German Intelligence Agency says Y2K Threatens Breakdown

[Guest guest]

9 August 1999

 

GERMAN INTELLIGENCE AGENCY SAYS MILLENNIUM BUG THREATENS "COMPLETE

BREAKDOWN"

BBC Monitoring European - Political

 

Text of report by the German news magazine `Der Spiegel' on 9th August

 

The millennium bug has become globalized through the international

vagabond nature of hardware and software. A study by the Federal German

Intelligence Service (BND) from this spring assesses the worldwide

efforts to thwart the data loss worst case scenario as follows:

"function failures up to complete breakdown can be expected almost

everywhere". Of the estimated 80bn computer chips worldwide, 800m have

not been tested. Ninety-three per cent of all personal computers made

before 1997 or which have older chips in them are considered at risk.

 

Fear reigns, according to the BND dossier, in airport control towers.

Thus the international civil air transport organization ICAO is

encouraging a greater interval between takeoffs and landings.

 

Attempts are being made to spare the economy from a black January.

William McDonough, head of the Federal Reserve Bank in New York,

believes that the calendar jump "will be a matter of survival for

businesses and whole markets". The London and New York stock exchanges

are considered exemplary in their preparation; the Paris and Singapore

exchanges have thus far declined to release specific information. In

Bangkok, whoever does not make their year 2000 activities public is

expelled. The British government is considering closing the banks for

five days.

 

Even the computers of the western military forces do not yet seem to be

ready for the crisis. German intelligence service experts relate that

because of a software problem, the F-16 fighter aircraft of the

Netherlands would not be able to be refueled in flight in an emergency.

Nine out of 10 computers of the British Navy were considered

susceptible. In a test, the Rapier antiaircraft missile system

reportedly failed completely.

 

According to the BND, China is among the worst prepared nations. The

wild mix of hardware and illegally copied software make preparations

much more difficult. The computers of the 40 domestic airlines with

their 17,000 terminals reportedly "are seriously susceptible to Y2K".

Y2K is the American shorthand for the change in millennium. The national

leadership reportedly ordered the heads of all the airlines to be in the

air on New Years Eve.

 

In Europe, Russia is considered a problem child. The BND authors have

determined that 60 per cent of all official networks require new

software. Up to now, the World Bank has given an anti-crash credit of

100,000 dollars; estimates put the amount needed at up to 3bn dollars.

 

An unintentional launch of intercontinental missiles is considered

"unlikely". Nevertheless, Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin have arranged

for a joint early warning centre in Colorado Springs with a direct line

to the Kremlin.

In the United States the millennium problem is matter for decision by

the president. The armed forces have been reassured, according to the

BND, by the exercise in the summer of 1998 in New Mexico that simulated

1st January 2000. In that exercise an F-4 bomber was controlled by a

computer that had been adjusted, and everything went according to plan.

The US issuing bank is already printing banknotes worth 50bn dollars in

order to satisfy the conceivable run on cash because people do not trust

their plastic cards.

 

Canada seems to the BND to set the example. Leave reportedly would be

cancelled for the police and the army, in some cases until the middle of

March; military forces would be on alert; and members of the government

would come together in a "war room" on New Years Eve.