Many wonder if the Y2K bug was anything more than fear mongering on the part of computer experts in order to spearhead a multimillion dollar Y2K preparation program. After the ball dropped on the new millennium there were no major catastrophes. But perhaps the program worked a little too well. Ever since, people have been considering that the Y2K bug may have never existed to begin with. Now with millions of bank customers without access to their accounts thanks to a Y2K+10 bug, we’re reminded how real it could have been.
If you’ve been to Germany in the past week or so since the year 2010 began, you’ll be made immediately aware of the program that resulted in millions losing access to their debit and credit cards due to a bug that renders computers unable to register the date 2010 as an actual event in the space-time continuum. Since the computers are unable to register the year 2010, they cannot register that the year is taking place and therefore expiration dates and registration cannot run through the bank. As a result, customers cannot access their accounts. So far it has been reported that over 23 million people using German banking systems have been affected.
The post Y2K+10 teams have been dispatched to banks and ATMs to correct the malfunction and install new systems, but the problem is expected to persist until January 11th for some customers. It leaves us with an uncanny sense of unease at what else could have happened in the year 2000 as the clock rolled over had we not been properly prepared for the event. It also leads the viewer to wonder what rarely checked maintenance diagnostic would likewise be affected by the bug.
Of course these problems are supposedly nothing compared to the alleged computer bug predicted by alleged time traveler John Titor, who claims in the year 2036 a legacy code bug will reset all computers unless some major debugging is done in the mean time. Allegedly the only way to debug this computer is to use an IBM 5100 computer which supposedly will have been lost to antiquity and will require a time traveler to acquire. Of course this is only projection about the future.
Why did this bug only hit the German financial system? Somehow I find it hard to believe that in our economic climate someone didn’t somehow notice this, with all the computers being constantly debugged and studied. There had to be someone at some point who saw that the year 2010 resulted in major malfunctions, and therefore would require vast amounts of debugging or result in the temporary economic halting of the country. Was this merely negligence, or was it something else? There’s no use pointing fingers suspecting a sinister party to come forward, but it may be worth remembering if the event should come up again in the future. No doubt there will be an investigation and quite a few careers prematurely ended by the event. One can only hope the right parties get the blame.