INDUSTRY COMMENT

Computer bomb Frank Rees

B usinesses refusing to acknowledge the potential dangers of the Year 2000 ‘computer

bomb’ are risking their own financial ruin, according to Australia’s Federal Science and Technology Minister, Peter McGauran. The Minister was speaking at the opening of a new technology centre in Melbourne, designed to address the destruction of computer programs in the lead up to the new century. The DMR Year 2000 Conversion Centre is part of an international network of such facilities and the first to be established in the Asia-Pacific region.

“Almost every pre-1995 computer system will malfunction at the turn of the century unless they are reprogrammed. But time is fast running out”, Mr McGauran said. “Unless changes are in place before the end of 1998, organizations will miss their last opportunity to perform a dry run test over a real year end. Worse, if there is a ‘leave it to the last minute’ attitude by a large number of organizations, technical assistance to solve the difficulties may not be sufficient to go around.”

The new centre will use sophisticated techniques to repair computer programs vulnerable to the millennium bomb and is expected to have the capacity to process over 4 million lines of code per month.

“The Commonwealth and State Governments and larger organizations are taking the issue seriously and actively addressing it. But anecdotal evidence suggests many smaller ones do not appreciate the full extent to which the ‘bomb’ will impact on their business”, Mr McGauran said. “The total cost of rectifying the problem in Australia has been put at between one and six billion dollars. Even the lowest estimate is substantial, but the cost of inaction is far greater”, he added.

The New South Wales Government has taken the initiative in the Year 2000 problem on a state-wide basis. It has required all State Government agencies to develop formal Year 2000 strategies, including non- compliance strategies. It is also conducting a pervasive state-wide educational programme to ensure that small and medium-sized enterprises are aware of the

potential impact on their businesses, and provides assistance in the way of material and advice. In addition, the New South Wales Government will host and actively market the Australian Government’s Year 2000 Web site (WWW.Y2K.GOV.AU).

One of the common myths surrounding the Year 2000 challenge is that businesses have 2.5 years in which to rectify the problem. Tim Lyons, solicitor with the law firm Phillips Fox, says such an assumption is incorrect for several reasons. Some programs and applications will reach the Year 2000 in their forward processing well before the turn of the century. Furthermore, it is expected that most companies will need at least one year of processing testing and contingencies. Lyons commented, “The sheer magnitude of effort will require long leave times just to amend each program a company has; and as the date approaches there will be insufficient programmers available to complete this work, and the cost of programming assistance will increase exponentially. It will be necessary to ensure that all applications are Year 2000 compliant. If the deadline is missed for any one application, the whole system may crash.”

Another common myth was the notion that it was a simple matter to expand the date field by two digits. Tony Lyons says that this may not be possible with some programs. Furthermore, program interfaces and hardware must also by Year 2000 compliant. He continues, “You cannot rely solely on warranties with respect to fitness for purposes or merchantability of products which have been provided to you, given that in the case of programs written some time ago, two- digit fields were regarded as standard. In any event, after the Year 2000, you may no longer have a business to be concerned about taking action against suppliers! The time to act is now, not in 1999.”

He advised companies to approach immediately each and every supplier of software and hardware and request information from them relating to whether the software and hardware are Year 2000 compliant. If they are not, then companies should insist that the supplier provides new releases and updates before the end of 1998 to ensure that all company systems are Year 2000 compliant and that testing can be carried out for approximately 12 months prior to the turn of the century. When purchasing new software, companies should insist on a warranty that the software or hardware to be provided is Year 2000 compliant.

Computer Fraud & Security October 1997 0 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd

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