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   Royce Williams (tychotithonus@infosec.exchange)'s status on Thursday, 04-Jan-2024 04:05:46 JST Royce Williams

   @robertatcara As someone who personally discovered and fixed Y2K bugs that would have had significant real world impact, it is disturbing to hear someone propagate this myth [that it was a "big fuss about nothing"]. And it is a myth.

   This is what really happened:
   https://time.com/5752129/y2k-bug-history/

   The testing methodology insured that these impacts were not hypothetical. At my company, the testing was performed by actually rolling the clock forward to test systems to see what would happen. For example, I discovered that every ATM in the state of Alaska operated by my company would have locked up until a PROM chip was swapped. Someone had to fly all over the state to proactively swap the chip beforehand, to avoid significant customer impact.

   And that was just one story. I personally oversaw investigation and fixes for other hardware and software at that company that would have failed.

   And that was just my company. I spoke with others in IT at that time with similar stories. And that was just the people I knew.

   So no, it wasn't "a big fuss about nothing" - and saying so is both dangerously revisionist, and disrespectful of the work it took to prevent real impacts.

   #Y2K