I stumbled across this on the internet. If it's been posted before, I apologize.
An Open Letter to Ralph Nader
The Year 2000 is OUR Problem
Dear "Public Citizen" and Ralph Nader
I am just a little astonished that you have not already become involved in helping to solve the "Millennium Bug" problem. The
apparent unwillingness of our government to properly address "The Millennium Bug" has inflamed the technical community while
the issues involved have not yet been properly communicated to the public at large.Unbelievable as it may seem, the issue that
I will present here for your attention and assistance is many times more important that the aggregation of all the important
issues that Ralph Nader and "Public Citizen" have successfully addressed over the last 25 years.
President Clinton announced on 8/15/97, see y2ktimebomb.com
"I want to assure the American people that the federal government, in cooperation with state and local governments and the private sector, is taking steps
to prevent any interruption in government services that rely on the proper functioning of federal computer systems. We can't have the American people
looking to a new century and the new millennium with their computers -- the very symbol of modernity and the modern age -- holding them back, and
we're determined to see that it doesn't happen."
But there is overwhelming evidence that Westergaard's statement below is correct:
"Sorry Bill -- you're blowing smoke again. There is not a chance in hell that computer information systems of the federal
government, and notably not the U.S. military, will be fully functional by year 2000."
The Y2K remediation bill for government agencies was cited on 5/15/97 as being $2.8 BILLION and on 8/15/97 as $3.8
BILLION. That figure has already been rendered invalid by the FAA. The FAA has very recently announced that its Y2K
remediation cost will be greatly exaggerated by the fact that new systems won't be ready by 2000/01/01 and therefore the
old systems must be repaired to become Y2K compliant or the planes will stop flying.
The cost to repair the government agencies problems is surely on the way to $30 BILLION.
But that's not the worst of it. As a nation, a bill of $100 BILLION would probably not be disruptive to the economy.What will
be totally disruptive is that they won't complete the repair by the drop dead date of 1999/12/31.
The cost of failed national/global computer infrastructures will be many times $100 BILLION and THAT IS THE PROBLEM.
Areas very vulnerable to major failures due to the lagging schedule for remediation include most government agencies, except
perhaps Social Security Administration, Banking, Telecommunications, Automated Factories, Electrical Power Generation and
Distribution, Healthcare Facilities, Medium- and Small-size businesses etc. etc.
You are referred to y2ktimebomb.com
House Science Subcommittee Chairman Steve Horn (R-CA) and members Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Connie Morella (R-MD)
and Bart Gordon (D-TN) have sent a letter to the President strongly urging him to exercise greater leadership in
response to the Millennium Problem in the Federal Government. Among the specific requests made by the Committee is the
appointment of a Federal Year 2000 Czar to oversee the Government-wide Year 2000 Project. Congresswoman Morella
(R-MD) explains the need for a Federal Czar this way: "Everybody recognizes that you need somebody at the top.
Whether you want to call it a czar or whatever, you need somebody in charge."
But this is not new news. Senator Moynihan, see y2ktimebomb.com has repeatedly
appealed to the President to PUT SOMEONE IN CHARGE OF Y2K.
y2ktimebomb.com Moynaihan Sends Y2K "Dear Colleague" Letter to Fellow
Senators (9/4/97)"OMB's perspective that no mission critical systems were reported to be behind schedule would seem to
imply that there is no cause for alarm. On the contrary, we believe ample evidence exists.
y2ktimebomb.com Moynihan repeats Call for Passage of Bill Mandating
Federal Y2K Commission(7/14/97)Senator Moynihan addresses the Y2K problem again, entersWashington Post article in
Congressional Record y2ktimebomb.com The Politics of the Year 2000
Computer Problem (6/24/97) Senator Moynihan addresses the President of the Senate on the urgency of the Y2K problem.
Well, perhaps Senator Moynihan didn't think of this but there actually is a presidential commission that could address the
Y2K issue. pccip.gov
The President's Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection is the first national effort to address the
vulnerabilities created in the new information age. The Commission, established in July, 1996, by Presidential Executive
Order 13010, was tasked to formulate a comprehensive national strategy for protecting the infrastructures we all depend
on from physical and "cyber" threats.....What is the Threat? Anyone with the capability, technology, opportunity, and intent
to do harm. Potential threats can be foreign or domestic, internal or external, state-sponsored or a single rogue element.
Terrorists, insiders, disgruntled employees, and hackers are included in this profile.
The problem is clearly with the threat definition - "Anyone with the capability, technology, opportunity, and intent to do
harm". This must be expanded somehow to include the Y2K threat. Programmers that embed 2-digit years in their applications
are not terrorists, but the cumulative effect of 25 years use of two-digit years is potentially millions of times more
devastating than any single terrorist act. We need to expand "Any person" to read "Any person or any artifact..." or "Any
person or anything". Readers of this open letter are encouraged to write to PCCIP comments@pccip.gov and request that the
role of PCCIP be expanded to include Y2K.
Now I don't know who will see this letter and I don't know whether they will have the patience to study this matter in the
detail that the technical people do but I will offer a brief explanation of the problem of my own invention and follow up with
some important references. I am also appending a report of the minute of a meeting of the EPRI Electrical Power Research
Institute that lends credence to how pervasive and serious this problem is.The essence of the Y2K problem lies in the fact
that our economic/military infrastructure relies on old computer code that contains ambiguous date information, in the form
of two-digit years, and at the 1999/12/31 event the rollover to 2000/01/01 will likely cause this software, resident on
mainframes, minis, mid-range computers and special military computers to malfunction.
In addition there are more than 10 BILLION "embedded controllers" that perform automation tasks and some percentage of
these are "date sensitive".The so-called "remediation" of the mainframes, minis, mid-range systems is an unsophisticated but
overwhelmingly tedious process. No "silver bullet" exists to make the problem go away, although there are some good
software tools to aid the process. If there were time to get all this tedious work done, the problem would not be a threat. But
it is a threat because most "remediation" efforts did not commence in 1995 as they did in forward thinking companies such as
Fedex. Fedex is not yet done, but they expect to meet the a 1998/12/31 deadline and then commence one-year of testing.
A triage is underway for military systems. Some will have to be retired and others disabled until an appropriations bill can be
passed to divert funding to their repair. Others will simply be phased out.
The Navy is forecasting a very delayed remediation effort, for which I do not know the detailed reasons. Social Security
computers are expected to survive, but IRS computers are in the deepest of trouble.
The scope of the embedded controller problem is not known. epri.com (report
under revision). They are pervasive in automated factory operations. Embedded controllers are insidious in that the factory
operators don't really know where they are located and which ones are in the small percentage that are "date sensitive" so a
large effort is required to locate and inventory them and determine if they are "date sensitive". A small percentage is a big
problem because, in total, there may be more than 10 BILLION of these devices scattered throughout our infrastructure. To
remove one worry, there are a lot of "date-sensitive" elevator controllers but the few elevator manufacturers should easily be
able to take care of that problem as part of normal maintenance. Small business PBX telephone systems are thought to be in
extreme jeopardy.
For some additional visibility on this problem, I recommend -
NYC Problem: computerweekly.co.uk
Gov. Pataki's statement: irm.state.ny.us
The Need for immediate action comlinks.com
Gary North's Y2K Links and Forums" garynorth.com
Utilities and Year 2000": accsyst.com
J. P. Morgan "Industry Analysis, The Year 2000 Problem, It's worse than we thought"
jpm.com
Ed Yourdon's "Time Bomb 2000" yourdon.com
"The Year 2000 Information Center(tm)" year2000.com
Capers Jones spr.com
Gartner Group gartner.com
For Visibility with regard to efforts going on within the various states see: state.or.us
A good entry point into Y2K is "The National Bulletin Board for Year 2000" it2000.com
New GAO ReportsDefense Computers: LSSC Needs to Confront Significant Year 2000 Issues. AIMD-97-149. 21 pp. plus 2
appendices (6 pp.) September 26, 1997. gao.gov Year 2000 Computing Crisis: Success
Depends Upon Strong Management and Structured Approach. T-AIMD-97-173. 11 pp. plus 2 attachments (2 pp.) September 25,
1997. gao.gov
As for me, I am a recently retired Electrical Engineer and am completely at your disposal to help with any meaningful effort
that would result in our Federal Government appointing a HIGH-LEVEL COMMISSION tasked to accomplish the following:
Mobilize our national resources to address Y2K as the most important problem of the century.
Implement a suitable risk assessment to determine where these resources should be focused.
Focus adequate resources on the Y2K problems of government agencies that will be sufficient to allow them to continue as
viable entities beyond 2000/01/01
Provide adequate leadership and support to small-, medium-, large-scale enterprises to allow them to remain viable beyond
2000/01/01, so that the national infrastructure remains intact into the next Millennium.
Provide leadership and assistance to foreign governments and business enterprises so that they will continue to function
and persist as viable elements of the global infrastructure.
Guide emergency planning and preparedness such that failure to meet the 2000/01/01 deadline, by any government agency
or business enterprise, for successful completion of Y2K remediation will not cause any catastrophic event.
If you will spend the time necessary to understand this problem and pursue it with the executive and legislative branches of
our government, I will make myself personally available to support your efforts.What we elect to do, during the next one or
two months, will grossly impact the quality of life that we can expect subsequent to 2000/01/01.When you are ready to discuss
this, you can reach me at hwsmith@cris.com or 71530.1637@CompuServe.com
TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE
.
I await your early reply.
Harlan Smith
hwsmith@cris.com
Contact Ralph Nader's Organization and ask them to participate: Mr. Ralph Nader
Letter to President Clinton
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