The Sky Is Falling….Again
Remember the IT apocalypse commonly referred to as ‘Y2K’? That was when every computer system in the world was going to shut down or fail in some way because the internal date would not be able to comprehend that the year ‘00′ was the year 2000 rather than 1900. Of course, the troops were mobilized and the crisis was averted.
Then there was last year’s Daylight Savings Time apocalypse. This one was going to wreak havoc around the world as a result of the change in the beginning and ending of Daylight Savings Time in the United States. Computer systems and software applications would be confused about what time it really was in the United States and all kinds of chaos would ensue. This crisis did not quite live up to the hype either.
Let’s hope the latest and greatest “sky is falling” apocalypse is as anticlimactic as the first two. The new one is the Y2K38 bug. As of 2038, the time in Unix systems will overflow 32 bits, meaning that dates in 2038 and beyond can potentially crash Unix systems running in 32 bits.
I hear you saying “But, ‘Y2K38′ is 30 years away. Why do we care now?”
Good question. Generally speaking, we wouldn’t need to sound the alarm just yet. However, financial systems running on Unix systems may start to experience problems now.
The reason? The 30-year mortgage. Hell, if events such as the general destruction of Earth and life as we know it occur in 2012, or an asteroid impact armageddon happens in 2029, a Unix bug will be the least of our worries. So, 2038 may seem like a distant dream, but loan calculation applications could begin to experience problems now, in 2008.
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Tony Bradley
www.tonybradley.com
Essential. Computer. Security.