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To: Joey Two-Cents who wrote (81779)	12/31/1999 6:49:00 AM
From: accountclosed	Respond to of 86076

wow

To: Joey Two-Cents who wrote (81779)	12/31/1999 7:40:00 AM
From: Giordano Bruno	Respond to of 86076

good news... When the telephone in Moscow failed to ring, the center in Colorado called the back-up telephone to find out what happened. The ringer was fixed. Russia, U.S. cooperate to avert nuclear accident By Judith Crosson PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo., Dec 30 (Reuters) - U.S. and Russian military experts sat side by side on Thursday in unprecedented cooperation to avert the deadliest of all nightmares -- a nuclear attack triggered by the Y2K bug. The Center for Year 2000 Strategic Stability began operations on Thursday on the grounds of Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado, manned by military personnel from the United States and Russia. They will jointly monitor nuclear missile launch warning systems to avoid any catastrophic accident prompted by a Y2K bug. The Y2K bug stems from mainly older computer systems which were programmed to read only the last two digits of a year. If the glitch is left uncorrected, systems could misread 2000 as 1900, causing systems to malfunction or even crash. Peterson was chosen because it is near NORAD, the U.S.- Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command, built in the early 1960s to detect missiles approaching North America. ``From the U.S. perspective, it went very smoothly. Of course we haven't come to the rollover time yet so we're anticipating as things get further along that we may see a few things,' U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. David Hale told reporters after the first shift got off duty. The center will receive information from NORAD that the two sides previously agreed upon. ``We don't expect any problems with the U.S. or the Russian side but there may be some other foreign countries that could have some problems,' Hale added. ``The risk is real low, but when you're talking about nuclear missiles the pain is real high,' U.S. Air Force Col. Don Knight said. Knight was speaking about the unique project devised by the Pentagon to make sure any possible glitches that could spark a nuclear attack as computers roll over from 1999 to 2000 do not happen. To bring this about a group of Russian Federation military experts is sitting with U.S. military personnel monitoring worldwide missile warning information. The purpose of the center is to ensure that the world's two largest nuclear powers are in direct contact during the Y2K rollover. The first crew coming off its eight-hour shift could report only one small glitch -- a malfunctioning ringer on a telephone that links the center in Colorado with a similar monitoring operation in the Moscow area. ``There was a small glitch with our communications,' Russian Federation Air Force Col. Sergey Kaplin told reporters through an interpreter, but he said it did not affect operations. Six people, three Russians and three Americans, work on each eight-hour shift. They communicate with Moscow through a regular telephone, a backup phone and a satellite phone. ``I would prefer to speak about these centers as not two separate centers, but as two parts of one center,' Kaplin said. When the telephone in Moscow failed to ring, the center in Colorado called the back-up telephone to find out what happened. The ringer was fixed.