Y2K To Be Chronic But Not Acute - Key Expert

Updated 2:54 PM ET October 8, 1999

By Jim Wolf

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The man at the heart of efforts to manage the world's Year 2000 problem predicts phones and lights will work just about everywhere as the new century dawns but fallout from the so-called Y2K computer glitch will eat away at economies for months.

"Y2K-caused effects on daily life will be complex and more chronic than acute," said Bruce McConnell, director of the International Y2K Cooperation Center, a World Bank-funded, United Nations-backed clearinghouse.

In an interview with Reuters and in testimony to be presented to a U.S. Senate panel next week, McConnell said a picture was emerging of failures that may bounce slowly from one sector to another.

"The Y2K problem is not going to look very interesting when it happens," he said by telephone. But a lot of relatively minor problems, like credit card rejections tied to mistakenly machine-read expiration dates, "could really gum up the works over a period of time."

At issue is the coding glitch that could cause ill-prepared computers to mistake the new year 2000 for 1900, possibly shutting down the operations they control.

What is likely, McConnell said, is "a growing slowdown in commerce as capacity is reduced by a confluence of degraded infrastructure performance and shaky consumer confidence."

"Performance degradation, potentially exacerbated by non-Y2K factors, may cascade from one infrastructure to another," he added.

He declined to speculate on the scope, scale or length of Y2K disruptions worldwide.

McConnell's testimony is to be presented Wednesday to the special Senate Y2K committee. He said he was expressing his personal views, not the views of any national or international organization. An earlier version, called "Y2K: The Texture of Impact," may be accessed through the center's Web site, www.iy2kcc.org.

McConnell is on loan from the White House Office of Management and Budget, where he oversaw the U.S. government's computer security and information technology policies.

As director of the Washington-based International Y2K Center, he has been coordinating information-sharing meetings, among other things, to prepare back-up plans for a wide range of possible Y2K-related emergencies, including international supply-line disruptions.

McConnell said he was increasingly confident that the worst potential Y2K-related disruptions would be avoided thanks to the billions of dollars being spent worldwide to prepare.

In an interview in August, he had said: "We don't know whether it's going to be a 1 on the Richter scale or a 7."

Now, McConnell says if he had to use an earthquake analogy, he would narrow the magnitude range to 2 to 5. But he says that's not a good analogy because Y2K, unlike a quake, will not just hit and be over with.

While the Y2K rollover is characterized foremost by uncertainty, McConnell said he is 90 percent certain that what he calls the two most critical infrastructures in modern life -- telecommunications and electricity -- will work worldwide.

Those systems are "largely immune" to the Y2K glitch because they contain no date dependencies and, at the least, are highly resistant to failure because of back ups, he said.

In the interview, McConnell said he was slightly less confident that telecommunications and electricity would work in Russia and Ukraine, the only two countries about which he expressed such reservations. There, he said, he was "two-thirds" confident phones and lights would work "because there are so many other things that go wrong."

The most significant Y2K risk is not localized technology failures, he said, but a decline in the meshing of "electronic devices, procedures, people and organizations that together make modern life workable and efficient."

McConnell said botched Y2K code fixes, computer viruses that mimic Y2K effects and untested contingency plans were likely to slow the process of "getting life back to normal."

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Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), October 08, 1999

Answers

In an interview in August, he had said: "We don't know whether it's going to be a 1 on the Richter scale or a 7."

Now, McConnell says if he had to use an earthquake analogy, he would narrow the magnitude range to 2 to 5. But he says that's not a good analogy because Y2K, unlike a quake, will not just hit and be over with.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Y2K - Rather than a 3 day storm,
how about a 360 day flu?

-- G (balzer@lanset.com), October 08, 1999.

Or in the words of Paul Davis...

"TEOTWAWKI ain't what it used to be!"

-- CD (not@here.com), October 08, 1999.

That outcome is about what the British expect, with economic slowdown to really hit in the March-April timeframe due to loss of consumer confidence leading to a slowed final demand numbers. One inconsistancy...absolutely confident electricity will be there, but only 2/3 confident the lights will work?? I thought if you have electricity you have lights. (Oh! No! They must have put an embedded system in those lightbulbs LOL!)

-- K. Stevens (kstevens@ It's ALL going away in January.com), October 08, 1999.

Telecommunications and electricity have no date dependancies. Question: Do telecommunications and electricity have enbedded chips? Answer: I'll check with my geeks. Question: Do any embedded chips have "date dependancies" or use secondary clocks? Answer: I'll get back to you. Question: My wife is a long distance operator. Why are they having more and more COMPUTER PROBLEMS this year? Answer: Those are only normal and you will notice that they are being hanbdled. Question: Does this mean I should sell my preps? Answer: Of course! Can we talk in private? How much for all of them?

-- Mr. Pinochle (pinochledd@aol.com), October 08, 1999.

A new one for the Y2K Glossary.

We will be Y2K compliant in Dec 98 with a full year for testing.

We are Y2K ready now, ready to FOF.

On 1/1/00 we will be Y2K Chronic.

How about this one? By 4/1/00 we will be Y2K Terminal.

-- Bill (bill@tinfoil.com), October 08, 1999.

How nice he has told us,,, expert that he is.

-- Mitchell Barnes (spanda@inreach.com), October 08, 1999.

I just finished reading the article "Y2K: The Texture of Impact" dated 22nd Sept. I found especially interesting the footnotes. Item #9;

"In Europe, media and popular interest in the recent solar eclipse was minimal until the week before the event, when thousands of people moved toward the eclipse path, leading to a shortage of eclipse glasses."

We must read between the lines thoughout the entire article. When you do so read, it is evident they are expecting failure to build upon itself and public panic increasing the last week of Dec.

Http://www.iy2kcc.org/y2kimpact.htm

Tommy

-- Tommy Rogers (Been there@Just a Thought.com), October 08, 1999.

Mr. Pinochle:

A year ago, your questions were real. Through extensive and expensive effort, we've learned that telecommunications and electricity use very few embedded systems with invalid date handling, and that those few represent no real threat to either one. If you are worried about them, ease your mind; your worries are obsolete. If you intend to stir up unfounded fear, you're wasting your time -- those who are regular to this forum know better.

As for McConnell's predictions, they seem reasonable enough based on what we know today.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), October 08, 1999.

I just seem to notice Mr. McConnell has doubled his estimate of the least possible effects.

-- space (hooda@thunk.it), October 08, 1999.