Y2K computer reports worldwide

AUSCERT (the Australian Computer Emergency Response Team) is reporting that things are pretty quiet, although they have seen a number of Windows 98 systems roll over from December 31, 1999 to January 2, 2000 (skipping January 1 altogether). Resetting the date manually appears to have fixed the problem, so if you encounter this, don't panic! Just change the date and you should be OK.

It also sounds as if a number of programmers have misunderstood a standard system call, so in "correcting" software they've only ensured that they'll fail. :) This will probably be most noticeable on Web sites that use CGI scripting, and won't have any really adverse effects.

For those interested, it's about the localtime() system call; programmers misunderstood the field

int tm_year; /* year - 1900 */
not realizing that the year 2000 will be represented as '100' and not '00'.

All is reportedly well in Japan! DNS root and .jp servers are OK, major ISPs are functioning, and all other aspects of life are continuing as expected.

Fri Dec 31 13:12:41 CST 1999

Minor trouble at NCSA. Our terminal server authenticates via Kerberos, and apparently it can't handle ticket requests that expire in the year 2000. System is a CISCO AS5300 running IOS 12.0(5)T1. Cisco and CERT have both been notified.

The gist of it is that users can't log in via modem. :(

Fri Dec 31 18:27:29 CST 1999

Japan's starting to see minor troubles, but nothing serious. National Radio reports that weather measurement machines are having problems and need to "reset", and the radioactive measurement system for the Shiga Nuclear Power Plant in Ishikawa stopped at 00:00+0900 due to problems.

Sat Jan 1 00:20:28 CST 2000

Airports are reporting that AWOS (Automated Weather Observation System) is not working properly, although pilots can still phone in for weather reports.

Sat Jan 1 14:01:09 CST 2000

The Pentagon reports that data from some spy satellites could not be received/interpreted for several hours after the switch on GMT.

8 US power plants have also reported minor glitches, but service was not interrupted.

Other links:

CERT/CC and FedCIRC Year 2000 (Y2K) Status Reports

CNN's Y2K portal

CNN says "So far, so good!"