[interdoc-y2k 327] Y2K Jim Lord - Navy report

["Christian Murray" <cmurray@murtek.com>]

The report on the Jim Lord site http://www.jimlord.to is worse than a hoax
because it uses a real Navy report, ignores the assumptions and caveats
included in the description of the report, falsifies the data, and then
oversimplifies what's left so as to make it a gross misrepresentation, and
literally, a lie.

After studying the original Navy spreadsheet posted on the Navy's
"facilities" web site
http://www.nfesc.navy.mil/y2k/utilinfo/MatrixHeader.html , my suspicions
were confirmed.  No, it is not exactly a hoax.  However, someone summarized
the data from the spreadsheet incorrectly.  The first error they made was:
if ANY of the utilities had ANY probability (even if it was labeled
"improbable"), the city was listed in Jim Lord's table.  Not only that but
it was listed under the "highest probability" category, even if only one
utility had that level of failure probability.  Plus, instead of using the
numbers (0-3) from the Navy spreadsheet, the Jim Lord report uses the "X"
which implies that ALL of the utilities have that same high level of
probability.

But the most serious error is that the probabilities are all greatly
exaggerated.  A sampling of the worst case cities reveals significant
discrepancies between the Navy's and Jim Lord's data.  Typically, a city
such as New London, CT, has a level 1, which means "improbable", chance of
total failure in all four utilities.  However, on Jim Lord's report, New
London shows "Total Failure Likely" for all four of its utilities!

Sure, there is a possibility that the Navy is maintaining "2 sets of books";
one for the public, and the other real.  But that is unlikely.
"Point-to-point" back channels of communication exist for military people
who know each other from previous duty, but there are not "worldwide" back
channels.  This appears to be the kind of web site that is used to
distribute information to Navy personnel globally.  In fact, they probably
are not even aware of the controversy over their report.  Browse this web
site for just a few minutes and you will get a sense of complete openness
and "transparency" surrounding the Navy's Y2K preparations.

It is disappointing that someone in Jim Lord's position would perpetrate a
fraud like this, even if it was simply ignorance on his part.  There is no
excuse for putting this kind of believable(?), but erroneous, kind of
information on the web without spending a few minutes to verify the data.
Especially for someone as supposedly "Y2K savvy" and INFLUENTIAL as Mr.
Lord.

Chris Murray