2038: The Year the Internet Will End?
Alas, when the date became January 1, 2000, the world didn't end. In fact almost no computers were affected at all. This was partially because of expensive and hurried fixes to millions of computers, and partially because the threat was vastly overstated by the media.
Now another date looms on the horizon -- 3:14:07 AM on January 19, 2038. The "2038 bug" will affect any Unix or Posix based systems such as the Linux servers that power the web and Macs running the Unix-based OSX. Posix based operating systems store date and time as a four byte integer (technically only 31 bits) counting seconds from January 1 1970. When the number of seconds reaches 2,147,483,647 seconds, the clock will reset to -2,147,483,648, or 8:45:52 PM Dec 13 1901.
What could happen? Well we've actually already seen some of the effects of this bug. In May of 2006 the bug brought an AOL (our parent company) web server to its knees. The server was designed to never timeout, but rather than set a the timeout to simply never occur the timeout was set for a billion seconds in the future. When the one billion seconds, or just over 31 years 251 days and 12 hours, past the January 19, 2038 threshold the scheduled timeout was scheduled to happen in the past, 1901, and the server crashed. A similar problem took out the Mars Rover Spirit temporarily in 2004 when it started sending nonsense messages back to Houston from the year 2038. If our current systems were left as is we could expect them to start crumbling one by one, and on the morning of January 19, 2038 Switched.com would suddenly go offline as our server crashed.
Despite our sensationalist headline, neither the world nor the Internet will end in 2038. In fact with just under 30 years to spare we're pretty confident that any issues will be resolved before the doomsday scenario has a chance to play out. Besides, in 30 years shouldn't we have fancy new-voice controlled holographic computers like those promised to us by 'Minority Report?' We're pretty sure the pre-cogs weren't using Leopard.
From Newsvine and 2038bug.com
Related links:
_thumbnail.jpg "Vintage Keyboards")
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
JBJG24M said 6:20AM on 3-15-2008
DOPUBT THAT I WILL BE AROUND THEN SO IT SHOULDN'T EFFECT ME ANY!!
Reply
JDH said 6:17PM on 4-19-2008
Ever hear of 64 bit, you alarmist? In 30 years might we not be using 128 bit architecture? This is so NON-NEWS.
Reply
Geo said 6:47AM on 3-15-2008
Please stop coming up with this crap and 'hyping it out of perspective'... The Y2K thing was nothing buy a scam... Just get to work!!!!
Reply
vance Brendle said 6:44AM on 3-15-2008
in 2038 I will be92 dont think Iwill be here for it
Reply
HACKER said 8:11AM on 3-15-2008
JBJ ... YOU SELFISH BAST*RD ...........
Reply
gayle said 8:22AM on 3-15-2008
I'm more worried about the SUPERBUG that looms over us now.(Mersa). Computers can be replaced.
Reply
Theresa said 8:41AM on 3-15-2008
I love the exerpt from "Bachelor Party". And even though I don't like to be reminded of how old I am, it sure gave me a laugh...haha!
Reply
Autumn said 8:49AM on 3-15-2008
EEeeeeGGyyyaaaddss..So Fix The Damn Problem..You've Got 3 decades..for F.S. such Retards and Worthless Paranoia Instigators.Oi..what ELSE is New???
Reply
terry said 8:53AM on 3-15-2008
I have MRSA and it nearly killed me. Treatment in the past have been 4 surgerys. Antibiotics, 2 pills a day at $100 per pill for 2 weeks. Hospital stays and physical therapy. The last episode of MRSA I treated at home with a phenomenal product. No doctor, no hospital, no antibotics and no huge medical bills. I have photos to prove this.
Reply
KidRimbaud said 10:14AM on 3-16-2008
The Y2K scare was a scam or fraud prepetrated by the the computer geeks who worked for corporations as employees and as independent contractors. The teckies had made really good money in the mid-Ninties pushing the desktop access, which was drying up by the end of the century. U.S. corporations spent billions of dollars over about two years preparing for December 31, 1999. The company I was with even had its geeks at their desks at midnight to stave off the terror. Albania I imagine spent $6.75 on ten AA batteries for the whole country and came out on a par with all of the U.S. corporate world. They got away with it in the U.S. because the guys at the top of the corporations had no idea what was going on and nobody told them the truth.
In my imagination, I see four corporate computer geeks at a table in a bar sometime in 1997 worried about their bonuses and one of them suggests that maybe they can get an extra weekend's overtime by pushing the need to do something for Y2K. The other three are sceptical but say they'll try it. The rest is history.
My real question is a two parter. Did the geeks do it because they were stupid and really believed the falsehoods? Or did they all know that there was no need to do anything, but that they were making more money from the lies than they would have been making with the truth?
Reply
Gary said 9:11AM on 3-15-2008
The only programmers stupid enough to not be able to fix this work for comcast where the movie menu flips back when you look at info on the movies that started before the current ones!
Reply
JRStrafer123 said 9:13AM on 3-15-2008
This is simply another ploy by hype-mongerers!
Reply
pinkydink said 9:15AM on 3-15-2008
The worls is supposed to end on Dec.21,2012 anyways,according to the ancient Mayan calendar,so why worry?
Reply
ROFLMAO said 9:47AM on 3-15-2008
So the Rover sent messages in our time 2004 from the year 2038 and they say it was a glitch? Anyone ever stop to think that maybe the Rover WAS in 2038 and we're the one's who are in the past?
Back to the Future Part One Mo' Time!!!
Reply
mikesmom said 9:24AM on 3-15-2008
I think we should be more worried about the environment. And how about Bush's "peace bringing" war in Iraq?
Reply
JAMES SCHULKE said 9:26AM on 3-15-2008
I CANNOT BELIEVE SO MANY NUT CAN BELIVE SOME BIG NUT BUT I LIKE THE ONE ABOUT THE NAKED LADY AND THE BEST ONE IS WE WILL BE DEAD OR TO OLD TO CARE
Reply
Bill said 9:31AM on 3-15-2008
Will it reset my tombstone?
Reply
TAF said 9:41AM on 3-15-2008
ok...went and looked into it and it seems to be legit...
The good news is that is seems to be largely limited to Linux and Unix systems and mostly of the 32-bit variety. Given that even the current 64 systems still have components that are 16- and even 8-bit I'm not holding my breath on that score, but god help me maybe running Windows (or what passes for it at that time) in 2038 will be a good thing (?!?!?)
Malware Tech from Mid-west US
Reply
Buck said 9:55AM on 3-15-2008
What a bunch of "Bravo Sierra"!
#1. AOHell runs WINDBLOW$ software, otherwise us LINUX users would be able to access it and have accouts!
#2. Ok, 30 something years? Linux is OPEN SOURCE, so we all have the "code" and potential to fix this "bug" long before it hits.
#3. Computers are moving to a higher bit software so this is a moot point. Just another "WIN$UX$" iD10t trying to bring down Unix & Linux...."We are MICRO$HAFT, Resistance is futile...you WILL be assemilated!"
Reply
Buck said 9:58AM on 3-15-2008
OMG!!!
My WIN$HAFT Spell checker didn't work! Imagine that, Bwahahahahahaha!
"They told me to load WIN XP or better, so I loaded Kbuntu Linux."
Reply