NYC wireless network down due to Y2K-like software bug
by
Bruce Golding
&
Larry Celona
Original Article
Posted By: Attila DiMedici,
4/16/2019 11:00:24 PM
City Hall’ s tech czar ignored a federal warning about a looming, Y2K-like software bug last year — allowing a crash of the city’s official wireless network that has been down since the weekend, sources told The Post. As a result, transit officials can’t remotely control the Big Apple’s 12,000-plus traffic lights, and many of the city’s traffic cameras and NYPD license-plate readers are down, sources said. “This is a big screw-up, even for the de Blasio administration,” said a source familiar with the matter. The New York City Wireless Network, known as “NYCWiN,” crashed on Saturday, affecting the operations of city agencies
Reply 1 - Posted by:
NorthernDog 4/16/2019 11:37:01 PM (No. 36231)
Will anyone notice? I thought a red light in NYC only meant that you tap lightly on the brakes when approaching an intersection.
14 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
john56 4/16/2019 11:45:02 PM (No. 36232)
Gosh, NYC is so far behind it takes 19 years for Y2K to hit?
Well, finally those Y2K truthers were proven right. But it happened almost 20 years later.
10 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
snakeoil 4/16/2019 11:52:47 PM (No. 36239)
Only clock problem I ever had with software was an engineering package which had a Daylight Saving Time glitch. Ever 6 months it would royally foul up and had to be reinstalled from scratch. My sympathies to the NY IT types. WiFi is a Hillary.
11 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
Avanti1 4/17/2019 12:01:20 AM (No. 36235)
FTA: "In a statement, DoITT said: “Elements of our private wireless network have been disrupted by a worldwide GPS system update.”
1. The NYC claim that this was "a worldwide GPS system update" is simply false. The counter used in GPS to count weeks rolled-over in a predictable fashion on April 6, 2019. Properly designed GPS receivers automatically took this rollover into account and continued to function seamlessly.
2. GPS users were warned over a year ago to anticipate the April 6 rollover and check the software in their GPS receivers and, if necessary, update that software to ensure no disruption to their usage when the rollover occurred.
3. NYC or their contractor is responsible for maintaining their equipment. They ignored warnings issued over a year ago and now they are paying the price for their failure to heed the warnings.
4. The quoted statement is either meant to shift the blame or an indication of the incompetence of NYC or their contractor.
19 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
DVC 4/17/2019 12:02:44 AM (No. 36229)
Incompetents in charge, unsurprising.
12 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
DVC 4/17/2019 12:19:55 AM (No. 36237)
FTA:NYCWiN is overseen by the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, whose commissioner, Samir Saini, was appointed by Mayor de Blasio in January 2018."
If you have any actual brains you wouldn´t work for de Bozio. Apparently this guy went straight from answering the hot line phones for Gateway as "Bobby" to running NYC´s tech stuff.
And who is surprised that de Bozio chooses an incompetent who ignores the GPS clock rollover warning? Not me.
13 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
chumley 4/17/2019 2:28:40 AM (No. 36238)
Gee, big brother is slightly blinded. My heart bleeds for them.
12 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
Trigger2 4/17/2019 3:29:37 AM (No. 36230)
A software bug? Yeah, right. It´s more likely to be a software hack and City Hall doesn´t want to admit it.
It burns me to no end that software has to be in appliances. That and plastic gears. None of this fancy dancy stuff lasts more than a couple of years but costs a person more in repairs or outright replacement.
14 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
DVC 4/17/2019 4:16:46 AM (No. 36234)
GPS nav satellites rolled over more seconds than their counter´s number of storage digits can read.
Think of your car rolling over the odometer (before they added the 100,000s digit) it went to 99,999 then to 00000.
The GPS sat timer field rolls over every 19+ yrs (1024 weeks) , and if your device is using their timing signal, even if not navigating, how will your device react to a time of 0000 Jan 6 1980? This is the zero ref time. So, some systems can be all messed up.
Like say the system has a timer to do something every hour. So when the time count register reaches ´some number´ which represents an hour from March 20, 5:31 pm it will do it. But then the ´current time´ register rolls over and goes to Jan 6, 1980 - it will wait for the next 39 years and a few months before it does what you had intended it to do in an hour. What does that mess up? What else gets confused?
Systems programmers on lots of systems needed to review what their system would do with this time rollover.
And the fool in charge of NYC blew it off, did nothing.
BOOM! Idiots in charge.
13 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
Flyball Dogs 4/17/2019 5:35:59 AM (No. 36233)
NYC, a microcosm of America if the Communists win 2020. Incompetence, laziness, and overall inferior standards.
12 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
hoosierblue 4/17/2019 10:47:20 AM (No. 36236)
I don´t give a hoot about NYs problems. They brought it on themselves. They can suffer. If they don´t like it, change their ways or leave.
4 people like this.
Below, you will find ...
Most Recent Articles posted by "Attila DiMedici"
and
Most Active Articles (last 48 hours)
Comments:
I guess the warning from the Department of Homeland Security wasn´t just a plot by President Trump to embarrass Mayor Di Blasio.