Europe's Vulnerable Exposed To Y2K Threat

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Europe's Vulnerable Exposed To Y2K Threat

Updated 1:16 PM ET July 28, 1999By Neil Winton

LONDON (Reuters) - If you think that high technology hardly touches your world, watch out -- the millennium computer bug could seriously damage your life.

Retirees, the long-term unemployed and those dependent on Europe's huge welfare system rely on regular injections of cash from governments to make ends meet. To them, computers are mostly a vaguely threatening but far-off complication for those in the world of work.

But welfare state recipients depend on a massive computerized infrastructure for the delivery of their benefits. These huge systems are often run by old computers and administered by underfunded organizations.

They look like prime candidates for attack from the millennium bug. It doesn't matter much if a computer crashes and your new car is not delivered on time. But real hardship soon ensues if pensions or dole checks stop.

"We would expect to see embarrassing disruptive failures in government computer systems which will impact on spending programs and social security," said Andy Kyte, analyst with U.S. information technology research company Gartner Group.

Computers are exposed to a problem that sounds almost too trivial to be true.

In the 1970s and 1980s, computer programmers saved what was then valuable space by abbreviating years to two digits -- like 97 or 85 -- knowing that this would cause mayhem in 2000. Computers would be unable to make sense of the last two zeros in 2000 and would crash or start pumping out erroneous data.

Because of the fast moving nature of information technology, there was a widely held belief that this problem would have been overtaken by events before 2000 dawned.

This assumption was false, and companies and governments around the world are scurrying to fix the problem in time.

GOVERNMENTS SLOW TO MOBILISE

The Gartner Group said this would cost between $300 billion and $600 billion worldwide to fix. Companies have spent huge sums to cure the problem. But governments find it more difficult to mobilize resources to fix what some people dismiss as a fictitious problem.

In Europe, the wide-ranging German and French welfare systems are causing concern. Spain, Italy, and Belgium also have huge social security systems.

Robin Guenier, executive director of Britain's Taskforce 2000, a privately funded organization seeking to raise awareness of the millennium bug, has been scathing in his criticism of the British government's plans to thwart the problem.

But Guenier does concede that Britain's efforts compare favorably even with the perceived leader, the United States.

Britain has also been relatively open about its problems.

"We know they (Germany and France) started later. We know they do have very old legacy mainframe systems running social security systems in Germany and France," Guenier said.

"We haven't finished but the U.K. is doing quite well. Germany and France surely cannot have finished. So little information is available from either country and that's an indicator that things could be very bad," Guenier said.

Ian Taylor, an opposition Conservative member of parliament and former minister for technology, is impressed with progress in Britain and the Netherlands.

"I'm not so sure about the public sector in France and Germany. Whenever I ask their MPs they've not been very impressed about what they've learned from their governments," Taylor said.

"I have seen no objective evidence that software systems have been thoroughly analyzed and inspected in the big continental welfare systems," Taylor said.

Taylor said compared with the business world, government officials had less motivation to fix the problem. But firms dedicated to fixing the problem were still in difficulties.

"Even with harsh commercial reality to drive them on some companies are struggling. I cannot believe that public services within the European Union have quite the same external drive to get this right," Taylor said.

COULD GERMANY BE A MAJOR WORRY?

Gartner Group's Kyte said he was less worried about France than Germany. French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin issued tough instructions late last year to central and local governments to ensure continuity in public services. Finance Minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn also intervened to insist on action.

"These were significant interventions. Until then Y2K lacked a degree of credibility. This was a marked change in gear. It's not to say they are out of the woods, but it's very clear serious work is being done now," said Kyte.

"This really is in marked contrast to Germany where we still don't see any evidence of leadership recognizing the reality of the Y2K threat and putting in place necessary actions," said Kyte.

Kyte said the French action had been undertaken with no additional spending. He said it would be unfair to single out France and Germany.

"Government IT (information technology) is vast, complex and amongst the least prepared for Y2K in almost any geography where we perform research."

"The implication is we are going see more snafus; the reality is IT in the public sector is not the greatest bug-free software in the world," said Kyte.

The worry for political leaders is the possible reaction from social security claimants to a failure to deliver funds. One week's loss of income would create a degree of resentment. Two weeks might generate something worse.

Last January in the French city of Marseille, frustrated benefit claimants smashed up three post offices when a computer problem lasting a week blocked payments.

The protests were ended by riot police.

======================================== End

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), July 28, 1999

Answers

If anyone needs the link for the article Ray posted, here it is:

http://infoseek.go.com/Content?arn=a2658rittz-19990728&qt=% 22year+2000% 22+bug*+glitch*+y2k&sv=IS&lk=noframes&col=NX&kt=A&ak=news1486

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), July 28, 1999.


snip..... to fix what some people dismiss as a fictitious problem. end snip. Replace " some people" with "most or all people" then that about sums it up doesn't it?

-- kevin (innxxs@yahoo.com), July 28, 1999.

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