-Caveat Lector- Worldwide Millennium chaos, and still four days to go By Robert Uhlig, Technology Correspondent 'Keep bug at bay' with final check on the bank ONE of the fallacies surrounding the Millennium bug is that it will strike precisely at midnight on Dec 31, but it has already caused mishaps, confusion and failures several hundreds of times around the world. Many disruptions occurred when computers or electronic systems infected with the bug tried to make a date-dependent calculation that ended in 2000. Others took place because self-checking routines in computer software became confused when they attempted to forecast ahead and had to deal with a two-digit year date, such as 00 or 01 for 2000 and 2001, that is a lower number than the current year. But most failures have been the result of human errors introduced when computers and electronic systems were being fixed and tested for the Millennium bug. In some cases, such as the troubles at the Passport Agency in August, the Millennium bug fixing process caused an already over-loaded system to collapse. Most Millennium-bug-related mishaps have been covered up or averted before they caused noticeable damage. But among those that have been recorded are: Last week, Wells Fargo, a large American bank, sent out certificate of deposit renewal notices to its customers dated Jan 1, 1900. The previous day about 3,600 customers in Iowa City received water bills that threatened them with an extra charge for payments made after Jan 3, 1900. Earlier this month, when the Bermudan Stock Exchange went back to using an old computer system during a Millennium bug updating programme, its daily electronic exchange report listed dividend payout dates as 1900. On Dec 9, Deutsche Bank was hit by a day-long computer shutdown that prevented it from undertaking international transactions for a day. A Deutsche Bank source told the trade publication Computer Weekly that the crash was related to the Millennium bug and happened when the bank was upgrading transaction management software. In September, the Inland Revenue sent out National Insurance certificates which erroneously had dates printed in early 1900, rather than early 2000. A tax Certificate of Exemption stated: "You do not have to pay Class 2 National Insurance contributions from April 10, 1999 to April 6, 1902". Computer experts said it was almost certainly a problem with the Inland Revenue's mainframe systems, which came on top of other problems the Revenue has had while updating its systems for the Millennium. In August, the Revenue erroneously threatened a law-abiding company with the bailiffs because Millennium bug work prevented staff from realising that the company's tax payments were up to date. In a letter of apology, a Revenue officer wrote: "I cannot give details of our Year 2000 measures and progress as you will appreciate that this is confidential, Government-sensitive information. But I can say that the above measures are causing extreme problems within the Inland Revenue, particularly this office, and have been for several weeks now." The American government's Social Security Administration sent out more than 32,000 letters to benefit claimants with Jan 1, 1900 as the date when some of their benefits stop. In August, the National Air Traffic Services had to switch off its computer systems for a weekend and revert to pen and paper during a year 2000 upgrade. The upgrade came shortly after NATS declared itself ready for the Millennium. NATS claimed it was for normal maintenance work. Also in August, 4,000 Londoners were left without power over a weekend after a Millennium bug upgrade went wrong. London Electricity was attempting to make its power-key meters Millennium compliant, but when customers used the new keys, the meters were corrupted and cut off their power. In July, it was discovered that serious faults in the Coastguard Service's new computer system could put lives at risk during the solar eclipse. The system was ordered to avoid year 2000 problems and was being installed at the time but one coastguard officer said: "It has so many glitches and faults and crashes all the time." In June, four million gallons of raw sewage flooded a suburb of Los Angeles when a computer mistakenly closed a gate, blocking a major sewage line. The sewage overflowed 500ft on to the streets and into Lake Balboa Park. The spill occurred when city officials were testing a Y2K contingency plan. ================================================= WARNING! Stay OUT of America's cities on 1/1/2,000!! 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