2/27/2009

Year 2038 Problem


The year 2038 problem (also known as Unix Millennium bug, or Y2K38 by analogy to the Y2K problem, known as the millennium bug) may cause some computer software to fail before or in the year 2038. The problem affects all software and systems that store system time as a signed 32-bit integer, and interpret this number as the number of seconds since 00:00:00 January 1, 1970.[1] The latest time that can be represented this way is 03:14:07 UTC on Tuesday, 19 January 2038. Times beyond this moment will "wrap around" and be stored internally as a negative number, which these systems will interpret as a date in 1901 rather than 2038. This will likely cause problems for users of these systems due to erroneous calculations.

Because most 32-bit Unix-like systems store and manipulate time in this format it's usually called Unix time, and so the year 2038 problem is often referred to as the Unix Millennium Bug. However, any other non-Unix operating systems and software that store and manipulate time this way will be just as vulnerable.

PS - unless you've written your own operating system code, then you're running an OS that was built on basic unix framework. this includes windows pcs, apple computers, linux, your phone, atm machines etc.

2 comments:

  1. Matt Lauer already covered this 3 weeks ago. I already knew about this. HAAAAA HAAAAA.

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  2. Very funny!!!

    The Today Show is always a week behind in the news.
    There's NO WAY Lauer came close to touching this topic!

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