The Internet and the Millennium Problem (2000)
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Charter
Last Modified: 2000-01-24
Current Status: Concluded Working Group
Chair(s):
Erik Huizer <huizer@surfnet.nl>
Operations and Management Area Director(s):
Randy Bush <randy@psg.com>
Bert Wijnen <bwijnen@lucent.com>
Operations and Management Area Advisor:
Randy Bush <randy@psg.com>
Technical Advisor(s):
Scott Bradner <sob@harvard.edu>
Mailing Lists:
General Discussion:2000@nic.surfnet.nl
To Subscribe: listserv@nic.surfnet.nl
In Body: subscribe 2000 <your name> in body
Archive: http://listserv.surfnet.nl/archives/2000.html
Description of Working Group:
The Millenium problem
According to the trade press billions of dollars will be spend the
upcoming three years on the year 2000 problem, also called the
millenium problem (though the third millenium will only start in 2001).
This problem consists of the fact that many software packages and some
protocols use a two digit field for the year in a date field. Most of
the problems seem to be in administrative and financial programs, some
of which have been written in archaic languages like Cobol. A lot of
organizations are now starting to make an inventory of which software
and tools they use will suffer from the millenium problem.
....and the Internet
With the increasing popularity of the Internet,
more and more organizations start to use the Internet as a serious
business tool. This means that most organizations will want to analyse
the millenium problems due to the use of Internet protocols and popular
Internet software. In the trade press the first articles suggest that
the Internet will collapse at midnight the 31st of december 1999.
To counter these suggestions (that are obviously wrong) and to avoid
that all over the Internet people will redo the same inventory over and
over again the WG is to make an inventory of all important Internet
protocols and their most popular implementations with respect to the
millenium problem. Only software and protocols directly related to the
Internet will be considered.
The inventory will be published as an informational RFC. The RFC will
contain:
o Description of the year 2000 problems and when they will occur
o Summary of possible solutions and timelines for those solutions
o Inventory of the year 2000 problem in the most popular Internet
protocols and their most popular implementations
o Suggested solutions to the problems noted in the inventory
o A disclaimer that the RFC does not pretend to be complete and that
the proposed solutions should be tested before being relied upon
(this
for the US readers).
The WG will only meet once (in Memphis, April 1997), most of the work
will be done via the mailinglist.
Goals and Milestones:
FEB 97 Begin collecting inventory.
SEP 97 Submit Internet-Draft to IESG for publication as an
Informational RFC.
Internet-Drafts:
No Current Internet-Drafts.
Request For Comments:
RFC Stat Published Title
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RFC652 H OCT 74 Telnet output carriage-return disposition option
RFC658 H OCT 74 Telnet output linefeed disposition
RFC655 H OCT 74 Telnet output formfeed disposition option
RFC657 H OCT 74 Telnet output vertical tab disposition option
RFC656 H OCT 74 Telnet output vertical tabstops option
RFC653 H OCT 74 Telnet output horizontal tabstops option
RFC654 H OCT 74 Telnet output horizontal tab disposition option
RFC1058 H JUN 88 Routing Information Protocol
RFC1201Standard FEB 91 Transmitting IP Traffic over ARCNET Networks
RFC1108 H NOV 91 U.S. Department of Defense Security Options for the
Internet Protocol
RFC2626 I JUN 99 The Internet and the Millenium Problem (Year 2000)
RFC2800Standard AUG 00 Internet Official Protocol Standards
RFC2900 PS MAY 01 Internet Official Protocol Standards