G8 urged to act to avoid millennium
computer chaos
LONDON, May 15 (Reuters) - Leaders at the G8 summit this weekend will discuss
how to combat possible fallout from the millennium computer bomb, and industry
experts said on Friday action is crucial if disaster is to be avoided.
World industry is now so reliant on computers that a rash of failures could cause
economic disruption. Some experts say this could tip the world into recession or worse.
Millions of people dependent on state pensions, unemployment payments and welfare
could quickly find themselves without funds if government computerised payment
systems break down.
Public utilities providing power and water supplies are said to be at risk if computers
across the world crash at midnight on December 31, 1999.
"We say there will be potentially significant economic disruption, and if we are right,
governments have to prepare contingency plans," Geoff Unwin, vice-chairman of French
information technology and consulting group Cap Gemini SA told Reuters.
Computers are exposed to a problem that sounds almost too trivial to be true. In the
1970s and 1980s, computer programmers saved what was then valuable space
abbreviating years to two digits - like 97 or 85 - knowing that this would cause mayhem
in 2000. Computers would be unable to make sense of a four digit number and would
crash or start pumping out erroneous data.
But because of the fast moving nature of information technology, there was a widely
held belief that this problem would be addressed many years before 2000 dawned.
This assumption was false, and companies and governments around the world are
scurrying to fix the problem.
Governments have been slower than industry to address problems with their own
computers.
"Lots of governments talk about awareness, but the money they are spending on their
own IT systems is not nearly enough. Britain is spending 100 million (pounds) on bug
busters, but 700 million on the millennium dome. What are they taking more seriously,"
said Nick Jones, analyst with U.S. high technology consultancy Gartner Group.
The millennium dome is a huge, temporary structure being built on the banks of the River
Thames in London to celebrate the turn of the century.
But Britain is considered by experts to be second only to the U.S. in preparedness for
computer bomb problems. Japan and Germany are said to be laggards.
Simon Reeve, author of the book, "The Millennium Bomb" has a more extreme view.
"Unless the G8 governments mobilise their work forces as if for war, the dawn of the
new millennium will herald an immediate breakdown in global telecommunications and
massive problems for the Internet. Then we will see the cumulative effects of business
failures gradually taking their toll on the global economy," Reeve said.
Edward Yardeni, chief economist at merchant bankers Deutsche Morgan Grenfell, calls
for more than just words from the assembled G8 statesmen. In a recent article in the
Wall Street Journal Yardeni said there was a 60 percent chance of a recession because
of the computer bomb, with the possibility of a depression.
Yardeni called for the formation of a Year 2000 Alliance with funding of $100 billion.
Cap Gemini's Unwin believes that as well as general economic disruption, the most
vulnerable are at high risk. "The world is heading for a dangerous place unless action
starts to happen. The sick, pensioners, the unemployed what can they do if they can't
physically be paid," Unwin said.
I remain,
SOROS
ps thanks Murray |
