Y2K is a Month Away

[Brian Jones]

Folks,

If you haven't read Ron and Karen Hood's musings on Y2K, and seen their suggested preparations, I highly reccomend you go here:

http://www.survival.com/y2k.htm

and study up on it. Their list of preparations is top-notch.

I did Y2K contingency-plan consulting for the corporate world: I'm not a techie myself, but we dealt with all the other ramifications, businesswise and legally, that may affect companies if they or their key suppliers or customers went down. One of my strategic partners, an attorney, was tasked by the White House to go down there and assess certain legal ramifications if the government fell down from Y2K. He came back sweating, folks. He moved many of his investments into commodities, and absolutely refuses to go on any planes around that time. (Me, too!) He still feels, from seeing first hand evidence, that many government-run infrastructure problems may result, and that, to avoid panic, or because it has its head in the sand, the government is putting too happy a spin on things.

Banks have been suing some ATM manufacturers for not getting on the ball, and you probably have noticed a great many brand new ATMs installed in your local bank branches: they had to buy new ones in many cases. Not all banks have done this. The FDIC says about 80% of banks are now compliant (as best as this can be assessed -- I mean, what the hell DOES compliant mean anyway, eh?). They've listed banks that are not compliant at their website http://www.fdic.gov . !!EDITED NOTE: I just went back there and they've posted a notice that no such list exists. This, after I saw an interview on TV with an FDIC person who said it DOES exist. Read the front article on the site for more info -- apologies. However -- I do stand by my 80% of banks (rather than 99.9% as said on the FDIC site) number as the one that was thrown around recently...!!

We had also studied other nations. One Far Eastern country, whose top ministers my attorney/partner met with (he does legal representation for their government on trade issues here in the US), asked him, "What's Y2K?" when he brought it up. This was at he end of 1997 -- they hadn't done anything yet or even known about it. By mid 1998 they had only begun to recognize a hint of a problem. They later asked for our help but we were too busy doing other things, like getting the hell out of that business! From the US standpoint, because many of the US's trade partners are non-compliant, a worldwide economic recession is likely, and that will have an enormous impact on the economy in the US, too.

I'm not trying to be an alarmist, but the reality is: nobody really knows what'll happen, folks. So we should always assume the worst in terms of preparations, etc.

Y2K is one month away from today. So the question:

Are you making Y2K preparations of any kind? If not, do you think you might start (especially after having read Ron and Karen's site)? What about your friends and extended family? If they are not prepared, do you have extra supplies to help out these loved-ones if the situation arises? If the heat shuts off, and you live in cold climates, are you ready to use alternative sources of heat? Many other issues.

Ron, Karen, and Greg: for those who haven't prepared at all, and now have changed their minds or just woken up, what are a few key things they can still do as an emergency last-minute prep strategy from now until then, with the consideration that some might not have great financial resources?

Best,

Brian.

[This message has been edited by Brian Jones (edited 01 December 1999).]

[This message has been edited by Brian Jones (edited 01 December 1999).]

 

[Scarman]

Interesting stuff. Definately worth considering. Thanks Brian.

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The vague and tenuous hope that GOD is too kind to punish the ungodly has become a deadly opiate for the conscience of millions.

*A. W. Tozer

2 Cor 5:10

 

[Doc Ron]

Thought you might be interested in this. After reading it give yourself a moment to search out how petroleum is used on a daily basis... other than as fuel.

Ron

Hi Campers,
>
> Well, I made it back ok and there is a great deal to relate.
>
> In order to fully understand and appreciate what is happening regarding
Y2k in the Middle East, you have to appreciate a bit about the area and the
culture. The Saudi people are at the same time, the most naive and the most
arrogant people that I have had the pleasure to work with in my career. As
near as I can gather, the oil boom of the 70's and 80's produced a
generation of "rich brats" that have evolved into the current leadership of
the kingdom. Reality set in hard sometime last year. There was a
realization that the Gross national product for Saudi Arabia had declined by
55%. In the meantime, the citizenry had grown accustomed to the largesse of
the kingdom. Things like telephone bills, water bills and generally, bills
were unheard of. Nearly everything was "ministered" by the Monarchy and as
such, a whole generation has become spoiled. Nearly all "Saudi's" that is to
say "Native" Saudi's were employed by the Government and as such considered
themselved employed for life. Scut work or for that matter any real "work"
was either performed by the "second class citizens" such as Pakistani's or
by western consultants. The 70's and 80's were boom times for the consultant
in the mid-east. Recently however, there has been an extreme culture shock.
The Kingdom has discovered that the there is a bottom to the barrel of
money. This has manifested itself by the privatization of some of the former
Governmental functions (i.e. Telephone Company, Aramco oil, and the Banking
industry). To that end, in January of 1999, many Saudi's received their
first ever telephone bill. for some of them it was truely a shock to see
that they have to pay for a change.


Into this mess comes the awakening that there is something called Y2k and
that it was a real problem that was not just an "American" problem and that
it could (in a big way) affect the Kingdom. After several false starts, the
Kingodm retained nearly EVERY consultancy on the planet for seperate
assessments of the Y2k vulnerability that the Kingdom faced. (Please note
the word "Assessment" it is important later). By August-Sept. these
consultants completed their evaluations of the potential failures that the
Kingdom faced. (my own included). As is typical of consultants (myself
included I am sad to say), once we report, we walk away. It is then up to
the "client" to take action on the "findings" of the consultant. In many
cases, the client would opt to retain the consultancy for remediation of the
findings, and sometims they opted to "fix" it themselves. In early October,
many statements were being promulgated from various Saudi sources that
indicated that they had everything under control and that all was Y2k OK.
It was only at the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) meeting that was hosted by
SAMA (Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority, their version of the FED) that the
truth began to emerge. It seems that there was a perceptionthat when
consultants reported on "findings" of vulnerability, there was a p[erception
among the Saudi's that this indicated that these were discoveries that had
been FIXED!. Not so... Once the difference between remediation and
assessment became clear, there was what I can only described as a group
panic. (I was at this meeting) Several ongoing contracts were amended to go
beyond simple assessment and include remediation. In some cases, the
consultants opted out and would not accept the expansion of scope. The
bottom line was the that the Saudi's had grossly underestimated the full
scope of the problem and had not taken the necessary preliminary steps.
>
> Recently, there have been statements from the Saudi Government proclaiming
themselves Y2k "ready" Well, in the purest Clintonian sense of that
statement, they are correct. They have a formulated plan to address any Y2k
problems. The plan?? Replace on failure. And, because they have a PLAN,
they feel that they can profess that they are ready. So in the strictest
sense of the word, they are "ready" it is just that that readiness falls
well short of the mark. I can speak directly to the Saudi Telephone Company
in that I worked rather closely with the various teams that were attempting
remediation. In once case, Lucent is replacing old Ericcson switches with
5ESS ssytems because the old systems would lock up on 01/01/00. They have
been working on it for a year. they (Lucent) estimate that they will be
ready on the 15 of FEB!!. Telacordia (formerly Bell Labs) is trying to
assess business systems and are only 10% done with assessment. There are
over 100 million lines of COBOL code that is not examined as of my
departure.
>
> This problem is excerbated by the Saudi practice of "pirating" software
everywhere. I saw functional installations of Windows 2000 (yess 2000) in
business that had been "copied" from beta test systems hither and yon. I
have seen Win95 and Win98 installed in systesm at water processing plants
and sewage treatment plants that is OSR1 (first release). The majority of
systems are running on 386's and 486's that have been "turbo'd" to a Pentium
level. You see there is a booming business in Saudi bootlegging western
technology. That is why it is nearly impossible to run standard checks on
the equipment. the BIOS's are bootlegged from Megatrends and AMI. then some
industry Saudi PHD will "modify" it so as to "saudi-ize" it. That was what
I wa trying to say when over on FR I stated that we were experiencing 100%
infant mortality on valve controllers. It seems that the controllers were
"bootlegged" from Pakistan and were an "almost" copy of a Burr-brown. BUT,
the middleware had been "adapted" from Allyn-Middlesex.. It is analgeous to
having a Mustang with a Chevy engine and Dodge transmission. It is still
acar, but it is a maintenance nightmare.
>
> Now couple into this what we have come to refer to as "Saudi real-time" it
goes something like this....
>
> 9:00 - 9:30 workday starts.... Saudi's filter in
> 9:30 - 9:45 Prayer call
> 10:30 - 11:00 return from Prayer, actually start work
> 11:30 -1:00 Lunch
> 1:00 - 1:30 Afternoon work time
> 1:30 - 2:00 Afternoon Prayer call
> 3:00 - 3:30 Return from Prayer
> 3:30 - 4:00 Work
> 4:00 - End of day.
>
> So as you can see, using SRT (Saudi real-time) there is little that gets
done. That is also why a great deal of the work is performed by consultants
and Pakistani's.
>
> I have to go to a meeting right now. So I will close this issue of the
Saudi Gazette. I cannot rightly say what will happen because no one knows.
But, I would watch the price of the crude. and hedge your bets.
>
> Oh yeah, before I forget, I am wondering who dreamt up that nonsense about
the Saudi's having prepositioned oil reserves out of country. I would sure
like to have a few ounces of whatever it is they are smoking...... It seems
to give a great high...
>
> Semper Fi


------------------
Learn Life Extension at:

http://www.survival.com ]

 

[Brian Jones]

Egads! Perfect example of the interdependencies of nations.

Two true Y2K stories:

#1
An American diplomat over in the Middle East asked a government representative there what they were doing to address the "Millennium Bug" problem.

The quick-thinking but clueless politician replied, "Don't worry! We are prepared to spray EVERYWHERE!"

#2
A well-known Y2K expert was asked by a certain low-profile three-letter agency to come to their HQ and talk about Y2K a couple years back. He decided to bring a technician with him to demonstrate certain problems.

For his demo, he brought the CIA people over to the escalators and had the tech change the date code in the escalators to 11:59 pm December 31. On cue, the escalators froze up at 12. Then he had his technician change the date back to whatever date it was they were there.

All of them stood there, staring at the escalators, waiting for them to move. It got a bit uncomfortable, and then they realized that nothing WAS gonna happen.

Now for Government in action: it turns out that there is a clause in Federal Civil Service employee agreements that goes something like this: if you work on the second floor or above in a building where the *escalators* (yes, escalators) don't work, well, you don't have to work either while they are down. You get time off with pay. The CIA was on vacation for a couple days (except the first floor) until they fixed the escalator problem. (I wanna work for the govt with tose kinds of terms!)...

Sheesh,

Brian.

 

[dano]

What I don't see a whole lot of is the three day weekend+booze+idiocy equation. Over the last several months, I've developed a plan, in conjunction w/the Divisional Offices of my employer, and feel my store is going to be secure. However, look at Seattle as an indication of what may happen on 1/1/2000, with the senselss looting, destruction, etc. The people aspect of all this is going to be very messy. As an example:
--San francisco is expecting 2 MILLION people at the three sanctioned events (no estimate on any other non-sanctioned events)
--The Cow Palace, in Daly City (1st. city south of S.F.), will have 30,000 people. The Daly City Police Dept. only has about 100 uniformed officers.
--BART (bay area rapid transit) will be depositing 2000 people every 5 minutes into the S.F. area.
--Most will have a three day weekend.
--On Sat/ 1/1/2000, a conservative prediction says that 50% of the workforce will not show up to work.
--Even if it's not Y2K related, ANY sort of service disruption will be blamed on it, hence hysteria may result.

I don't think the computer bug is all that should be worried about...

--dan

 

[SB]

http://www.tacda.org/

 

[Brian Jones]

Funny, yet tragic nd true, Y2K story I heard...

A bank in the Southeastern US was experiencing a problem over the last few months with people taking their cash out because of fears of Y2K. Since banks only carry 3% cash reserves, this can sink a bank very quickly.

The senior management decided to send a letter out to all the bank's customers assuring them that the bank was finished with all of its remediation and testing. The letter was drafted, signed and sent.

Suddenly, the bank found that cash withdrawals INCREASED at an alarming rate. It turned out that whomever typed the letter on their word processor made an small typographic error. On the top of the letter, it was dated:

*October 4, 1899*.

The bank is no longer in business...

Brian.