Friday May 8 1998
'Computer bug chaos
looms' as HK falls
behind
SIMON BECK in Washington and GREN MANUEL
Hong Kong is between nine months and a year
behind in solving the millennium computer bug,
according to the CIA.
In a rare interview, CIA official Sherry Burns
warned that most foreign countries were nowhere
near re-programming their computers in time for
2000.
The SAR, China and Japan were ''maybe nine
months to a year behind in terms of where the work
should be'', she said. The CIA is surveying the
international security risks of the bug.
The warning came as Secretary for Information
Technology and Broadcasting Kwong Ki-chi
announced that the Government would launch an
awareness programme on the bug, also known as
the Y2K problem.
In the strongest warning from the Hong Kong
Government, Mr Kwong said the bug was
''extensive and potentially disastrous if not properly
addressed as there are few, if any, areas of modern
life that are not touched by information technology''.
It was also working with all organisations funded or
regulated by the Government to ensure they were
bug-free.
The Government already had ''a comprehensive
rectification and replacement programme'', he said.
The Y2K problem could cause computer systems
throughout the world to crash on January 1, 2000,
because they have not been programmed to
recognise the ''00''.
Not only office machines could be hit. Dedicated
computers controlling everything from fax machines
to nuclear power stations could malfunction,
experts have warned.
A Hong Kong Productivity Council study last
August found that fixing the bug across the SAR
would cost more than $1.3 billion, yet two-thirds of
companies relying on computers were intending to
ignore the problem.
Among the looming problems are computers in the
Immigration Department, which in March warned
of ''chaos'' unless it spent $60 million solving the
bug problem.
The problem would prevent it issuing identity cards
and processing travellers at the airport in 2000. |
