 The Internet is home to hundreds of cyber-loonies, some of whose stories may not be quite as loony as you think. Let me introduce you to one. He is a nerd, a computer programmer, and has, for the last few years been hired by a large company to certify its computers as Y2K ready. We will call him James, and recently he finished fixing all the systems for the company that was currently paying him. As he was celebrating with his overtime bonus, a friend and co-programmer came up to him and said, "James? I realized yesterday that the work we just did was pointless if the power grid hasn't fixed its Y2K problems."
The next day, James went searching on the Internet to see if his work really had been in vain. The situation was worse than he hoped: the power grid is a computerized system that has units all over the place telling the transformer stations how much power they need. The whole thing is based on computers deciding how much power to send where. All power plants, especially nuclear plants, use computers and computer chips to control safety precautions. And while some plants have been tested, none have been certified compliant. Industry consultants agree that if the year 2000 came tomorrow, the entire grid would crash. According to them, there isn't time to fix all the problems.
But James was an optimist. Even if the power grid failed, essential systems could be brought back online within a few days and from there they could slowly put the system back together. It might take a month, but it wouldn't be the end of the world. This is the feeling most programmers have, and the most common understanding of the problem among the general public. It is not a feeling James kept for long. As he explored more of the problems the country would face when the year 2000 arrived, he came across huge gaps in the preparation that he had thought was so complete. From nuclear power plants to social security, he discovered what has been publicly available, but not obvious in the media: thousands of systems, many of which are basic to everyday needs, are not compliant and probably will not be by the time the year Zero arrives. Upon realizing the magnitude of the problem, he became a self-styled Y2K survivalist. James is now living in the desert with a 10-year supply of canned food and several guns. He has asked that his full name not be published because he owns a public deed to the property and he does not want anyone to know where he will be hiding when the ball drops on Times Square.
There are many who believe in the new acronym cyberspace has created: TEOTWAWKI (The End of the World as We Know it). They are not members of strange cults that believe aliens will come and take the chosen ones away with them, they are the programmers who have seen the problem that is hardwired into our industrial society. You've probably heard about the Y2K problem. Wesleyan students have been receiving information from Information Technology Services (ITS) regarding how to make their computers compliant, but few consider it a problem that's going to significantly affect their life. After all, it's just a problem with computer software, and that's not really enough to destroy the world, is it? Well, no. It's not. The Y2K bug has to come out of cyberspace before it can really do damage. Unfortunately, it does exit cyberspace and enter the real world through embedded systems, or, in the words of Wired writer Kevin Poulsen, the "Pandora's Box of Y2K."
Embedded Systems An embedded system is a microchip that is used to control, monitor, or assist in the operation of machinery. They're very simple little devices, and most people have seen one at some point. They're in your car, microwaves, the air conditioning, and even some of the lights around campus. In industry, they're in everything from oil refineries to power plants to medical equipment. In medicine, you can find them in any piece of monitoring equipment, x-ray and ultrasound machines, and a lot of the emergency equipment in ambulances. There are millions, maybe billions of chips out there, and while most of them don't know or care about the date, a percentage, estimated by various industry consultants as anywhere from 2% to 65%, will have problems when Y2K arrives. Those problems could be as mild as a temporary glitch to complete failure.
You might wonder why such a small thing as the changing of the year would cause a computer program to fail. I've heard incorrect rumors that suggest normal possibilities-some believe 00 is a stop code or an override code to stop a chip that is otherwise never supposed to go off-as well as possibilities more loony than James' ideas: the mystic effect of two zeros in a date might cause the computer to suddenly become sentient and overthrow its masters. The actuality is quite a bit different, and does not appear to be common knowledge. Frequently, programs are designed to accept data from the user (such as the date, which was once data input into the programs in embedded systems), and they are then programmed to check that data to make sure it hasn't been corrupted. If the program, by its checking routines, discovers that it has been corrupted, it can either, depending on the program and its writers, ask for the input from the user, or send a warning code and shut down. Most embedded systems are built around the assumption that if they get corrupted, they will be replaced, so they just shut down.
Examine for a moment a recent failure that put the scare of Y2K into the media. In 1996 Visa and MasterCard had to stop issuing credit cards while they fixed systems that had refused to accept cards with expiration dates of 00. Every system had to be replaced with one with a Y2K-compliant embedded system-not a minor task. While it can be seen as a minor failure, it's also a Y2K failure that occurred four years before AD 2000. As of October, approximately 23% of US companies had experienced a Y2K failure of some degree, and nearly all respondents called it a crisis. Millions of Americans have already experienced how even a single system failure can cause a disruption of everyday life. When one of the Galaxy satellites failed in May of this year, US pager networks, broadcast news operations, and many other systems were delayed, or even lost. The interruptions were brief because another satellite was moved into position to take up the slack, but these failures may be a glimpse into the future that awaits us.
The Domino Effect Some claim the Y2K bug will crash computers all over the place, and then they'll be fixed and it can't be seen as a major problem. The flaw in that argument arises as soon as you examine the domino effect. Once used to describe the gradual colonization of the world by communism, the term now refers to the chain of capitalism that thrives in this country and that we are dependent upon. It is a chain like any other-cutting the weakest link, as Y2K has the capability to do, could bring down the entire chain.
Examine your average store. It has some computers, some software, and, if the managers have been aware of the problem, it has recently upgraded that software and those computers to make them Y2K compliant. They make certain the computers that keep track of the stock are all compliant, and the store can now be certain it is completely compliant and won't have any problems when the Year 2000 arrives.
And as the last hired programmer is leaving, he turns to the manager who just gave him his paycheck and says, "you realize, if your suppliers aren't compliant, you've just wasted your money."
No problem, right? After all, if this store is fixing its problems, its suppliers must be doing the same. Actually only about 40% of businesses have begun looking at the Y2K problem, and estimated as few as 2% have fully solved it. So while this little store fixes its problems, most of its suppliers haven't even begun fixing theirs. And few of the suppliers who buy their materials from companies that have looked into their problems. Raw manufacturing companies have one of the worst records among companies their size.
Or take a look at it from the other end: Electricity. All industry consultants and programmers agree that the utility companies do not have the time to fix all of the power plants. When the year changes, some plants will shut down, causing blackouts. The power grid is interconnected: if enough plants shut down, the increased demand for power would overload those still running. Gary North, considered by many a prophet of the failures Y2K may cause, predicts a rolling blackout that will start as the date changes on the eastern seaboard. The eastern power plants will fail and whether they take the ones further west with them will be irrelevant, because an hour later, those will collapse as well. But we've all survived short term power outages before, right? So the utility companies will go and fix the power plants and we'll have power again, right? Unfortunately the domino effect will at this point kick in. At the same time that the power plants collapse, every transformer in the country will shut down because of their integrated embedded systems. So if the utilities fix the power plants, there will still be no power. Let's say for the sake of argument, however, that they manage to fix the transformers before the Year 2000. All is good, we now say, right?
Perhaps not. Most power plants extract energy from fossil fuels. Trains cart fossil fuels from the mines. Many locomotives have computers or embedded systems, which would be a problem. And then there's railroad switches. There's not a single one in the country that's still manual-they're all computer controlled. When they fail, the power plants won't be able to keep running, even if their systems are checked out, without fuel. As for the plants that aren't running on coal-the hydroelectric, if they're made compliant, should keep running, but nuclear plants get their fuel by train as well.
Every system in the country is built on a foundation that might be wiped out. Everywhere there's a failure, the chain of the economy, the chain of our life, is disrupted. Many economists currently believe the Year 2000 will be the beginning of the largest US recession in decades. Our lives are so built around technology that many wonder if it's possible for us to live through even half of what the doomsday prophets believe will happen. What happens if the power stays, but the boats, trains, and 18-wheelers that transport our food to the supermarkets stop running? It's an important question that no-one answer.
The Third World While the Third World is less reliant on the computerized systems that we're used to, many emerging countries are as dependent on the technology that has become part of the fabric of our society. Yet while the companies and government of the US are aware of the Y2K bug and are working desperately to fix their systems, emerging countries tend not to be as active in that area. They don't have the resources to replace all the components that need to be replaced.
Y2K survivalism at first seems limited to the Internet and computer gurus, but it has also cropped up in some rather unusual places. The CIA has warned its agents around the world to stockpile money and food in case of serious disaster on New Year's Day. Many multinational corporations are telling their executives where not to be on January 1st, 2000: any third-world country, any major urban center without heavy security, and on any plane or boat. The US military is conducting studies of its weapons systems and has recommended that no planes made before last year be in the air when the clock strikes 12. That effectively grounds over 70% of planes, and the navy is considering having all ships report to harbor for that day. Military advisers are currently suggesting that all nuclear devices be disarmed the day before in case there's a problem with those systems.
Whether or not the end of civilization will arrive on January 1st, 2000, most analysts at least see a world recession that could last for years or even decades. Most of the goods we buy in the US are made in the third world, and since the collapse there is likely to be worse than it is here, we may discover shortages worse than the Soviet Union ever experienced. I don't offer the fact that the world will end on January 1st, 2000. Opinions on the damage that will be caused vary from not even a disruption to complete and utter annihilation. No one person has full knowledge of the extent of the problems, just as no one fully knows how quickly repairs will be done to vital systems. Right now, there's not enough data to be certain. I've offered the worst of the possibilities that face us because they show what we should be prepared for. Similarly, knowing the places where the system could break down can tell us what we need to fix. I, however, will not be on a plane, in a city, or near a nuclear power plant when the ball falls on Times Square.
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