A heads-up:

Ed Meagher has a new editorial, "The Binary Question" on http://www.y2ktoday.com:

"The Binary Question: Yes or No; Are you today, in your primary operational environment, using the hardware, the software, the networks, the databases, the embedded system and the practices and procedures that you will be using Jan. 1, 2000?"

http://www.y2ktoday.com/modules/home/default.asp?feature=true&id=1784

-- Candace Feit (cfeit@idefense.com), July 13, 1999

Answers

Essentially, what he's saying is that if you want to jump across a six-foot ditch, a 95% leap (5.7 feet) isn't good enough.

-- A (A@AisA.com), July 13, 1999.

Best line:

"We have been persuaded to accept relative values for absolute information." - Ed Meagher

-- M.C. Hicks (mhicks@greenwich.com), July 13, 1999.

The Binary Question: Yes or No; Are you today, in your primary operational environment, using the hardware, the software, the networks, the databases, the embedded system and the practices and procedures that you will be using Jan. 1, 2000?

At this point in time the binary question is the only question worth asking. Why? As Benjamin Disraeli said, "there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." What are we being told? Well if you visit the site for the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion -- the official Y2K site for the United States government -- you will find the following news headlines:

* Employment Security Commission Says its Computers Are Y2K Ready

* OPM Says Pay and Benefits Systems are Y2K-ready

* Nation's Buildings OK for Y2K

* Poll Says Y2K Fears Declining

* Air Force Official Declares Y2K Preparedness A-OK

* Navy Says it is Winning Battle With Y2K

* DOE: Electricity Grid in "Good Shape" for Y2K

* 92% of Federal Computers Ready for 2000

There are several dozen additional news items listed and each one has a similar message. If I was just getting around to deciding how I feel about the Y2K issue and what -- if anything -- I needed to do about it, these news stories might lead me to make several false assumptions. I might believe that the United States is finished preparing for Y2K, or I might believe that any problems that occur would be minor. As a result, I might believe that prudent, responsible personal preparation is unnecessary for what will obviously be a "non-event."

That is in fact the intention of the remarks and the conclusions that some people making them want us to draw. Many of these "happy talk" articles use statistics such as "94 percent compliant" or "85 percent completed" or "98 percent ready" to describe the progress being made in dealing with these Y2K-related problems.

Non-relative numbers like this fall into the third category of lies. Is 94 percent of the speed required for an airplane to fly good enough? Does a bridge that is 85 percent completed serve its purpose? Is a smoke detector that is 98 percent ready really ready? We have been persuaded to accept relative values for absolute information. These statistics are purposeful. They are proffered to encourage an argument that is both non-winnable and essentially meaningless. I encourage you to question these statistics.

However, in most cases these statistics are offered by companies and government agencies and accepted by the media in good faith. If 92 percent of the snow is cleared after a major snowstorm the city administration will declare victory and try to do better next time. If 85 percent of the planes in a company's fleet are fully operational there may be some minor delays and inconveniences but the company is still in business.

However, we miss an important part of Y2K remediation when we apply this rationale: Fixing 8,317 of 8,318 lines of code in a critical computer program may not be good enough. Finding and fixing 99 percent of the embedded chips in a water treatment plant that are date dependent may not be enough to provide safe drinking water.

The computer industry has always had the luxury of taking whatever amount of time was required to get a system to a point where it was ready enough to perform its primary functions. Keep in mind the fact that 86 percent of all commercial computer systems that that were ever created were either cancelled or delivered late, or over budget, or less than fully functional.

The single most critical misperception is that the Y2K problem is like any other problem. It is not. We are a computer dependent society. Like it or not, with or without your permission, several billion of us have turned our economies, our governments, our businesses, and in some cases our own wellbeing over to large, complex computer systems. This has overwhelmingly been a good thing. It is only when a blazingly simple logic fault such as Y2K requires us to analyze, fix, test, and re-implement most of these systems in a very finite period of time that the unique nature of Y2K becomes apparent.

So what can we do? Ask the Binary Question. If the answer is yes than you know the most useful information there is to know. This company, this agency, this business, this government is as ready as it is possible to be for the Y2K rollover. Not only have they completed their remediation and testing but they have also done it soon enough and well enough to be able to trust it for their primary business purposes. They understand and can control their environment to the extent that they can deal with non-compliant suppliers and customers.

A "yes" says that they have weathered the testing and re- implementation of their systems and are confident enough in their efforts to trust their work in a real world environment. A "yes" says that this entity has the time to continue testing and to focus on contingency planning so that they will be as ready as it is possible for Jan. 1, 2000.

A "no" says many things. It will almost certainly be followed by "but" and then some statistic meant to reassure that we are close to a yes. Most "no but"s are sincere and hopeful statements of future intentions -- but we all know how often good intentions fall short. A "no but" should make us concerned. It should be considered along with all the other "yes"es and "no but"s we hear as we make our own personal decision about what constitutes prudent, responsible preparation.

I encourage everyone to ask the Binary Question of their governments, their banks, their electric utilities, their hospitals, and everyone else whose continued effective operation they depend upon. I hope there are many "yeses. This information will go along way to instill confidence and avoid any chance of panic.

That is certainly a good point. If you aren't using it now, you can't be "ready". You're still "hoping" real hard.

-- Jon Williamson (jwilliamson003@sprintmail.com), July 13, 1999.

"Essentially, what he's saying is that if you want to jump across a six-foot ditch, a 95% leap (5.7 feet) isn't good enough."

-- A (A@AisA.com), July 13, 1999.

When your chin smashes into the opposite (y2k) edge, and you start to slide, just dig in those fingernails!(read "fix on failure").

Don't look down! >@######~~~ (name the animal?).

-- hopethatsagaitornotacroc! (midwestmike_@hotmail.com), July 13, 1999.

Is that "Binary Question" enough to ask? The answer could be yes, yes, yes and again yes, this is what we'll be using next year. But those platforms and systems may still be vulnerable to Y2K-related errors which may not occur till 01/01/2000 or thereafter.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), July 13, 1999.

Try again, with hindsight.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), July 13, 1999.