Y2K May be a REAL Bomb (fwd)

[Michael Gurstein <mgurst@ccen.uccb.ns.ca>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1998 15:41:45 -0500
From: Doug Hunt <dhunt@CENTER1.COM>
To: TOES97@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Y2K May be a REAL Bomb

From the Boston Globe

Y2K bug worries US, Russia 

By Colum Lynch, Globe Correspondent, 12/12/98 

    UNITED NATIONS - Concerned that the year 2000 computer bug
    might accidentally set off a nuclear war, the United States and Russia
are hammering out an agreement to station experts in each other's nuclear
command centers next year to prevent miscalculations that could kill millions
of people, according to senior US officials. 

The Clinton administration is seeking to allay Russian concerns that a
potential breakdown of its computer system caused by the bug would be
misinterpreted by Moscow as an American attack on its computer defense
network. Russian military doctrine anticipates that a nuclear strike against
Moscow would be preceded by an attack on its military information
systems. 

''If all the radar screens go blank, will they think we did it and decide to
launch a nuclear strike?'' asked Senator Robert F. Bennett, a Utah
Republican who heads the congressional task force that deals with year
2000 problems. 

US military officials met with their Russian counterparts in New York
yesterday to reach an agreement. William Curtis, the director of the
Pentagon's year 2000 compliance office, said in an interview yesterday that
America would probably have its experts in place in Moscow by the middle
of 1999. He added that the United States is also in discussions with China,
which expressed concerns like those of the Russians. 

''We need to make sure there is no chance someone will be blindsided if the
radar screens of any country using nuclear weapons go blank,'' said Curtis.
''That is a cause for panic. You don't know whether it's an attack on your
system.''

Curtis said the Pentagon is also worried that the 2000 bug will wreak havoc
on the capacity of foreign governments to provide essential services,
threatening everything from urban power grids to water purification and
health care systems. 

He said government officials are also concerned that such a scenario would
place enormous demands on the US military to conduct humanitarian
emergency response operations abroad. Curtis said the Clinton
administration sought to persuade other countries at a major UN conference
on year 2000 compliance yesterday to intensify efforts to prepare their
computer systems. 

''We know there will be some nasty surprises,'' Curtis said. ''But we have to
walk a tightrope between provoking panic and keeping people from going to
sleep at the wheel.'' 

Increasingly alarmed by the prospects of so-called cyber- warfare against its
military defenses, Russia has proposed that the United Nations create an
international treaty controlling ''information warfare.'' 

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov wrote to UN Secretary General Kofi
Annan on Sept. 23 warning that dangers posed by information warfare ''may
be comparable to that of weapons of mass destruction.'' 

''We cannot permit the emergence of a fundamentally new area of
international confrontation, which may lead to an escalation of the arms race
based on the latest development of the scientific and technological
revolution,'' he added. 

Russian fears have been fueled in part by an October report from the Joint
Chiefs of Staff stating that American forces will use ''information operations
to support our national military strategy.''

''The Russians fear that their critical defense systems are vulnerable to
hacking by the United States and other countries,'' said Roger C. Molander,
a specialist on cyber-warfare at the Rand Corp. 

American sources say Russia raised the issue of cyber-warfare with Vice
President Al Gore and President Clinton during their latest visits to Moscow.
The issue has also been raised in closed-door congressional briefings by the
CIA, Bennett said. On Nov. 2, the Clinton administration agreed to begin
debate in the UN General Assembly next year on ''information security.''

Although Curtis insisted that there is no chance a glitch in the computer
network that controls the more than 2,000 US nuclear missiles could
accidentally launch a missile, analysts say there is considerable uncertainty
about what will happen on Jan. 1, 2000. 

''The US system is supposed to be year 2000 compliant by the year 2000,
but we've had people tell us it won't be compliant until the year 2034,'' said
Tanya Padberg, an analyst at the British and American Information Center.
''If that is the case, what does that say about the Russian system?''

This story ran on page A02 of the Boston Globe on 12/12/98. 
© Copyright 1998 Globe Newspaper Company. 

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