TECHNOLOGY-MEXICO: Combatting the Millenium Bug

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Rey Rodriguez

MEXICO, Sep 13 1998 (IPS) - Mexico’s government has set aside 800 million dollars, contracted experts, created a special commission and sponsored workshops and seminars to ward off the disruption the year 2000 is expected to cause to computer systems.

Officials at the Office of the Comptroller and Administrative Development warned participants at a Sep. 8-9 seminar here that the chaos created by the Year 2000 (YK2) bug would have incalculable consequences and high economic costs. It therefore requires coordinated action, they said.

The core of the matter is that much of the technology now in use is not prepared for the millennium, since the internal clocks in some computerized systems will not recognize the year 2000. Most computer programmes represent years using the last two digits, since the first two, which correspond to this century, have always been 1 and 9. For this reason, 2000 will be registered as double zero, which systems will interpret as 1900.

Carlos Jarque, general director of the National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Information of Mexico, said this confusion would affect financial operations. He said it could cause some companies to lose credibility and make some systems cease functioning altogether.

Stoplights could go haywire, bank accounts may be blocked, some telephone subscribers may receive huge bills while others may be charged just cents, elevators and electrical appliances could be paralysed and there might be chaos in hospitals, factories and elsewhere.

In June, the Mexican government created a national commission to deal with the conversion of computer systems with regard to the Year 2000. This commission has teamed up with the private sector to deal with the problem in three stages: awareness, evaluation and planning; correcting systems and equipment; and tests, validation and implementation.

The problem is a worldwide one. For example, Spain is investing some 1,335 million dollars to face up to the crisis, which will affect not only large companies, but also anyone who possesses a fax or telephone, uses an elevator, or has a video machine or any other device that uses computer chips.

The Australian electronic industry is investing more than 120 million dollars to prevent blackouts that could be caused by the Y 2K bug.

In Chile, where public services are already detecting the first symptoms of the millenium bug in their computers, the reconversion of systems will cost about one billion dollars: when an institute that administers the pension funds of thousands of workers tried to project some data beyond 2000 so as to calculate the pensions, the computer systems failed to respond.

De Yardeni, chief of economy and strategy for global investment of Deutsche Bank Securities and one of the specialists most concerned about the catastrophic impact the Year 2000 crisis could have on the world economy, organized 24 hours of presentations and conferences on the issue on Aug. 19.

This type of conference, retransmitted by Internet via RealVideo, will take place every 100 days to see how the measures adopted to avert the crisis evolve.

Analysts say it is not enough to review the systems in the factories themselves. The equipment used by their suppliers will also have to be checked. To do this, American and German firms have launched a survey among suppliers to ensure that everything works properly after December 31, 1999.

For several months, dozens of law firms are preparing themselves for the fallout in the United States. Some are gearing up to defend information companies, others to sue them. Some people hope to turn the crisis into their own personal goldmine. It is estimated that the final total of the indemnities for trial cases related to this problem could be enormous.

In fact, three civil liability cases have already been filed in U.S. courts against software and electronic equipment factories. One involves a supermarket that was paralyzed when its cash- register system crashed after trying to process a credit card whose expiry date was 2000.

Sweden is preparing to temporarily shut down of some nuclear power plants on the eve of the year 2000 because it cannot guarantee that its systems will function properly.

There could also be problems with planes. If just one programme goes haywire, the domino effect could endanger the entire security of the area in question. In fact, two airline companies have announced that they will suspend their flights at the start of the next century. The Norwegian airline, SAS, will interrupt its flights on Saturday, Jan. 1 and Sunday Jan. 2, 2000, while the Dutch airline KLM has decided to keep its planes grounded during the first week of the new millennium.

According to the research group Gartner, 80 percent of all computer programmes will be affected by the Y 2K bug. This means that between three and seven percent of the code lines that comprise information programmes will have to be changed. The global cost of work to avert the expected chaos will be some 600 billion, of which 276 will be paid by the United States, according to the same source.

The issue has reached such levels that European Union ministers plan to meet on Nov. 11 in Austria to discuss the Y 2K crisis.