I understand the issue itself and when I read the Wikipedia it has list of solutions at the bottom that numerous different programing languages and programs have implemented. Are these solutions widespread? Is the issue itself sort of overblown with how technology exists today?
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The problem is going to be all the decades old embedded systems that are out there. For plenty I expect we’ve lost everything required to even update the firmware. Vulnerable systems are all over the place. Issue systems are things like:
* Flight computers on aircraft
* Control systems for power stations
* A sewage pump under your street
* Medical imaging equipment
* Military equipment
* Petrochemical equipment
* Heavy machinery
* Hydroelectric dams
* Scientific equivalent
Lots of these things have extremely long service and can easily span 50 years. For a lot of them you can work around the date issue, just set the date back to the 70’s and carry on. Often, with these old things, they’re so antiquated that we can’t safely interface them with modern computer systems anyway – so we’ve got pretty good at working around their limitations. For the others, I expect there will be a lot of surprises, and a lot of equipment suddenly obsoleted since its impractical to fix. There will probably be a few high profile incidents.
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