From: Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com>
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 14:53:58 +0800
To: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: Re: IRS tax reform y2k style
In-Reply-To: <199709150346.UAA18593@netcom13.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.19970914233638.006877dc@popd.ix.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



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At 08:46 PM 9/14/97 -0700, Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote:
>Gary North has been predicting apocalypse on the y2k subject
>for awhile. but he has a lot of data to back his claims.
>this talks about the IRS computers and predicts they're going
>to collapse.

Gary North has been predicting apocalypse on whatever subject
would sell investment newsletters for 20 years or more.
But, hey, if the IRS does collapse from Millenial troubles, fine by me :-)

I couldn't find a PGP key that would decrypt the signature -
was it vznuri's, jackdoolin's, or Gary North's ?

The Y2K problem is largely hype, but the machines that will
suffer from it most aren't just the old C0B0L-burning dinosaurs -
it's the PCs on the desktops; even some of them made in 1997 will
probably need at least new BIOS PROMs to keep up to date.

Some number of years ago, the Treasury Department put out an
RFP for a bunch of computers and networks.  The RFP was a shade clueless,
wanting things like C2 security certification when there were only
a few B-level systems and one C-level system out there,
and Red Book security was still a research topic inconsistent with
the requirement for GOSIP networking compliance.
The winning team, from AT&T, bid a bunch of servers (Pyramid MIPS-2000-
based?)
and blazingly fast 386/25 machines, and was immediately thrown into
three years of litigation because they were selected not for lowest cost
but for best technology.  By the time the courts were done,
and they could actually start implementing the job, the red-hot 386/25
was now pretty lukewarm, but a lot easier to provide at a decent profit 
margin :-)

I don't know if what they provided was the same as the AT&T 6386/25 on my 
desk,
but neither that machine nor the Pentium-75 laptop I'm typing on now
does the right thing when you set the clock to 12/31/99 11:59:59 and wait.
The IRS has probably bought some newer machines since then,
but I'd be surprised if they're _all_ fixed.  Or mostly fixed.

Bitrot is cool -- heh heh -- heh heh -- bitrot, yeah.
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