Y2K JIMBO RED BATTLES THE HACKERS & SICKOs AGAINST VIRUS

Some of you will remember the dawning of the new century and the arrival of year 2000. My memory for this post, is about the ultimate second of Dec. 31, 1999 and the first microsecond of Jan.1, 2000. Everyone of us, not residing under a rock, will remember the pending arrival of doom. It took the form of Y2K COMPUTER VIRUS. Geezus, no one singular event in our lives, had seen such a “coming out” of nerds. It seemed like every Dorito crunching weirdo, appeared for this event. Geezus the number of man-hours these sicko’s put into creating worldwide catastrophe was unbelievable. In the US alone, 100 billion USD was spent, in preparation for fending off worldwide computer doom. What follows is a post, of how Jimbo Red, ended up smack in the middle of it all.

With the arrival of the new millennium, a new type of worldwide terror appeared on the scene. It was not armed, didn’t take hostages, and wasn’t fighting for a religious cause. No, this new threat was completely technologically driven. Suddenly, many people and organizations were forced to realize, how much their dependence on computers had enveloped their lives. We now started to realize, just how much everything was controlled by the “orange fingered” nerds in the back rooms of IT departments, worldwide. What followed this creeping realization was panic. Large organizations could see, all of their data vanishing in one click. The small guy envisioned his bank balance disappearing in a microsecond. And that, just to get the party started.

If you were to think about it, we would have been as close to a (manmade) world ending event, as we had ever been. Because everything in this world is now run by computer, then the world would have essentially come to a stop. Anarchy would rule, chaos would be rampant, and only the well prepared would survive. Not only, utilities, communications, power, water, money, and food supply would be halted. Nothing, not even you coffee machine, or anything else, remotely linked to a computer, would function. Not phones, planes, trains, or boats would move. My god, can you imagine, the withdrawal, that would have sent the nerds into? Indeed, everything in your life, would have been affected irreversibly.

What this technological disaster consisted of, was relatively simple. Because, all of our technology was run according to the specific date of each transaction. Then what follows, is that each entry must have a second, hour, day, month and year, attached to it, before it could proceed. This was an automatic time stamp on every keystroke. And because the year format was recognized as only two digits. With these digits being the year, such as “78” instead of 1978. The 19(00)’s being assumed before all dates. meaning that the “19” was not used in the programming of computers.

It suddenly dawned on those, responsible for developing the worldwide computer systems, that, when the computers reached a date of 20(00), one nanosecond after 12 midnight in the new millennium. Our technology, would not be able to determine if the date was now the year (19)00 or (20)00. Following that moment, all technology, would at that point, cease functioning, and come crashing down.

Seems quite simple, doesn’t it? But, what followed, was every programmer, IT person, hacker, coder, gamer, or application developer, all pounding away, 24 hours a day, on their keyboards. With one orange hand, constantly dipping into their energy source. And their clean hand, furiously beating out a cadence on the keyboard. Into two camps they were divided. Either, on the one side, trying to stop impending doom. Or conversely, trying to create a disaster of epic proportions. None of them “set this one out”. Everyone in the industry worked to solve the issue, or, conversely, to create a bigger one. Not one group worked harder, than the Media. Their, glee at finding a global catastrophe, was without bounds. Unfortunately, this was at a time where most people still believed, most of what the media, spit out. Geezus, how naive we were!

So the scene was set, everyone preparing, in their own way, for global catastrophe. Our company was no exception. We were prepared for 20 plants and 10 offices, worldwide, to suddenly cease operation and come to a grinding halt. I would like to say something, cavalier, but I was, also, embroiled in the hype. I had a faint hope, that maybe the bank would lose all my credit card, mortgage and personal lending records. Perhaps, I would be debt free! However, I already knew, that no matter how bad it got, the institutions that I owed money too, would not forget, even one penny of my debt.

As we neared the very second, of the new millennium, the hype grew wilder. The nerds grew more agitated and the Doritos virtually flew from the shelves. Our company executive, were all looking for a place to hide, and someone to blame for the coming disaster. And just as the feeding frenzy reach a crescendo, ol’ JimboRed sticks his nose in too see what all the fuss is about. Within 5 minutes of my poking around, in the IT “den”, a saviour was found! At the highest levels of the company, it was now decided. Ol’ JimboRed is in charge, surely he must be responsible for what is to come! Amid waves of relief, from those “most” responsible, I was now appointed Y2K “mitigation” manager. Basically in charge of nothing, but responsible for everything. I assure you my ass was on the line, no joke!

Once again the H…d mouth had dug me into a hole. Deysi, remembers it, as me stepping “front and center” and volunteering for the roll. To her, it was like, “Hey pick me, pick me!” Never have I been so misunderstood. She added, that 99% of the crap I found myself in, was caused by my big mouth. Now that hurt! Anyway, in charge I was! So after a round of telephone conferences (which were almost impossible in those days). We formed a small team at each of our offices and plants worldwide. I was not quite sure what these teams were supposed to do. However, it seemed like the right thing to do. We wrote procedures to follow in the event of disaster. Even though we had no idea, what disaster looked like.

That was all fine, except for the reality, that, when Y2K struck, procedures would be useless. I just couldn’t bring myself to tell everyone (if they hadn’t already arrived at the same conclusion). Once the infrastructure collapsed, worldwide, it would then, only, be a matter of who had the biggest gun, which would determine who ruled. That was a hard concept to explain, so I mostly kept it to myself. Come “game day”, the top level of our company were noticeably busy and unavailable. The message from the top was, “you will be fine Jimbo, just handle whatever comes along”. Geezus! So, while those that “had a life”, were out for their final New Years Eve blast. I and some other poor designee, in each area, went to our offices and awaited doom.

Now I know you are thinking what’s the big deal, right? You just haul in there a few minutes early and bam, it will be over one way or the other in a few seconds. Right? Well, consider that we were spread out across nearly every timezone in the world. Then, it follows that my day started 12 hours or so before midnight and ended 12 or so after midnight Scotland time. We had someone attached to some piece of company hardware in virtually every timezone. And that someone had to report disaster to me as it reached 12:00 midnight, their time. At least I felt, that if my ass were to be fired, it would be over something BIG. The suspense built as 12:00 neared in our first location, across the Date Line. AND?

PPPPFFFFFFTTTTT! Nothing, nada, zippo. Not even a glitch. Midnight came and went, our “first in line computers”, started up, and functioned like normal. For all intents and purposes, it was over. Just the fact that the phone worked, was my first clue that all might be well. Geezus, what a waste of time. I somehow felt cheated.

I received the news, and transferred it onto our President. He said, “well I thought it would be ok!”. “Jimbo, just keep me posted every hour as our facilities report in.” “You don’t need to call me though, I’ll be at a party, or home asleep, and unavailable.” “Just send a message to my secretary, she’ll get them to me.” All of the rest of the executive were now “out from under rocks”, where they had been lying low. Without exception, now roundly proclaiming, that their personal areas of responsibility were in order. And of course, they never had one doubt that they would be fine!

A colossal waste of effort and money, and not even one tiny hiccup! Then, the Media were quickly off, to create their next catastrophe. With that I became the most forgotten person in our company. Subsequently, I wiled away the next few hours taking reports as each timezone passed. And I might add, roundly cursing my lot in life, and my luck at being appointed to such a job. Deysi, just sighed and shook her head at me when I finally dragged myself home. In any event that is how it all looked thru my eyes.