and years ago when the truckers were striking. In those cases, the President intervened in the name of national security. Well, how much more of an excuse do they need?

If the pharmaceutical companies don't gear up now; there could be some serious shortages of insulin, heart medication, asthma inhalers...whatever. The companies have indicated that they don't necessarily want to gear up if it's for a "short term" (not profitable). Fine, but shortages mean people will die. So where's the government? The same goes for the Water utilities. There are over a thousand of them and they are all over the board as far as size and reliance on embedded systems and software goes. But, if they are not compliant, people could die; enmasse. Flouride is a deadly poison when used in high quantities and a Y2K glitch could cause that exact problem. It happened during a test in Australia. They reckoned that (if they hadn't been testing and therefore looking for the problems) a dump of chemicals into the water supply the size of which the Y2K error was going to do, would have killed off their entire water district's population. I can see the campaigning parties now.. "You killed them" "No, You killed them." E-gad it would be enough to get Ross Perot elected.

What's going on here? I really don't get why the government insists they can not interfer with Y2K efforts of the public companies when lives are at stake.

Also, there is legislation currently being debated which was proposed by Senator Tom Bliley (a BIG fan of BIG business). The Senator has recieved handsome sums from lobby interests such as tobbacco, pharmaceuticals and a couple hundred thou. from the Chemical Industry. His legislation will take all information about chemical plants off the NET; just like the GPS. He insists he is protecting America from possible terrorists who would read the NET and glean inside info; but I got to think (based on his past history) that he is REALLY protecting his friends from disclosing their potentially dangerous Y2K status. For those of you that haven't already read it, the January GAO Report to the House of Representatives was pretty informative (except on the public-domain stuff of course; rail, maritime, oil, utilities (what else is there right). No,actually, it is definetly worth reading end to end. They clearly expect major disruptions in the rest of the world. Here's the URL:

http://www.access.gpo.gov/cgi- bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=gao&docid=f:ai99050t.txt.pdf

-- Anonymous, February 17, 1999

Tom, Meg...et al..

I read folks like you both, and just nod & sigh...over&over.

There is this outraged-disbelief feeling so many of us are experiencing...as we attempt to work through this maze.

Joel Willensen (sp?) has got to be a courageous saint. You know who I mean.

[Personally speaking - I hate losing an intellectual challenge, and know I am in good company. But this Y2K Issue makes Philosophy of Science, Theoretical Math/Physics, etc. look like child's play!!

(It's like *living* in an M.C. ESCHER print; gordian knot, mobius strip, or Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, for heavensake!)]

Thanks for your comments and leads...

-- Anonymous, February 18, 1999

Gary North is wrong. There is more information on GPS. You have to look carefully.

-- Anonymous, February 18, 1999

Where, Reporter - (look at comments under GPS posts, talk to them please?? I'm listening...)

-- Anonymous, February 18, 1999

This is part of what Reporter is talking about: ftp://www.nerc.com/pub/sys/all_updl/docs/y2k/generatio n-testing-strategies.pdf This is a link to a NERC document that contains the following:

"How does one address where the DCS is synched with EMS through GPS? DCS may be divorced from EMS.

DCS stands for Distributed Control System
EMS stands for Energy Management System

GPS is GPS. There is some kind of connection going on between the two systems that uses a satellite. This is now proven by this NERC document. This document also states that it is possible to work around the problem. This may be one of the tests that will happen on April 9. This document is very helpful for understanding the state of the industry. It also explained to me more concerning the Nova Scotia testing. It states:

"Nova Scotia - all devices rolled forward that could be, staggered basis (Bailey), may leave them for a couple of years"

This is a clear indication that some devices couldn't be rolled forward. It also raises the question: "Who is Bailey?" Perhaps someone here can help with that. A document like this could be more prominently published. It expresses reason for confidence in those who have taken action to eliminate risk in the electricity industry in a very pragmatic way. It also reveals places where more needs to be done, which also instills confidence that the report is reliable, and that those fixing the problem are not subject to baseless confidence. I hope this helps.

-- Anonymous, February 19, 1999

I wanted to let you all know about this article in case you haven't seen it:

"Smoke Testing" is the kind of thing you do when you roll the clocks forward and "see what happens." You can kind of feel that it may not be a good idea in every circumstance. When developing software you can "reboot." You aren't dealing with things that are actually being used. With software it is much easier to build a duplicate infrastructure (in some cases). In the pysical world, you are dealing with physical objects. But there is a reason why the software world has found "smoke tests" to be of high value on risky projects.

I think that I am partially disagreeing with this article when I say that I wouldn't avoid a smoke test altogether. My reason is simple. Wouldn't it be better to test before the clocks enter the danger zone? I would say "yes." It is better to fail early and avoid the rush! I don't think that a smoke test should be the first thing performed, however. It would make more sense that it be the "last" thing. I say "last" in quotes because, it shouldn't be left until the last. What if something does go wrong? You will need time to fix it. It is also a thing that NERC could "stagger" so that in any given part of the grid, there wouldn't be too many "smoke tests" going on at the same time. Bonnie, Jon, Diane and All: I am interested in your comments.

-- Anonymous, February 19, 1999

Oops..
The here's the link again:

Testing for Y2K Readiness

-- Anonymous, February 19, 1999