Date: Fri, 25 Sep 1998 09:39:02 -0400
From: Bennett Todd <bet>
To: Janet Sedgley <sedgley(_at_)selway(_dot_)umt(_dot_)edu>
Subject: Re: probably a stupid question
Message-ID: <19980925093902(_dot_)B12428(_at_)fcmc(_dot_)com>
References: <2(_dot_)2(_dot_)32(_dot_)19980924224430(_dot_)00984060(_at_)selway(_dot_)umt(_dot_)edu>
In-Reply-To: <2(_dot_)2(_dot_)32(_dot_)19980924224430(_dot_)00984060(_at_)selway(_dot_)umt(_dot_)edu>; from Janet Sedgley on Thu, Sep 24, 1998 at 04:44:30PM -0600

I've continued thinking about it --- I work at a Wall St. firm, so of course
thoughts like this are always on my mind:-).

Procmail is just part of the whole email picture; and as email is a ubiquitous
communication channel, typically providing interconnection between security
domains and between wildly divergant OSes, it has often been used as a
platform on top of which higher-level applications are layered. Hence any
serious disruption of email is likely to provoke cascading additional
failures: report circulation, distributed monitoring, even database updates
may stop happening.

As I see it there are at least three measures that a whole email system, taken
in aggregate, could use for Y2K checking. First, capture a vast cross-section
of traffic and make sure no email software is using 2-digit years. I don't
recall having seen any, but it's still worth checking. Second, generate a load
of traffic with 2000 and 2001 dates and shove it through all the channels. And
third, run all the systems end-to-end with their system clocks rolling over
the millenium.

-Bennett