RFC 2626 (rfc2626) - Page 1 of 385

The Internet and the Millennium Problem (Year 2000)

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Network Working Group                                     P. Nesser II
Request for Comments: 2626                  Nesser & Nesser Consulting
Category: Informational                                      June 1999


          The Internet and the Millennium Problem (Year 2000)


Status of this Memo

   This memo provides information for the Internet community.  It does
   not specify an Internet standard of any kind.  Distribution of this
   memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999).  All Rights Reserved.

Abstract

   The Year 2000 Working Group (WG) has conducted an investigation into
   the millennium problem as it regards Internet related protocols.
   This investigation only targeted the protocols as documented in the
   Request For Comments Series (RFCs).  This investigation discovered
   little reason for concern with regards to the functionality of the
   protocols.  A few minor cases of older implementations still using
   two digit years (ala RFC 850) were discovered, but almost all
   Internet protocols were given a clean bill of health.  Several cases
   of "period" problems were discovered, where a time field would "roll
   over" as the size of field was reached.  In particular, there are
   several protocols, which have 32 bit, signed integer representations
   of the number of seconds since January 1, 1970 which will turn
   negative at Tue Jan 19 03:14:07 GMT 2038.  Areas whose protocols will
   be effected by such problems have been notified so that new revisions
   will remove this limitation.

1. Introduction

   According to the trade press billions of dollars will be spend the
   upcoming years on the year 2000 problem, also called the millennium
   problem (though the third millennium will really 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, or
   in the hardcoded microcomputers found in electronic equipment.  A lot
   of organizations are now starting to make an inventory of which
   software and tools they use will suffer from the millennium problem.




Nesser                       Informational
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