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Y2K in 2004?

In the News | October 04, 2004 | 0 comments

Discreet is in the news for narrowly avoiding a disaster that would occur on October 1st 2004 and they only found about it two days earlier on the 29th of September because someone’s system clock was set wrong.

To quote the problem from fxguide:

“Clearly documented in the number generator for the frame IDs of any Stone file system worldwide, was an built-in limit. Given that the system counted in seconds, and that the original programmer who wrote the code had chosen only a 28 bit number, exactly 8 and a half years later the system would see that the date exceeded the maximum allowed and not allow the file system to mount.”

This could of happened to anyone and any company but why? How could of we prevented it?

Related Links

• Article: “Stoned and Wired: Behind Discreet’s Y2k+4 bug”
• Discreet’s Website
• Info and Patch for Problem from Discreet

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