Well, the summer of 99 is about to go into the history books soon. Children are getting ready for school. The annual switch from vacations, fun, and sun to labor and life is coming. Looking back over the last several months, what would you say the most important Y2K-related news was?

-- Rob Michaels (sonofdust@com.net), August 31, 1999

Answers

hey Rob,

How about the campaign to control public perception by TPTB?

Mike

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-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), August 31, 1999.

Hi Michael. It was Koskinen that said "Perception management is Job #1". Evidently, he wasn't kidding, was he.

-- Rob Michaels (sonofdust@com.net), August 31, 1999.

Most important?

The Navy, Koskinen (et. al.) and newsmedia REACTION to Jim Lord's "Y2K Pentagon Papers." There has not yet been such a clear and present example of "hasty spin" in action. Second runner up? Our own c4i saga.

Shades of "perception management" to come... this fall?

Diane

See the numerous threads in the TBY2K Forum sub-category (for those that missed it... start at the bottom of the category and work your way up the threads)...

Military/Pentagon Papers/Hot Topics (New)...

http:// www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-one-category.tcl?topic= TimeBomb%202000%20%28Y2000%29&category= Military%2fPentagon%20Papers%2fHot%20Topics%20%28New%29

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), August 31, 1999.

Passage of the don't-let-anybody-sue-ya legislation, and the accompanying IEEE Open Letter to Congress in support of that legislation.

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), August 31, 1999.

The news from Cory that the OS390 system is not compliant with 3 months to go. With this system in use on approximately 70 per cent of the mainframes this may be a reason why insurance companies, social security and other gigantic databases are having trouble. On top of everything else, Japan finally noticed this week that P Cs may not be compliant and need to be checked. Next thing, they will tell us that the phones will not work. Curly could have done a better job of finding and fixing all of these errors.

-- Moe (Moe@3stooges.gom), August 31, 1999.

Don't forget the State Department's Inspector General reporting expectation of many countries failing big and having an impact on us.

-- Mara Wayne (MaraWayne@aol.com), August 31, 1999.

Well, I think it was actually late May, but I would have to say the 60 Minutes special. We experienced first hand an incredible increase in preps being purchased after that.

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), August 31, 1999.

Although I am a Canadian it would be the GAO report about the cities - states and the Senate testimony on the same subject. Unlike the Naval Report it is verifiable information. I happened to catch the Q&A that was broadcast on the net.

Oh and then a Naval Report shows up with much the same information and then it is a big deal.

Good question Rob.

-- Brian (imager@home.com), August 31, 1999.

My vote would be for the twin phenomena of hopelessly insufficient progress on remediation and lack of significant private contingency activities.

www.y2ksafeminnesota.com

-- MinnesotaSmith (y2ksafeminnesota@hotmail.com), August 31, 1999.

Diane: I vaguely remember c4i (the .mil right?) posting but don't know why you would rank this as so important. I probably only got part of the story since that may have been during one of my job's "crunch" times. Is there a summary or link that can fill me in on what happened?

-- Rob Michaels (sonofdust@com.net), August 31, 1999.

One very important news item of the summer was the release of the latest Cap Gemini America survey:

http://www.usa.capgemini.com/news/pr99.asp?id=104

The survey confirmed for me an opinion about Y2K that I had back in the summer of 1998. A lot of important Y2K work will be accomplished by January 2000, but unfortunately a lot of it won't be...

Another article in the "it isn't December 31, 1998 anymore" category was this one on the compliance of American states and cities:

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=0017kE

[Fair Use: For Educational/Research Purposes Only]

Friday July 16 1:31 AM ET

Big U.S. Cities Slow On Y2K Readiness

By Jim Wolf

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Many big U.S. cities -- including Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington -- are leaving themselves scant time to complete preparations for possible year 2000-related computer glitches, the audit arm of Congress said Thursday.

In addition, nine states are ``behind'' in efforts to ensure their most critical systems do not fail when the year 2000 dawns, said the head of a Senate panel monitoring the issue.

The nine -- which reported having completed work on less than 70 percent of their most important systems -- are New Hampshire, Ohio, Alabama, Louisiana, Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, California and Hawaii.

On a local level, only 55 percent of the smallest counties surveyed -- those with a population below 10,000 -- say they have countywide emergency plans to cope with possible 2000-related disruptions to vital services, the National Association of Counties reported.

At issue are fears that some computers may crash or scramble data by misreading 2000 as 1900, the result of old space constraints that pared the date field to two digits.

Any such glitches, known as Y2K problems, could disrupt the provision of water and waste treatment, emergency services, transportation systems, city government services and the operation of public buildings among other services.

The problem could also boggle systems that hinge on date-sensitive microchips, such as traffic signals, radio communications and 911 emergency services that rely on global positioning systems.

Dallas and Boston were alone among the 21 biggest U.S. cities to report completion of efforts to deal with the so-called Y2K problem, the General Accounting Office said. The GAO is the audit and investigative arm of Congress.

Nine cities -- New York; Houston; Philadelphia; San Diego; San Jose, California; Indianapolis, Indiana; Jacksonville, Florida; Memphis, Tennessee; and Milwaukee -- said they expected to complete preparations by Sept. 30.

The remaining 10 -- Los Angeles; Chicago; Phoenix; San Antonio, Texas; Detroit; San Francisco; Baltimore; Columbus, Ohio; El Paso, Texas; and Washington -- said they expected to be ready by Dec. 31.

Joel Willemssen, head of a GAO arm that tracks information systems, voiced concern about the laggards. He made his comments in a letter released at a hearing of the Special Committee on Y2K issues.

``Completing Y2K activities in the last months of the year increases the risk that key services will not be Y2K-ready in time for 2000 because there will not be enough time to deal with unanticipated complications,'' Willemssen said.

``Given the amount of Y2K work remaining to be done in the last months of the year, contingency plans are critical to ensure that cities will continue to provide key services through the year 2000 date change,'' he added.

The Senate panel displayed a chart showing that only 43 percent of the 21 cities' key systems were said by the cities themselves to be ready as of July for the date change.

The GAO carried out the study by interviewing city officials by telephone from June 28 to July 9.

Sen. Robert Bennett, a Utah Republican who heads the special Y2K committee, said he feared that many state and local governments were ``leaving little room for testing, contingency planning and unexpected problems.''

``I hope these statistics aren't as bad as they appear,'' he said in a written statement.

``Only very efficient executive-level management and contingency planning can sustain us through the upcoming historic date change,'' added panel Vice Chairman Sen. Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat.

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-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), August 31, 1999.

Rob Michaels,

The c4i saga linked here...

Diane J. Squire - C4I - Jim Lord ???

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id= 001Gi5

... was our own forum local media (sorta) event. We were able to watch spin in action. Then when the Navy & Jim Lord shift hit the fan, we were able to watch it on a national scale in the mainstream press. And we saw Koskinen (via Steve Davis) jump fast.

Similar tactics, IMHO. Found the comparison interesting.

Oh... what webs they weave... when first they practice to deceive.

It's not so much "what" was said in both cases, it's what was jumped on... by whom... and with "light speed..." that left me feeling dizzy!

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), September 01, 1999.

It may well be all of the problems that MCI Worldcom had with their frame relay software this summer. I have be hearing for some time that they were not going to make it with Y2K. They were too busy merging when they should have been remediating. I think that they tried to perform a Y2K upgrade, it failed, and they had to roll back. I believe that they are now burnt toast.

-- Mr. Adequate (mr@adequate.com), September 01, 1999.

Further evidence that the government is out of control.

1) The unanimous decision of the New Jersey Supreme Court requiring the Boy Scouts to have homosexuals Scoutmasters regardless of the wishes of the Scouts organization or the parents. (Unanimous, meaning every Republican and every Democrat, without exception. Supreme Court members are not flaky windbag pols. This decision flies in the face of the spirit of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.)

2) New evidence that the government has been consistently lying about its actions at Waco. (It's not just Clinton who is a liar.)

3) The story that Koskinen has created for himself a command central (aka bunker) with 70 days' water supply. (Actions speak louder than words.)

-- GA Russell (ga.russell@usa.net), September 01, 1999.

4 Million gallons of raw sewage in the streets of Van Nuys.

-- R (riversoma@aol.com), September 01, 1999.

Thanks for all of the good responses gang. Perhaps others will look at this thread and see something that they missed, as I did. It's hard to keep up with stuff sometimes and this is a help.

Diane: I'll check out that link. Thanks.

-- Rob Michaels (sonofdust@com.net), September 01, 1999.

Although the Naval War College scenarios fall into the category of contingency planning, I place them at the top. Unlike many government entities, the NWC is afforded a huge amount of credibility and respect and I know its principals wouldn't spend so much time on the subject if they didn't think there was a good chance of problems. I know the hscenario eadings refer to international problems but the United States IS part of the international scene. . .

The cities report is certainly a very close second and the State Department's ingternational assessments take third place (especially when combined with the recent BBC assessments of some foreign countries).

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), September 01, 1999.

For a real time rush.

It was yesterdays UK-sun story about gilt futures. This story had nothing to do with speculation. Real smart investors are currently NOT investing in UK gilts for December.

-- David Butts (dciinc@aol.com), September 01, 1999.

Power-outages both near me and in Chicago were a great help in terms of getting some relatives to GI.

-- nothere nothere (notherethere@hotmail.com), September 01, 1999.

I believe the BIS/Swift (international banking clearinghouse/settlement) story was the Monty Python-esque stomping foot.

If that don't get fixed, screw everything else.

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), September 01, 1999.