I have decided I am delighted with Jim Lord for releasing the "Pentagon Papers" of Y2k even though I think the report isd offbase and even though I think Lord is not exactly correct about the level of deceit. Why am I delighted even though I think there is a lot of misinformation in his report?

1) While this demonstrates incompetence, not deceit, it is important that we see the incompetence. It was a dumb idea to roll up this data, it was a dumb idea to roll this data into a report, and it was a dumb idea to publish it, and it was a dumb idea to try to unpublish it. Do you think that this group will produce anything but a dumb contingency plan? There are incompetent Y2k remediation teams too.

2) While I cannot specifically point to a single lie I have heard from anyone in authority, I do think it is deceitful to try to make Y2k a non-issue. The typical American has not had the opportunity to assess the threat for himself. The Lord report reversed that to some degree. Not only did it get coverage because it was news, Koskinen had to repeat the story to explain it. It created a media flurry. We need more of that.

3) Even though I think the specifics of the report are laughable, it is not generally speaking a laughable scenario. If we wake up on January 1st, 2000 and only 100 American cities have partial or total infrastructure failure most of us would consider that a fairly positive outcome. That leaves 90% unscathed at least in terms of immediate impact. Both the Senate report and John Koskinen see exactly these kinds of localised disruptions. This is the kind of scenario we should expect.

4) Therefore, the Lord Report is substantially correct. I am glad that I am not Jim Lord because his reputation is going to take a beating over this, but he is still substantially correct. He has not exaggerated the risks we face and he has not exaggerated the degree of deception by very much either. Our governments are not explicitly telling us about the risks.

5) While Lord can be successfully attacked for putting the worst possible interpretation on a piece of misinformation, this kind of irresponsibility is what passes for journalism these days. On Y2k we see journalists happily take a piece of misinformation and put the best possible interpretation on it. There are several pieces published like this every day. This irresponsiblity is never challenged. There were a million Monica Lewinsky stories that were far more irresponsible.

Why should standards for Lord be any higher than for anyone else? I would prefer balanced irresponsibility to one sided irresponsibility.

Tom

-- Anonymous, August 24, 1999

Answers

Tom, please don't shoot the messenger here. I don't know if the Navy report was accurate or not, but Jim Lord took fairly recent information and shared it with the public, in itself a very valuable action. One thing we forget is that the report was probably not put together by a single person, and it certainly wasn't posted on the internet without going up through the usual military lines, being reviewed by several, if not many, eyes. Tha fact that it made it all the way up those lines gives it some measure of credibility, even if the Navy or Mr. Koskinen try to spin it in the other direction. If Jim Lord had done this research himself and posted it, your argument would have more merit. Remember that a hippopotamus is a horse designed by a committee; if this hippo doesn't look exactly like the horse we would expect, it's the fault of those who put the report together. For me, I'm thrilled that at least somebody in the Navy is reading the reports from the GAO and the SEC, and not just blindly accepting the happy-face proclamations of the utility companies.

-- Anonymous, August 24, 1999

Jim Lord's preliminary response.

http://www.jimlord.to/whatsnew.html

-- Anonymous, August 24, 1999

Factfinder wrote:

So much for a credible "study." This is a critical bit of information, and leaving it out is extremely misleading if not outright deceptive.

I know. Isn't it just terrible? Jim Lord's report is misleading in exactly the same way the NERC reports are misleading and the Koskinen reports are misleading and 99% of the company statements are misleading and like 95% of the Y2k news stories are misleading.

Tsk, tsk. Tee-hee. I think it is great. I wish the TV networks would denounce Jim a bit too. I don't care how it gets to the front burner, I want the Y2k issue on the front burner.

Tom

-- Anonymous, August 24, 1999

Factfinder, I agree that that was an oversight by Jim Lord, but so to is the "oversight" of NERC when they pass on to the media that they did a Y2K test of Utilities in April 1999 and things worked out OK and do not correct the media and tell them it was only a test of communications and had nothing to do production and distribution of power. And for any other reports that NERC will pass out the results of those reports had already been decided in January of 1999. Who cares what the actual information says.

This is a critical bit of information, and leaving it out is extremely misleading if not outright deceptive.

Mark D. DeVries

-- Anonymous, August 24, 1999

Tom, Mark, I concede that you guys have made a good point, I do know that the NERC press releases don't tell the whole story. I have read the full NERC report, and believe that it provides the best assessment of utility readiness available, with lots of data for those who want to form their own opinion - which many have, including here :)

I say lets cut back the "spin" on all sides, it's important as we approach the rollover.

Regards,

-- Anonymous, August 24, 1999

Mark: I disagree with you on NERC's assessment of the April drill. Go to the official NERC press release dated April 9, wherein the first paragraph, it states that April 9 involved "simulating the partial loss of voice and data communications". Go back and re-read the entire press release, and then let me know if you stand by your original statement.

IMHO, NERC's desctription accurately portrays what occurred on April 9. I know Lane Core has written on this subject, criticising the media coverage of the April event. To build on that, I was interviewed by two major newspapers and the Associated Press after the drill. I emphasized to all of them that this was merely a communications drill, and not a test. What did the headlines end up saying? Things like "Utility Y2k tests demonstrate that they can handle the rollover to Y2k". Arrgh!!

This leads to a comment about this thread, and I think leads to why there is such disagreement. As engineers, people like Factfinder and I are always striving for accurate data. I eschew inaccurate reports, even if in my example above it makes utilities look better. So when it became apparent that Jim Lord's information was inaccurate, incomplete and outdated, those of us engineer types reject it. Tom, you say you like the Lord situation because it helps expose the Y2k issue. As an engineer, my immediate thought is, does the end justify the means? I'm not saying that what you (Tom) are saying is right or wrong, just that we approach the whole situation from a different perspective.

-- Anonymous, August 24, 1999

Dan wrote:

As engineers, people like Factfinder and I are always striving for accurate data. I eschew inaccurate reports, even if in my example above it makes utilities look better.

I have done a lot of thinking about how the engineer's mindset has contributed to this problem, and for the most part I agree with you. This is why you have such difficulty getting Y2k.

To an engineer things work or they don't work. They are right or they are wrong. If it doesn't work, break it down and keep breaking it down until it does work. Give me the exact sequence of events that will cause a critical breakdown. If you want it done right every time, develop a checklist that works and follow it every time.

"Give me accurate data and I will give you the answer," says the engineer.

Unfortunately for most non-engineers, life does not work that way. My entire career was about making decisions and drawing conclusions and producing ideas without ever having accurate data. There is no checklist for a writer or an economist or a teacher or a manager.

As a result you have to reason a different way. "Probably accurate" and "close to being right" and "generally speaking but there are lots of exceptions" is all you have to go on.

You can keep searching for better information if you want, but you won't find it, not for this kind of problem. The search turns into the minute examination of detail, a process that kills common sense. (A case in point: the OJ Simpson trial.)

The closer you look at anything the fuzzier it gets. There is a correct magnification to examine any problem. If you don't magnify it at all, you are guessing, but if you move too close, you miss the forest for the trees.

I'm a big picture kind of guy. Always have been. Read Rick's "you can turn a ship on a dime" analogy. Read Bonnie's "no way is everybody going to run a good project" stuff. You will understand my pessimism.

I can't point to a device that will fail and cause a catastrophe. I can't point to a worker who will pull a Homer Simpson in an unfamiliar situation. I can't point to a company that will fail for sure. I can't point to a city that will lose essential services. Neither can the Navy or Jim Lord. Neither can you. Accurate data is not available, and accurate data is not going to be available.

I can say there are going to be screwed up projects somewhere because there are always bright students and lousy ones. I can say there are Homer Simpsons everywhere, and Homer will get an unprecedented opportunity to mess up. So will good workers. I can say a lot of companies already have screwed up because they got a very late start.

Practice reasoning with inaccurate data, or give up the search and relax because you aren't going to find anything no matter how hard you look.

I am not saying that the ends justify the means, because the means can be justified without the ends. I'm saying that Lord was perfectly justified in publishing the data he had, and while I disagree with his spin, he is entitled to his opinion like everyone else.

His report is substantially correct. Close enough for this big picture guy, anyway. His errors serve my ends and I'm delighted for that. He produced dozens of Y2k stories, and even the subsequent denials got more people thinking about the real risks we face.

That's a win for this side of the fence.

Tom

-- Anonymous, August 25, 1999

Timing is a factor, of course. The Jim Lord affair is still too early in the Y2K game for Joe Public to be bothered, even in the home towns that were named. Right now anybody can say just about anything on Y2K. Outside the narrow and possibly dwindling number of Y2K watchers and activists, Lord and his Pentagon Papers are just news about global warming or overpopulation. Both Lord (and Koskinen) are now forgotten in the public consciousness, if they ever really made it there. I suspect that even if it had been Koskinen himself that had jumped ship and released the 'secret status' stuff, the flurry would have been a tad more exciting but it would still be over by now, yesterday's prime time, even I suspect if the news could be proven to be 'accurate'.. The same event happening in the last week of December, however, after a two-week media drum roll ...well that might be different. Even Jim Lord might have hesitated to release the report.

-- Anonymous, August 25, 1999