Are you Y2K38 compliant?

Programmers command top pay to fix Unix glitch

FOND-DU-LAC, Wisc. (RWN) - In his cluttered office off this small town's main drag, Ibn Gazy El is quickly making a fortune. Information-technology professionals are scrambling to fix computers with the dreaded Y2K38 bug, and Gazy El is supplying his expertise as the nation's leading Unix programmer to help them.

At $1,300 an hour.

"This is all about the market," Gazy El said. "There is a real and legitimate problem out there, and I have the skills to fix it. I am in demand, therefore, the price for my skills goes up."

On January 19, 2038, the computer world will be faced with the Y2K38 bug, which threatens to shut down Unix systems. Unix systems store the time and date as a 4-byte integer that measures the seconds since January 1, 1970. On January 19, 2038, all the seconds that can be represented by 4-byte integers will be gone.

The result? Experts say that it could shut down Unix systems, which represent 70 percent of the world's computer platforms.

Planes could drop out of the air, communications could break down and dams could open their flood gates. Technicians have been scrambling to update systems and come up with fixes. None of them have been busier than Gazy El.

"The phone rings off the hook," he said. "It's been that way for a long time. It gets worse each week, as more companies realize they're not ''k38' compliant." Gazy El said he generally spends a month on a job, but that he juggles eight to 10 jobs at a time.

"The tech staffs companies have put together are good, but they can't fix the problem and run their company's tech infrastructure at the same time, so they call in me. It's a relatively simple fix, if it were just one computer, but over a network it can be complicated. One government client of mine had computers that talked to each other in seven different ways. It took me six months to sort that out, and while I was there, I found a few different security problems."

As successful as Gazy El and other consultants have been, there are still those who feel the bug is overhyped and overblown.

"In the last days of the old regime, there was so much talk about the 'Y2K' bug and how it would take society back to the Stone Age," said Romeo Vinars, a technology site blogger. "I remember reading one story about how people were taking to the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas and building strongholds against the masses who would come to try and live with them and take the food they had wisely stored away.

"I wonder what happened to them, since the Y2K bug turned out to be nothing at all, and I think the K38 bug will the same thing. A lot of hype, a few screw ups and January 20, 2038, will occur with none of us any the worse for the wear."

Comments | Tell A Friend | Run for President