[107183] in Cypherpunks
Re: FC: How Y2K doomsayers got it wrong
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Mok-Kong Shen)
Tue Jan 5 04:31:14 1999
Date: Tue, 05 Jan 1999 10:09:55 +0100
From: Mok-Kong Shen <mok-kong.shen@stud.uni-muenchen.de>
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Reply-To: Mok-Kong Shen <mok-kong.shen@stud.uni-muenchen.de>
Robert Hettinga wrote:
>
> --- begin forwarded text
> I remember how early this year many Y2Kers were gleefully predicting
> widespread panic by early 1999, combined with a nose-diving Dow Jones
> industrial average and (get this) plummeting home values as the masses fled
> cities.
>
> Well, it didn't happen.
>
> Asking for prognostications and replaying them is a good way to evaluate
> the predictive abilities of doomsayers.
>
> -Declan
It is my humble opinion that Y2K is a really big and important issue
but very unfortunately the topic has been meddled with by a number
of people with materials that are more of political (or propagandistic
or marketing) nature than of scientific nature. Like all software
engineering problems it can and will be well solved, provided that
it is correctly dealt with according to the state of the art, with
neither panic nor ignorance but prudence and resolution. For any
firm with data processing personals of solid experience, it shouldn't
be too late if a Y2K project is started today. More than 300 days
are still left. But continuing to ignore (avoid) the issue could
very probably lead to disaster, thus fulfilling the prophecy of
the doomsayers.
M. K. Shen
------------------------------------------------------
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(Last updated: 3rd January 1999. Origin site of
WEAK2-EX -- A Poorman's 56-bit Data Encryption Algorithm. (30 Dec 98)
WEAK3-EX -- A Layman's 56-bit Data Encryption Algorithm. (30 Dec 98)
WEAK4-EX -- Another Poorman's 56-bit Data Encryption Algorithm. (3 Jan
99)
Containing 2 mathematical problems with rewards totalling US$500.)
