Dec 12, 1999 - 02:06 PM

White House to Release Reliability Figures to Discourage Y2K Panic

By Ted Bridis
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Lights go out. Computers crash. Flights are delayed, baggage is lost. ATMs run out of cash, cellular calls won't go through and cable TV is showing static.

Sound like the nation's worst Y2K fears? In the increasingly complex world of technology, those disasters can occur individually all in a day's work - whether or not that day is the upcoming New Year's.

Concerned that any technical failure in the earliest hours of Jan. 1 will be blamed on the Year 2000 computer problem, the White House planned to release figures Monday showing how often some systems typically break down.

The move is precautionary, to avert public panic at the first sign of a disruption in electricity or another essential service that may coincide with the date rollover but was not caused by the computer glitch.

Some failures may take weeks of study before Y2K can be blamed or dismissed as the cause.

"Every day things go wrong, and nobody pays much attention to them, nobody thinks twice about it," said John Koskinen, President's Clinton's top Y2K adviser. "But any of those things that happen on January 1st will immediately be presumed to be the indication of a Y2K problem."

Even though the nation's electrical utilities are more than 99 percent reliable, winter storms can darken neighborhoods and entire regions. Koskinen puts odds at 50-50 a major ice storm or blizzard will strike America during that critical New Year's weekend.

In 1989, for example, a failed switch shut down electricity on New Year's Eve for 90,000 citizens in Maine.

The Washington-based Edison Electric Institute said in a report for the White House that any power failure over the Jan. 1 weekend "is almost certain to have occurred because of one of the usual reasons" rather than the Y2K bug.

"We have interruptions in the power grid all the time," said Sen. Robert Bennett, chairman of the Senate's Year 2000 Committee. "We have interruptions in the flow of oil around the world all the time. We have all kinds of accidents that take place in computer-land, and those that happen on January 1st, people will say were caused by Y2K."

Computers and their programming code are at the heart of the Year 2000 problem, when devices that aren't sufficiently tested or repaired could misinterpret the year "00" as 1900. That could corrupt important electronic records, miscalculate utility bills and interest rates or cause a variety of havoc with automated systems.

But software already is so enormously complex that computers sometimes fail. Microsoft Corp., whose Windows software runs most of the world's personal computers, fields roughly 29,000 phone calls daily from customers using more than 4,000 programs, who complain their PCs aren't working right.

Consumer Internet connections over phone lines can be infamously feeble, and even the most popular Web destinations experience crashes. Hackers routinely vandalize Web sites with poor security, frequently attacking dozens of high-profile targets over a holiday weekend.

The government has assured travelers that airlines in the United States will be safe, though it's also warned of possible delays and lost baggage.

The most recent figures from the Federal Aviation Administration show that only four of every five flights by the nation's largest carriers arrive on schedule - and that for every 1,000 passengers more than four temporarily lose their luggage en route. That meant nearly 185,000 mishandled suitcases during October.

About 10 percent of all credit transactions fail routinely because, for example, equipment breaks down or because consumers are overextended or forget their ATM password, said Paul Schmelzer, an executive vice president for Orlando, Fla.-based Star Systems Inc., which process about 2 billion financial transactions annually. He expects those same problems to show up on New Year's.

Koskinen said that government officials will be looking to see if any problems detected exceed what's expected. And he noted that it won't be immediately obvious what caused the problem.

"The focus of the people whose systems aren't working will be to get the systems working," he said. "You're not going to be quite as focused on whether this is Y2K or not."

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

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), December 12, 1999

Answers

Do you think thet could insult our intelligence just a WEE BIT MORE? I donno. I know it might be hard to top this. But let's see. I'm open to surprises on their part.

-- coprolith (coprolith@fakemail.com), December 12, 1999.

Heeeheeeheeheeheeheheheheh, TPTB are SO afraid of Y2K that they have compiled statistics to prove how things aren't working anyway, so those power outages, phone deads, nuclear meltdowns, chemical explosions, taps dry, distribution bogged, etc etc etc etc etc are normal and NOT Y2K! NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT

Don't say it, don't think it, don't admit it, don't recognize it, don't acknowledge it, don't entertain it, don't fix it, never never never never never ever never let it through!

Shades of this strategy were outted by Greedspin earlier.

Watching the yarn unroll ...

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), December 12, 1999.

Hey Folks,

Unbelievable.

It looks like this is going to be the MOTHER OF ALL SPIN DOCTORING.

They're pulling out all the last-ditch stops now. Not much left in their bag of tricks except Martial Law.

-- R.C. (racambab@mailcity.com), December 12, 1999.

You are not noticing this, you are not seeing this, you are not smelling this, you are not reading this, you are not feeling this. You are sleepy, sleepy, content, content, sleepy, sleepy, sleepy, everything is normal, normal la la la la zzzzzz normal normal happy face sleepy sleepy sleepy normal zzzzzz normal zzzzzz

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), December 12, 1999.

"Koskinen puts odds at 50-50 a major ice storm or blizzard will strike America during that critical New Year's weekend."

Pure bullsh*t.

And they think people won't look outside at the weather - wonder how they'll pull this off if it's sunny outside.

---...---

Outright lies help too: The Atlanta newspaper claimed last week that a court document ordering jury members to preort January 3, 1900 was NOT a y2k error......I'm sure every January 3rd the jury has to report in 1900....

In Philedelphia - when the same error happened, at least the city was honest enough to admit that it DID OCCUR.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), December 12, 1999.

The politically correct thought police have issued another edict. You are not allowed or permitted to see, think, spell, write, read, notice, consider, or communicate the nasty secret dirty little word any more.

No, Nyet, Nada, None!

-- Off Limits (Zip@shut.consciousness), December 12, 1999.

They're a tad bit transparent in their idiocy.

-- Paula (chowbabe@pacbell.net), December 12, 1999.

"Some failures may take weeks of study before Y2K can be blamed or dismissed as the cause."

Actually... it will take YEARS... and the lawyers will be studying it all "painstakingly."

Meanwhile... it's the effects... whatever the cause... that'll get ya. (If unprepared).

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), December 12, 1999.

It will take years to study because the LIGHTS WILL BE OUT...

-- Squid (Itsdark@down.here), December 12, 1999.

OK, so much for the numbingly predictable knee-jerk reactions.

Now, this is pretty damn useful information. It does indeed provide a baseline against which y2k disruptions can be measured, something I've wanted to see for some time. After all, how can we really tell how serious y2k problems are compared to "normal" times if we don't know what normal means? I have no doubt whatever that people here will call *every* problem they can find a y2k problem, and the results of all subsequent investigations will be dismissed as "spin". How else can they be right?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), December 12, 1999.

Since Y2K problems will all be fixed in the first three days of January 2000, any computer glitch that follows is a "post-Y2K computer bug", announced the Clinton Administration, in an effort to anticipate and answer a Y2K question many sheeple are expected to ask in January 2000: " Is you is or is you ain't Y2K ? "

-- Richard Greene (rgreene2@ford.com), December 12, 1999.

Next they'll trot out a hypnotist.

"It's a warm summer day...

-- snooze button (alarmclock_2000@yahoo.com), December 12, 1999.

Squid, you're so right. With the lights out and the fact that the investigators will have to use clay tablets and sticks to make marks with, it will indeed take years to figure all this out.

I've never realized how dumb I was until I've read this latest government "spin." One thing, folks, with the little time that's left, it's only gonna get worse, and worse, and worse.

-- Richard (Astral-Acres@webtv.net), December 12, 1999.

See,

I knew he really didn't have s*x with that woman, aah what's her name. If anything happens, it's all you doomers' fault, dontcha know?

Feeling

-- relieved (lalaland@nowhere.nut), December 12, 1999.

Flint, even without the baseline data, at some point conscious, mature adults should be able to have a strong notion of what is going on. Even without the benefit of a SWAG from a professional.

Define: pornography.

Difficult isn't it, but you know it when you see it, no?

-- snooze button (alarmclock_2000@yahoo.com), December 12, 1999.

Ah Sir Flint - we agree. Very useful data to have handy....But I see a few problems in the even this glib answer from Mr K's mouth - and so it becomes yet another coverup attempt - rather than an honest answer from an honest organization. On real analysis, this only becomes a throw-away answer to a technically unknowing reprtoer.

---

Do you trust this adminstration to get it? Do you trust this adminstration to reveal it truthfully - if they get it? Would you rather this administration - IF troubles happen, try to figure out what percent are y2k troubles and what percent are "normal troubles..." - or would you prefer the problem get fixed as soon as possible? Do you really want "a federal case" to be made about each of the tens of milliions of potential errors out there?

---

Do you want businesses to spend time reporting errors, or debugging them? What is in place to force reporting? If not forced, why report at all - except to report favorable information from the administration's favorite businesses - or those told to report. (I'm sure the banks will cooperate....they already are.)

What percent are actually going to be reported? By what companies? Are they going to be reported accurately to the fed's - assuming the fed's are going to analyze the results accurately?

I have read several stories that have already been printed clearly denying y2k-induced failures were, in fact, year-2000 related. If lies are beginning now, why assume that analysis (of even less certain data) are any more accurate.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), December 12, 1999.

Can somebody explain to me why this is so upsetting to so many people here? What's the big deal? Do you think this is somehow going to "prevent people from prepping"? (I thought the consensus here was that it's already "too late".) "More government spin"? C'mon!...

"Concerned that any technical failure in the earliest hours of Jan. 1 will be blamed on the Year 2000 computer problem, the White House planned to release figures Monday showing how often some systems typically break down." -What's wrong with doing this? If somebody thinks the figures are incorrect it should be easy enough for them to prove it one way or the other.

""Every day things go wrong, and nobody pays much attention to them, nobody thinks twice about it," said John Koskinen, President's Clinton's top Y2K adviser. "But any of those things that happen on January 1st will immediately be presumed to be the indication of a Y2K problem." -No doubt about that being true.

"Koskinen puts odds at 50-50 a major ice storm or blizzard will strike America during that critical New Year's weekend." -Sounds reasonable.

""We have interruptions in the power grid all the time," said Sen. Robert Bennett, chairman of the Senate's Year 2000 Committee. "We have interruptions in the flow of oil around the world all the time. We have all kinds of accidents that take place in computer-land, and those that happen on January 1st, people will say were caused by Y2K." -Yup!

These statements are not lies or spins or assurances that nothing will break down because of Y2k problems. Seems to me that way too many people are blowing this way out of proportion simply because it's a "gubmint" statement.

I realize some on this forum are hoping for a panic and would be upset over this. To those who are more rational I say take a step back and lighten up a little.

-- CD (not@here.com), December 12, 1999.

Flint;

What you say about spin may sound reasonable, but in fact a report by the government on average failure rates may initself already be stuffed with spin. Numbers work for thier masters. The bottom line will be the basics, not expert's opinions of those basics. I once recieved a piece of adive from the presiident of a large company upon starting my own venture: "YOu know how well you're doing by ho wmuch money you have in the bank, boy," he said. "You don't pay payroll with spreadsheets."

Granted, he was generalizing, but there is much truth in his statement. People of common sense will not need to haul out the Clinto administration's reports on customary failure rates to know if thier lives are being significantly disrupted by Y2K. They will either have water and power, or they won't. The prices of fuel will either climb or it will not. The gorcery stores will either have ample provisions or they will not. And people of common sense will also be able to tell if those shortages or lack thereof result from panic alone or structural shortcomings.

This, of course, is true only of those with common sense. As a student of logic, I can tell you that logic is in short supply in complacent times such as these. But don't worry, if the complancent times fade in January, as some suggest logic will reassert herself.

Logic, that was. Not ladylogic.

Philosopher.

-- philosopher (critcal@thinking.com), December 12, 1999.

You are not hungry, you are not cold, you are not dirty, you are not thirsty, you are not homeless, you are not wounded, you are not wet, you are not lost, nothing has changed, you just have a perception problem, you are not shivering, you are sleepy sleepy sleepy sleepy sleepy sleepy sleepy sleepy sleepy sleepy sleepy sleepy sleepy

-- think correct (all@your.head), December 12, 1999.

The saddest thing about this awful article is that they don't really need to do these articles and ABA sermons anymore. They have been so successful in lulling the sheeple to sleep if they were smart they would just SHUT UP. They should just pay the bonuses to the Rendon group and their agents in the media and send them all to their vacation bunkers (oops.. I mean villas) for the holidays. [while they are at it they could let the forum trolls go a few days early too... wouldn't hurt my feelings.. honest]

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), December 12, 1999.

You are not... you are not... you are not...

Wake up! See that wall of water a hundred yards off? It's called a wave. Looks rather large actually. You are not wet, yes, but I believe that will change momentarily.

Time for sun bathing is over. Pull your head out of the sand and get off the beach!

Written by a famous philosopher.

Philosopher

-- philosopher (crtical@thinking.com), December 12, 1999.

you are not ... is the .gov spin machine recycling its messages inside the heads of the wet shivering massed sheeples post-rollover

-- no Y2K (NOT Y2K@no.longer.allowed), December 12, 1999.

In the nearest metro area the water system has never failed in my lifetime.

Never.

And all the White House spin in the world won't change that.

If it fails, people will panic. If it fails for more than a couple of days people will die. If it fails for more than a week they will run out of caskets.

_That_ is what they won't be able to spin.

_That_ is what has _never_ happened before.

Either it will fail or it won't. End of story.

-- cgbg jr (cgbgjr@webtv.net), December 12, 1999.

Let's assume their figures are correct and there really are this many problems every day. Doesn't it just fuel the fire to show how fragile things really are?? Even they say they don't know how bad it may be. With these complex systems breaking so frequently in the good times, when everyone has fully functioning systems working, then I'm starting to feel worse now seeing how much worse it could easily get.

Add in additional problems due to Y2K breakdowns, infrastructure, etc. and we'll have a catastophe on our hands.

Yours truly,

-- Spin (meister@merry.go.round), December 12, 1999.

Even if people's lives are seriously disrupted, spin can always be used to deflect attention from the real cause. Even in the face of common sense.

The strategy of spin doctors is, if you cannot win the war of misinformation, you at least fight for as much bullshit ground as you can get.

There is still a lot that can be done with spin... "we dont know why it is not working. could be terrorism. could be tampering. could be hacking. could be overreaction. could be just here, not there...how do you know, do you have contact with other parts of the country if the phones are not working?.. etc. etc. "

We are being vaccinated now in order to tolerate and incubate the lies.

Some degrees of manipulating the problem: Strategy 1: Fool the people. Strategy 2: Well, fool at least some of the people, as many as possible. Strategy 3: Substitute -- blame some other cause. Strategy 4: At the very least, encourage doubt in the public mind .. it could have been any one of a number of things that caused this. Strategy 5: Deflect attention to anything BUT y2k technical failures. Strategy 6: Minimize. Strategy 7: Put time on your side. Take forever to resolve the truth.

Redirect the public conciousness.

They can spin and spin and spin, and even if everyone is not convinced, the spin will mitigate SOME of the impact of blame. That is how they win this game, meme by meme.

You know what successful liars say. Never, ever admit you were lying. Even in the face of evidence. No matter what. And if you are finally cornered irrefutably, reframe the issue. But NEVER give in.

They will plant the seeds of doubt. It can't hurt them to do so, no matter what the outcome. Do not underestimate the power of illusion.

-- (normally@ease.notnow), December 12, 1999.

I doubt many organizations will be reporting problems *instead* of fixing them. Most will be just fixing.

Yes, if problems get bad enough, universally enough, there will be no question or ambiguity. If that happens, I'll be right here to admit things are much worse than I anticipated.

However, I expect quite a few y2k problems to reach reportable visibility. I don't see how this can be avoided. Thousands of such problems. Some organizations may even have bigger problems than Hershey suffered. So as far as I'm concerned, the way to measure y2k is to do a before-and-after comparison. The information in this report gives us an idea of the "before" side. Historical bankruptcy rates and ranges are on record also.

My point is that people here have been letting their imaginations blow good times with few problems into a mountain of trouble already, that only the gifted few can even see! Does anyone think they'll stop doing this *after* rollover? If they can do this with a few dozen problems, imagine what they'll do with a thousand of them. Meanwhile, what if the economy continues to roll smoothly along?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), December 12, 1999.

my point exactly mr flint: what if .....?

-- mrunderhill (prancing@pony.com), December 12, 1999.

You haven't heard the GOOD part of this news--the statistics will be compiled by the same "rocket scientists" that lost the last two Mars probes. After all, they are sitting around now with nothing to do till after Y2K.

While they're at it, I wonder if they could calculate what the odds were that allowed one of the most hated public figures of the 20th century to be at the helm when the century rolls over?

-- profit of doom (doom@helltopay.ca), December 12, 1999.

profit:

It's no coincidence, you know. We've had most admired/most hated polls for decades. And every time, the current sitting President has been at or near the top of BOTH polls. Lincoln was probably the most hated President in all US history.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), December 12, 1999.

Say Flint, speaking of polls, remember ALL those polls the mass media were taking at the height of the Lewinsky scandal that showed Clinton at his highest popularity levels EVER I haven't seen one since.

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), December 12, 1999.

The problems can be covered up and explained away for a few weeks, but we will find out how serious the matter is before long. The price of oil will be a good indication of how serious the problem is.

-- Dave (dannco@hotmail.com), December 12, 1999.

LINK....... CAN WE GET A LINK TO THIS ONE?

-- the Virginian (1@1.com), December 12, 1999.

Link

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), December 12, 1999.

Lights go out. Computers crash. Flights are delayed, baggage is lost. ATMs run out of cash, cellular calls won't go through and cable TV is showing static.

We can not get cable out in the boondocks where I live (and too many trees for sattelite dish),so pardon me if I am wrong, but if the lights are out, your tv isn't going to be showing static just because you are hooked to cable is it?

-- Dian (bdp@accessunited.com), December 12, 1999.

---- Thanks Ray

Dang!!! I cannot stop laughing. You all are waaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy to funny.

Lighten up Flint and enjoy the ride. You have got to admit that there is some really funny material here. By the way Flint, do you trust anything that the Clinton Administration would say?

I am disapppointed in Bob Bennett. There is no way this guy thinks we will get out of this with anything short of a 5-6 maybe a 7. Better for him not to say anything than to spin and lie. He has gone full bore to the "other" side just like Lane Core wrote about a few weeks ago.

-- the Virginian (1@1.com), December 12, 1999.

flip flop

-- waffle slop (iron@close.18 days), December 12, 1999.

This is no spin. I think that Mr. K. really believes that Y2k will be a small BITR, and that he doesn't want Joe and Sally Doaks to panic over "normal" glitches. He has been convinced by the repetition of his own words - "prepare as you would for a three day storm, prepare as you would....."

-- Michael (mhgentry@prodigy.net), December 13, 1999.

Hope he's convinced the computers worldwide that it will only be a bump in the road.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), December 13, 1999.

Dian, It is possible to have your lights out and cable tv still work. A battery powered TV will work just fine if the cable still works.

But if the power is off for the cable company, I doubt they could last very long on generators, even if they could, will the satellites still be receiving/transmitting? If they are, will the sending stations have power to transmit...etc.,etc.,etc?

OW, my head hurts...

;}

-- Powder (Powder@keg.com), December 13, 1999.

Flint says:

"Now, this is pretty damn useful information. It does indeed provide a baseline against which y2k disruptions can be measured, something I've wanted to see for some time."

Okay, your point is well taken. However, if you'll excuse my curmodgeonliness (is that a word?), it is not these facts that I dispute but the way in which they will certainly be used that I am suspicious of. There WILL be errors being reported all over the place and they WILL be spun as non-y2k problems before all the facts are in. Certainly not all problems will be cdc errors, but we have seen in the recent past that problems with y2k (or problems trying to replace a non-compliant system with a buggy-yet-compliant system) tend to be hushed up and denied as if the red-faced corporate perpetrator says in his George Constanza-esqe voice: "No Y2k HERE!! He who smelt it, dealt it!"

The baseline is genuine, the way in which it will be used will far from genuine. Or perhaps I'm just being a little paranoid and cynical, and perhaps you need to give me a reality check (no not the GN kind).

-- coprolith (coprolith@fakemail.com), December 13, 1999.

Mr.Flint If Y2k is but a bump no one but a few obscure statisticians will care about the figures. If it is not a bump, everyone will know and no one but a few obscure statisticians will care about he figures. Politicians will care only about outrunning the lynch mob of their former supporters. Releasing these figures is pretty funny and an example of the clueless nature of our leadership. These guys truly do not know enough to come in out of the rain by themselves. Y2k may or may not be a serious problem. But it is not a game of wits, and the outcome will not depend onpress releases.

-- Noone (Noone@non.com), December 13, 1999.

12/13/99 -- 9:33 PM

White House seeks to avert panic over failures during Y2K

WASHINGTON (AP) - For people fearful that computers will crash on New Year's Day, ATMs will run out of cash and traffic lights will flash red, the White House has a message: These problems already happen every day somewhere in the United States.

Moving to avert panic at the first sign of any outage related to the Year 2000 problem, the Clinton administration sought to reassure Americans by reminding them Monday that technology is not infallible even without the complication of the Y2K bug.

Households spend 13 hours a year on average without electricity because of power failures, said John Koskinen, President Clinton's top Y2K expert. That does not include failures caused by bad weather, which when they happen average outages of 72 hours.

One to 2 percent of the nation's 227,000 ATMs are inoperative each day because of mechanical breakdowns or cash shortages, the White House said. And as many as 15 percent of the nation's 180,000 gasoline stations typically remain closed on New Year's Day because of lack of demand. And about 1 percent of traffic signals fail and begin to flash red every day.

The administration worries that a disruption in power or other essential service will immediately be blamed on Y2K, even though the failures may coincide with the date rollover but otherwise are related in no way to the computer glitch.

``Our strategy has been to provide the public as much information as possible,'' Koskinen said. ``We think the public and the media will benefit from having a context'' to compare an average day's failures with those that might occur during the weekend date change.

He warned that it may take hours or even days to determine whether a failure is connected to Y2K.

The White House also is worried about the American public's reaction to anticipated failures overseas in countries generally recognized not to be as prepared as the United States. Most of the world's time zones will move into 2000 hours before North America.

``We are much better prepared than developing countries around the world,'' Koskinen said. ``We should not assume that what happens there will happen here.''

The United Nations issued a study Monday that cited a ``medium to high risk'' that Y2K errors could harm public health and safety, particularly in developing countries. The United Nations' own coordination center predicted many Y2K mistakes, but it said businesses and governments will experience only limited damage in the early days of January.

It called the threat to human life small but ``not zero.''

Inconveniences could range from minor to loss of jobs because of business collapses, it said.

Koskinen spoke a day before the Office of Management and Budget was to release its final report on the U.S. government's readiness. Koskinen said the OMB report shows only about 15 of its more than 6,000 most important computer systems remain inadequately repaired and tested.

The OMB earlier estimated the government's cost to confront the Y2K problem at $8.34 billion.

Koskinen talked Monday from the government's new $50 million crisis center just blocks from the White House. He said tests of the center's own computer networks last week turned up some problems not related to Y2K, but those problems were fixed.

-- crying (at@what's.coming), December 13, 1999.