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The Epochalypse Project

epochalypse-project.org

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71–80 of 91 posts

Re: The Epochalypse Project

#71

Post by kbolino »

panzi wrote: post #67
OutOfHere wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fwiw, it's much worse for 64-bit nanoseconds, running out in the year 2262 for signed, and the year 2554 for unsigned. As for who needs nanoseconds, trading systems, particle physics, and globally distributed systems do.

Which systems use a single variable for nanoseconds time? The APIs I know of all use a struct with two members, one for seconds and the other for the nanoseconds within the second.

It's a pretty common format for timestamps on modern file systems used by Unixy operating systems (e.g. ext4, XFS, APFS, ZFS, btrfs, etc.).

Re: The Epochalypse Project

#72

Post by TacticalCoder »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #21
Waterluvian wrote: post #9

I think this effort would benefit from trying to qualify what “unpredictable ways” actually means. If anyone is testing devices, a catalog of test results describing the actual failure modes that were revealed would help make this whole thing more concrete. I think many software engineers know that if you want to make any organization care about this type of issue, you need to be ready to demonstrate the severity and…

So that means the best tool is a 2038 test environment - which people then install their application(s) and test it e2e to see what the impacts are. However, I’m not sure how you make a 2038 test environment It assumes that the OS/Kernel etc… are defacto frozen to 2025 or whatever increment until 2038 What was the y2k solution for the people that implemented those fixes in the 90s?

[dead]

Re: The Epochalypse Project

#74

Post by jsd1982 »

I fixed a recent Y38 bug in some classic ASP code. The bug was nothing more than a simple `Date() + 5000` computation (adding 5000 days to the current date) as a sort of expiry date applied to something; I don't recall the exact details. VB6 did not take kindly to computing any date value beyond the Y38 max and threw an error. In practice this error ended up denying service to everyone even though the Y38 max date was 14 years in the future. You never know what little bugs like that are lurking in such legacy code.

Re: The Epochalypse Project

#76

Post by msla »

BeFlatXIII wrote: post #18
jbeninger wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Demonstrate? Or just scaremonger? Y2K showed that you don't need details beyond vague threats of "medication administered at the wrong time" and "planes falling out of the air" to get organizations and the public to care. No idea how that's going to tie into the conspiracy-heavy media landscape we inhabit now. (Note I do think this is a serious issue that needs to be addressed. And I'd love to see specific examples.…

“Planes falling pit of the sky” still gets used both as an example of overblown Y2k fear-mongering AND the reason why all those quiet preparations were necessary.

Is there any plausible mechanism for Y2K bugs to cause planes to fall from the sky?

Re: The Epochalypse Project

#77

Post by msla »

sroussey wrote: post #53
Henchman21 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? I was starting my career during Y2K. It was widely regarded as a bust , and I’d anticipate people expecting the same damned thing?

It was largely regarded as a success. Why do you say a bust?

"What am I paying my IT department for? My computers never have problems! It's a scam, I tells ya!"

Re: The Epochalypse Project

#78

Post by potatoman22 »

jsd1982 wrote: post #74

I fixed a recent Y38 bug in some classic ASP code. The bug was nothing more than a simple `Date() + 5000` computation (adding 5000 days to the current date) as a sort of expiry date applied to something; I don't recall the exact details. VB6 did not take kindly to computing any date value beyond the Y38 max and threw an error. In practice this error ended up denying service to everyone even though the Y38 max date wa…

I feel like the hard part is flashing the new firmware

Re: The Epochalypse Project

#79

Post by Henchman21 »

sroussey wrote: post #53
Henchman21 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? I was starting my career during Y2K. It was widely regarded as a bust , and I’d anticipate people expecting the same damned thing?

It was largely regarded as a success. Why do you say a bust?

Sorry, I meant from the perspective of people expecting chaos to happen. I agree it was wildly successful in that basically nothing happened!

Re: The Epochalypse Project

#80

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

msla wrote: post #76
BeFlatXIII wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Planes falling pit of the sky” still gets used both as an example of overblown Y2k fear-mongering AND the reason why all those quiet preparations were necessary.

Is there any plausible mechanism for Y2K bugs to cause planes to fall from the sky?

Why not? From five years ago, on the most modern type:

https://www.theregister.com/2020/04/02/boeing_787_power_cycl...

Seems to be unrelated at first look, but considering the complexities of systems, and cascading failure modes?

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