Y2K is Coming!

Head for the hills, Martha

With the coming attack of the Y2K bug, analyst have made many recommendations from:

1. Do nothing, the problem will go away on its own, to;
2. By a shack in the Montana hills along with six months of food and a shotgun.

Alan Alberts the noted Sacramento computer consultant, suggested to a SLUG meeting on Wednesday, January 20, 1999, that the problem warrants much more attention than the "do nothing approach" suggests but probably does not rise quite to the level of doomsday.

Y2K — What is it?

Alberts indicated that in the 1970's computer programers made significant efforts to preserve costly memory space. One of these efforts consisted of designating the year with two digits, e.g. "75", which would stand for the four digit year "1975." Alberts' mentor told him that this would not be a problem in the 70's and by the year 2000 the memory would be much cheaper and the current programs would have all been replaced. He was half right. The cost of memory has been enormously reduced so that we commonly think of storage space in terms of gigabits and beyond instead of the precious kilobits of the 70's. Unfortunately, however, there are many computers and chips "perhaps numbering in the many billions" which still may be using two digits to designate dates.

Within any given law office computer there may be three places from which our computers fashion dates:

1. The operating system (for instance DOS, Windows 95, 98, etc.);
2. The BIOS (that is the basic input operating system) which is a piece of hardware (including a clock), which helps the computer communicate with the outside world; and
3. A real time clock powered by a small battery from which the BIOS gets its time.

Real time clocks for the most part do not store the centuries as part of the date. They store the date as two digits.

What difference will it make generally?

The book entitled "Time Bomb 2000," by Edward and Jennifer Yourdon, Published by Prentice Hall, according to Alan Alberts, discusses three likely and critical areas of the economy where Y2K problems may produce significant life annoyances or catastrophes: electric power, transportation, and telephone service.

Power

Since we have seen how one small problem in the electrical grid in one part of the country can affect a city the size of San Francisco, we can see that a potential computer glitch in one localized computer with a Y2K problem could very well create widespread power outages. Multiplying the thousands and millions of computers controlling the movement of power throughout the country creates a likelihood that there will be some power outages at the beginning of the year 2000.

Transportation

Nearly every vehicle built in the 1990's has from 50 to 200 small imbedded computers controlling everything, as mundane the actual clock in our dashboard to as sophisticated as the computer in the car's exhaust which controls the fuel mixture to keep emissions within the limits prescribed by law. While it is unclear exactly how the time clocks within these chips will be effected in the year 2000, it is possible according to Yourdon that cars, buses, airplanes, and trains will not work reliably at least at the beginning of the next century.

Phone Service

Continuing this analysis, the phone companies also have millions of computers assisting the movement of calls throughout the worldwide telephone network. While the larger companies may have successfully corrected any potential Y2K problems, other smaller companies which may be in the grid may not be so attentive. In any case, analyst expect that there will be problems in the phone system too in the early 21st Century.

Y2K, A Problem For Lawyers Too?

Alberts believes the best book discussing legal ramifications of Y2K is "The Year 2000 Computer Crisis" by Michael Scott and Warren Reid, published by Glasser LegalWorks. According to Alberts, the authors believe that attorneys risk significant liability because Y2K problems have been so publicized as to be legally foreseeable and thus attorneys and their clients will be liable for any problems that may occur as a result. The correction of Y2K problems (sometimes called "remediation") is a problem that can take years in major companies and even a substantial allocation of staff and financial resources in small offices. The authors believe that it is critical for law offices, companies, and clients of attorneys to take significant organized and intelligent steps to attempt to deal with the Y2K problems. We must do this not only to limit the problems within the organization but also to provide a defense in the event that a foreseeable Y2K problem causes damages that could have been avoided with some effort.

On a mundane level, even the daily programs of the law office need to be reviewed, corrected or replaced as necessary. As an example, nearly all DOS software is non Y2K compliant and even Windows 3.1 software is not guaranteed to be Y2K compliant. While newer programs such as Amicus, Abacus and Case Master, claim Y2K compliance, other common programs such as many other Microsoft Products, Quicken versions before 98, WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS and others are either being considered for remediation or will simply not be supported by the various companies involved.

What to Do About It

Alberts believes it simply makes sense to do a number of things to be ready for the new millennium. First of all, on a personal basis, store enough basic essentials to last some reasonably significant period of time into the next year, for example, food, water, medicine, office supplies, cash, fire place fuel, etc. He further recommends that obtaining copies of all of your end-of-the year reports from any place that has your money or has assets that you may own in the event that the company loses its information about you. For the same reason, you should get the latest report of your wages from the Social Security Office as well as copies of important documents such as your birth certificate, passport, etc.

Specifically, all law firms should print out copies of all of their accounts receivable as well as accounts payable and work in progress at the end of 1999. These documents should be compared with the information spun out by your computer in the first few months of the year 2000. Alberts believes that this effort should be done as soon as possible because as soon as Monica Lewinsky's dress stain ceases to become the media's darling, Y2K will quickly step in its void as the hottest crises for the remainder of this year.

There is one other solution. Fry's Electronics in the Bay Area is now selling a special aerosol spray can guaranteed to work on the Y2K bug. Of course, it is absolutely useless, but it might give you something with which to amuse yourself during the long Montana winters.