The Russian Riddle (NY Times)

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June 23, 1999

COUNTING TO 2000 -- THE RUSSIAN RIDDLE

Lagging on Year 2000 Bug, Russia Opens Big Drive

By MICHAEL WINES

MOSCOW -- Armed with thick repair manuals and rosters of experts, Russian officials have opened an all-out campaign to expel the so-called year 2000 bug from the nation's eight million computers, their microchips and their programs.

But 60 miles south of the Kremlin in the little town of Stupino, Mike Tuffs is not waiting for the victory party. Tuffs, regional technology manager for Mars Inc., the American candy maker, asked the regional government and utility officials last year how they planned to deal with the bug.

What he found was that many did not know that their equipment was vulnerable and that others believed -- wrongly -- that they were already protected.

Mars has since outfitted its two Russian factories so that they can continue some production during power and water breakdowns, and it is stockpiling raw materials in anticipation of transportation and customs problems.

"Our greatest concern is for public utilities and state organizations," Tuffs said. "It would appear that many public organizations are not aware of the equipment that they use and how they interact and how a failure in one area will affect another."

What worries Tuffs also rattles the technology chiefs of other companies, as well as computer experts and consultants. They say Russia has awakened to the year 2000 threat too late, spread the alarm too thinly and has far too little money to perform much more than digital triage on the Government and economy.

"There's a potential for major damage to the infrastructure," said Andrei N. Terekhov, a mathematician from St. Petersburg and the general director of Lanit-Terkom, a business that works on year 2000 problems.

The difficulties arise from longtime reliance of computer programs on two-digit date fields for any year, with 19 presumed to be the preceding digits. Many programs were custom written by people who have died, dropped out sight or have moved to Western Europe or the United States and are working on the problem there.

"There are obsolete applications on which, very often, entire factories, banks and real-time critical systems depend," Terekhov said.

There is also the potential that not much will happen. Government officials say they are addressing all problems in critical areas like atomic energy and nuclear missiles. American officials said they were confident that human safeguards would prevent accidental launchings.

The semiprivate companies that supply power, gas and other essential services say they are at work, too.

In addition, Russia enjoys a peculiar advantage. Because it has been slow to adopt computer technology, many functions like factory processes can be run manually.

Alexander Miasnikov, a representative here of the Gartner Group, technology consultants from Connecticut, said in an e-mail posting that most major Russian companies would solve year 2000 problems in their central operations, but that "in remote branches there can be some problems."

The Government predicted in April that even if its assault on the year 2000 bug proceeded as planned, up to a fifth of all computers would malfunction in January. With 56,000 Government computer systems, 16,000 of them critical, officials worry about everything from inoperative elevators to a freeze-up in the network that is supposed to tabulate the vote in the parliamentary election on Jan. 12.

Many software programs used outside big businesses are illegally copied.

"I can't and shouldn't say either that something is not going to happen or speak of catastrophic outcomes," said Aleksandr Krupnov, the chairman of the state Committee on Telecommunications and Information Technology, which is leading the effort on the year 2000. "I stick to something in the middle."

The Government effort began in earnest in the fall. Regional centers were set up to certify technicians whom businesses could hire. A Government-wide inspection of equipment and new backup plans were ordered. American officials familiar with the plans said Moscow was serious and focused. Nevertheless, the problems are huge. An estimated two-thirds of the desktop computers need repair. But most owners cannot be warned. Many manufacturers are out of business or lack sales records.

Many programs used outside big businesses are bootlegged, illegally copied. Hundreds of military and industrial tasks rely on programs that are decades old, written by programmers who may have left Russia. And nearly everyone is too broke to spend on a nebulous bug, anyway.

The Government said its repairs would cost $1 billion to $3 billion. That is up to one-seventh of a Federal budget that already cannot pay some pensions and debts.

Most agencies have been told to raid their budgets to solve the problems. One expert here said some businesses were having trouble because the Western suppliers whose equipment needs upgrading have yet to be paid, and they are refusing to make repairs until they receive their money.

Much of the nation is uninterested or unaware of the threat. An informal survey of 50 civic leaders in Irkutsk, a city of 500,000 on the Mongolian border, showed that 20 had heard of year 2000 defects.

Ron Lewin, a computer consultant here who also heads the technology committee of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia, said:

"At this point, contingency planning is the most important element, developing plans on what to do if there is no water or no electricity. There's not a lot of time left, and there's a high likelihood of failure for some of the utilities."

4 Million to Repair Weapons Systems

The one area where catastrophe seems all but impossible is in nuclear weapons.

Officials say most crucial military computers, including those in the nuclear force, use programs that are not date sensitive, rendering them immune to year 2000 problems.

Russian and American officials allow that in a worst-case scenario early warning systems could send false signals as the satellites on which they rely drift slowly out of alignment. But because such errors have been anticipated, the chances that they would lead to a nuclear strike are all but nil.

Any remaining problems are so small, officers contend, that they can be erased with the installation soon of a mere $4 million worth of new computers and programs.

Washington and Moscow have also proposed exchanging radar information and other figures this winter to diminish the risk of misinterpretations. Russia has said it is suspending cooperation on year 2000 problems to protest the United States' role in the NATO attack on Yugoslavia. But that seems highly unlikely to affect nuclear weapons seriously.

Experts appear to believe that midwinter losses of electricity or other basic services will cause hardship in many areas, but stop short of human catastrophe. Brownouts and other breakdowns could cause millions of dollars in damage to industrial complexes like smelters and steel mills that depend on continuous power supplies. Telephone and data-transmission disruptions could leave businesses without the basic information that they need to compile bills and settle accounts.

The experts also are concerned about nuclear reactors and other highly complex sites. The fear is that workers usually adept at handling problems could be overwhelmed by four, five or six minor failures at once.

Russia does not depend on technology as much as the West, meaning that the damage could be limited. Soviet administrators sharply restricted the use of computers. The seven million desktops, 150,000 servers and several thousand mainframes in use are not extensive for such a technologically muscular country.

Although many factories operate with 1950's-technology hand switches and analog gauges, the industrial spine -- oil and gas pipelines, electrical grids, telephone systems and transportation networks -- all rely on microchips and computers to run smoothly.

Much of Russia and Europe's natural gas flows through the Siberian pipeline that belongs to Gazprom, a monopoly that the Government still largely owns. The Central Intelligence Agency says the mainframe computers at Gazprom almost certainly require revamping, as may be the case with microchips at hundreds of remote pumping stations.

Gazprom officials say they can handle any problems, perhaps by placing workers at the remote pumping stations. But the utility has not released details.

The electricity monopoly, Unified Energy Systems, said this month that 17,000 of its 50,000 computers had failed to meet year 2000 standards.

"We think that by September we will be able to replace the most important and vital parts of the system," a press release said. "We will try to renovate the rest by the end of the year."

Challenge for Airlines and Air Control

The Government says that it is renovating the only two major air-traffic-control centers that depend on digital computers, in Moscow and Rostov-on-Don, and that others do not require upgrades.

But most of the 400-odd Russian aviation companies have computers with year 2000 problems. The International Civil Aviation Organization is asking the Russian airlines and plane manufacturers for information on their preventive measures. In the spring, Russian insurance companies raised the rates charged airline companies in anticipation of year 2000 risks.

The Gartner Group, the consulting firm, ranks Russia among the worst prepared nations for the year 2000 transition. Gartner predicts a month of turmoil in Russian financial markets, two months for utilities and hospital and three months for transportation and telecommunications.

Other American specialists, though, say they believe that the Russians will weather whatever January brings by virtue of two proficiencies. One is their expertise in programming and maintaining computers, a skill honed by years of military spending. Russia may be poor, those experts say, but it has a corps of computer technologists deserving of any Westerner's envy.

The other advantage is the ability to deal with adversities. Suspensions of power, water and telephone service would cripple most Western cities. In much of Russia, such breakdowns are a fact of life.

International Firms Make Their Own Plans

But many multinational companies that have conducted their own research -- Nestli, British Petroleum and Global One, an international telecommunications concern -- have elected to prepare for trouble.

Mars candy executives say they expect power and telephone blackouts in early January, followed by weeks of scheduled brownouts.

To avoid any tieup of imports and exports in customs offices, Mars will suspend international shipments around Jan. 1.

The company also has begun to educate local officials and businesses about the problem, part of a longstanding effort to maintain good relations with Moscow and the region. The need is there, Tuffs said. In some cases, Mars has received written assurances from officials outside Stupino that the area is ready for the new year, even when the company's examination proved otherwise.

Executives at Global One said the long-distance networks were safe, but planned to beef up emergency power supplies at a computer center downtown. Most local calls are routed and timed by a switch whose maker no longer exists, according to Lawrence Haw, a telecommunications consultant here.

"It's not year 2000 compatible," Haw said. "There's nobody to work on this switch. There haven't been any software upgrades. There's no vendor for the switch any more. So who's going to do the upgrades?"

Against this backdrop of possible chaos and uncertainty, more than a few Russian experts bridle at the notion that their efforts may not meet Western standards. When a top computer specialist at the Russian Federal Aviation Service, Boris V. Mikhailovich, was asked by a reporter whether year 2000 preparations at air-traffic-control centers were adequate, he had a ready response.

"What do you think I am?" he asked. "An enemy of my own people?"

-- Gayla Dunbar (privacy@please.com), June 23, 1999

Answers

"With 56,000 Government computer systems, 16,000 of them critical, officials worry about everything from inoperative elevators to a freeze-up in the network that is supposed to tabulate the vote in the parliamentary election on Jan. 12."

Why does Russia have almost 3 times the number of critical systems compared to the U.S.? Maybe the DGI that last week said that the Russians electrical power systems were not reliant upon computers could explain this to me?

-- Cary Mc from Tx (Caretha@compuserve.com), June 23, 1999.


I know exactly what will happen to Mars come the beginning of next year. It was written long ago......

They will form a partnership with another company......

And Jupiter aligns with Mars.....This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius........

-- Craig (craig@ccinet.ab.ca), June 23, 1999.


Thanks Gayla,

"But many multinational companies that have conducted their own research -- Nestli, British Petroleum and Global One, an international telecommunications concern -- have elected to prepare for trouble.

Mars candy executives say they expect power and telephone blackouts in early January, followed by weeks of scheduled brownouts."

Humm.

One of my Silicon Valley neighbors, working for one of the BIG iron computer companies has told us to expect some blackouts at the turn and then lots of brownouts.

The difficulty with brownouts is often you don't know when they'll happen and they can fry the electronic equipment or fridges, et. al., as I understand it, with uneven power fluctuations.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), June 23, 1999.


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