Time is running out to correct DoD systems that could malfunction or produce incorrect information when the year 2000 is encountered during automated data processing, a recent General Accounting Office report concluded. The impact of these failures could be widespread, costly and potentially disruptive to military operations worldwide. Part of the problem is the sheer scope of Defense activities. Even when electronics and communications components embedded in weapons systems are excluded, the Electronic Industries Alliance estimates there are more than 250 procurement line items in the Defense budget that refer primarily to electronics and communications equipment. And in a February survey, various Defense agencies reported that more than half of the 730,000 personal computers they had checked had a year 2000 problem.
Potential glitches range from the mundane to the terrifying.
The Defense Logistics Agency, for instance, uses an automated system to manage the Defense Department s vast inventory of supplies. Because the system uses dates to target stale items for automatic deletion, it erroneously tagged more than 90,000 items to be discarded before the problem was discovered in 1996. Ground control stations, however, use dates to synchronize the signals from the satellites and maintain satellite uplinks. 2000 problems could cause those stations to lose track of satellites or send erroneous information, conceivably allowing ships and aircraft to stray into dangerous or restricted waters or airspace. Our bigger fear is going to be that the system seems to work fine, but the data is unreliable.