Y2K is the American name given to the Bogue of the year 2000: Y (Year), 2, K (for kilo = 1000).

The other American expressions to indicate the problem were:

• Year 2000 problem,
• Y2K bug,
• Millenium bug, even if new the Millénaire began only in 2001,
• Y2K time bomb…

By extension, name of the world project of Data-processing conversion of the systems S required by the data-processing Passage to the year 2000.

The origin was a fault of Programmation bearing on the format of the Date in the memory S of the Ordinateur S, and consequently in the programs and the databases: it missed the two figures corresponding to the year, so that in the passing of 99 with 00, there were likely to be dysfunctions.

Technologies of the Web, Internet/Extranet/Intranet, more recent than the traditional applications Data-processing S of management, were affected very little by the errors of format of Date.

Actually, Y2K was not strictly speaking a bug, but a systemic error of design of the computer materials, Logiciel S and Databases.

It was thus primarily about a problem of standardization and design.

The American consultant Peter de Jaeger, former engineer of IBM, opened in 1995 an information center on Y2K (year 2000 information center), in order to alert the world community on the risks of dysfunction of the materials and computer software, if conversions necessary were not carried out. Peter de Jaeger alerted the American Senate in 1995. Its site Web was inter-connected the most in the world towards 1998 - 1999, with approximately 25.000 bonds.

Costs of world project Y2K

Y2K caused costs of about 300 to 600 billion $ US, on the basis of estimate of an American cabinet of strategic analysis , with average costs of 1 $ US per line of program.

The Americans estimated that the lines of program were distributed about with equality between America, Europe, and Asia.

In Europe, project Y2K proceeded in parallel with the first phase of the passage to the Euro, which generally related to only the systems interfaces some with the financial markets. The data-processing passage to the euro, caused a cost equivalent to that of the passage to the year 2000 in Europe. The transition to the Euro proceeded of 1999 until the beginning of 2002.

Taking into account

In the United States, project Y2K was one of the reasons which pushed the federal government to define a law (Clinger-Cohen Act) of setting in conformity of the information systems compared to the governmental directives. The Cadre of architecture DoDAF of the Department of Defense was defined to conform to this law.

The cabinet MITER assisted the armies of the United States and the agencies depending on the Department of Defense (National Security Agency, DISA,…) for the resolution of this problem, as of 1993 for the US Air Force.

The large majority of the settings in conformity was made thanks to the replacement of the specific applications by integrated Business packages, or by conversions of the lines of code, to 80% by using the technique of fenestration.

The critical Systèmes of the Federal government of the United States identified by defining Profils of application in Government (Total?) Information Locator Service (GILS), by employing meaning data files (Dublin Core).

However, in the United States, certain specific data (legacy dated) had to be treated by language XML.

Aspects communication

The American press was much more communicative than the French press, and in a way more general than the European press , on the data-processing problem of passage to the year 2000.

An American journalist had qualified this problem in the following way: " Y2K has œcumenical problem" , insofar as it assigned people belonging to many tendencies of the Christianisme.

In 1998, with the approach of the expiry (the president Bill Clinton was informed since the beginning of 1996), and confronted with an increasingly urgent problem, the American administration made vote a Loi allowing an exchange of good practices between the suppliers of equipment Informatique S and software. This law limited the Responsabilité suppliers in the event of error or of inaccuracy in the exchanged Information S. This law was called Good Samaritan Law , in reference to the Parabole of the Bon Samaritan in the Bible.

Legal aspects

In 1998, with the approach of the expiry (the president Bill Clinton was informed since the beginning of 1996), and confronted with an increasingly urgent problem, the American administration made vote a Loi allowing an exchange of good practices between the suppliers of equipment Informatique S and software: Year 2000 Information and Readiness Act (October 18th 1998), also called Good Samaritan Law . This law limited the Responsabilité suppliers in the event of error or of inaccuracy in the exchanged Information S.

In France, the problem Y2K involved discussions on the Responsabilité because of the defective products, between the association which represents the users (the CIGREF) and the suppliers of systems Informatique S. Théoriquement, the duration as from which one expects that a product does not cause a damage is ten years, in any case according to a European directive.

Continuations of Y2K

The company MITER works for the National Security Agency on the project of Annuaire UDDI, coupled with the standard EbXML of E-business.

Quotation

• Believe me, it' S true . Peter de Jaeger on his Web site starting from 1995

See too

References