Y2K was real: was Major Intel Memory Vulnerability

[Stephen Partington]

The big difference is that was mostly resolved via software. Intel issue is
much harder.

On Jan 5, 2018 11:48 PM, "Steve Litt" <slitt at troubleshooters.com> wrote:

> On Fri, 05 Jan 2018 11:27:38 -0700
> Eric Oyen <eric.oyen at icloud.com> wrote:
>
> > oh boy. This sounds like another Y2K problem, only this one has some
> > reality about it and real consequences.
>
> Y2K was completely real, and would have had real consequences if our
> society hadn't taken three years to fix most of it. We were fortunate
> that in those days society was willing to put in hard work to fix a
> future problem, rather than "kicking the can down the road."
>
> Between 1984 and 1991 I wrote plenty of software using 2 digit years.
> So did everyone else. Much of the Cobol from the 1960's onward used 2
> digit dates to save memory, which was very precious back then. Much of
> that software was still used in 1999, and some is still used today. It
> got fixed.
>
> It's speculation what would have happened if our entire society hadn't
> pitched in and fixed most software in 1997-1999, but it's my opinion
> that if we'd done then what we'd surely do now (call it somebody else's
> problem, keep prioritizing our own little lives and those of our
> corporations, and do nothing), we'd be bartering gold for tuna and water
> for bullets.
>
> None of this is to imply that Meltdown and Spectre aren't a very big
> deal. Just don't think Y2K was no big deal because we did the necessary
> work to fix it proactively.
>
> SteveT
>
> Steve Litt
> December 2017 featured book: Thriving in Tough Times
> http://www.troubleshooters.com/thrive
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