here is another article about the NSA shutdown. here they deny any Y2K relation.

http://www.theage.com.au/breaking/0001/30/A54892-2000Jan30.shtml

Spy agency confirms computer outage

Source: AP | Published: Sunday January 30, 3:10 PM

WASHINGTON, Jan 29 - The super-secret National Security Agency confirmed tonight that it had a 'serious computer problem' last week that affected its ability to process intelligence information.

The agency issued a brief statement a few hours after the outage was reported by America's ABC News, which said its sources characterised the problem as the biggest computer failure in the history of the NSA.

'This problem, which was contained to the NSA headquarters complex at Fort Meade, Maryland, did not affect intelligence collection, but did affect the processing of intelligence information,' the agency statement said. 'NSA systems were impacted for 72 hours.'

It said the outage started Monday evening and that the system was restored on Thursday.

'There was no evidence of malice or no evidence of a Y2K problem,' said an agency official who asked not to be identified by name.

'Contingency plans were immediately put into effect that called on other aspects of the NSA system to assume some of the load,' the agency statement said. 'While intelligence collection continued, NSA technicians worked to recover the IT (information technology) infrastructure. That backlog of intelligence processing is almost complete and NSA is confident that no significant intelligence information has been lost.'

The statement said the agency 'is currently operating within the window of normal operations'.

Until a few years ago, the National Security Agency was so secret there was no public acknowledgement by the government of its existence and employees could be disciplined for merely saying they worked there.

It specialises in electronic intelligence gathering through satellites, telephone intercepts and other methods.

The Defence Department acknowledged earlier this month that it made mistakes in its pre-New Year's Eve testing of a Y2K correction for a computer system that processes imagery from intelligence satellites.

The computer system broke down that night, interrupting the flow of by satellite information for several hours.

However, the Pentagon insisted the trouble did not jeopardise US national security.

-- boop (leafyspurge@hotmail.com), January 30, 2000

Answers

hic!

-- burp (3@day.storm), January 30, 2000.

wow! great post Boop, Thanks!!!!

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), January 30, 2000.

If you would like a free Y2K newsletter with the most recent Y2K glitches and computer crimes just send your name and email address. I hope to soon have a Web site.

-- Richard Markland (newsman@bright.net), January 30, 2000.

shucks, only another 3 day storm

-- (4@5.6), January 30, 2000.

Satellites fail at roll. NSA fails big time. You tell me that Joe and Sam's budget operation or some country like Italy is running fine.

-- nope (cant@say.now), January 30, 2000.

I find it interesting what computer problems .gov is willing to openly discuss. We know that there are plenty of them that they will deny exist until their last gasping breath,

In this case they spill their guts out about what appears to be a very serious problem with an NSA computer.

Sure does make one think!!

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), January 30, 2000.

Our GPS system also failed during the August rollover according to Don McAlvany. It impacted the Navy's tracking intelligence. It is surprising that these failures have been made public, makes one wonder what else is going on.

-- Lurkess (Lurkess@Lurking.Net), January 30, 2000.

Dear boop, Thankds for posting this; I was listening to the radio Saturday night and I fell asleep. I woke up this am with an awareness of hearing something about this situation. Thanks for confirming. Jan

-- Jan (janhame@midcoast.com), January 30, 2000.

i notice that neither of these outages is admitted immediately, but after the fact. of course, i would guess this to be the wise decision to protect the security interests of our country. however, i wonder in both instances if they willingly fessed up or if there was simply no longer a way to contain the secret. perhaps a leak somewhere sparks the curiosity of a reporter or something.

-- boop (leafyspurge@hotmail.com), January 30, 2000.

how much ya wanna bet they blame those nasty ol hackers?? ONE more reason to monitor everybody's computer usage!!

-- Porky (Porky@in.cellblockD), January 30, 2000.

It wasn't a Y2K failure. It wasn't a maliciously induced failure. ECHELON just went on the fritz.

Sounds to me like it must've been a Y2K remediation-induced bug. I wonder how many more such events they're going to have before all of that crop of bugs is erased. And then how many more are going to result from the bug fixes?

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), January 30, 2000.