WASHINGTON, -- The United States said Saturday that a Y2K glitch had stopped the processing of data from a satellite spying operation for about two or three hours until back-up procedures stepped into the breach.
"A satellite-based intelligence system experienced some Y2K failures last night shortly after the rollover of Greenwich Mean Time," Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre told a news briefing.The problem had been entirely on the ground, however, and the satellites themselves remained under full control, he added.
"We were able to adopt back-up procedures which had indeed been planned and rehearsed and they are in place right now," Hamre said.
Though the system was not yet functioning at full capacity, information had not been lost and the system would probably be back to normal within hours, defense officials said.
Hamre said this was the only significant failure resulting from the advent of 2000, and that he could not give any details about the affected intelligence-gathering operation because the mission in question was too sensitive.
"We are operating at less than our full peacetime level of activity but all of our high priority needs, both for the Department of Defense and other national customers, are fully being met," he added.
He said a number of small anomalies had been noted, like computers defaulting to old dates, a cash register which refused to process receipts and a couple of dozen instances of computers having to be re-booted as they did not roll over by themselves.
Hamre said there had been fewer attempts than usual to break into the department's systems but that at least one hacker had tried and been stopped. "We disconnected the effort by the unknown bad guy who was trying to get into the system. We simply pulled their plug."
Typical viruses had also been detected but contained and it was now a simple matter of cleaning up the network, he added.
"We have no confirmed evidence of a virus that was triggered by the calendar rollover," Hamre said.
Older computers often used two digits to identify the year, meaning that they could read 2000 as 1900 and either malfunction or shut down altogether.
Hamre said the huge cost of protecting U.S. computer networks from the transition to the 21st century had been entirely justified.
"The Department of Defense is the bedrock of America's national security and America's defense is the bedrock of stability around the world," he said.
"We would not be able to tolerate any problems in the Department of Defense. This was an investment we had to make."
Like other officials awaiting final checks on systems--and the end of 2000 for complete peace of mind as this is a 366-day year--Hamre urged people not to declare victory over the Y2K bug too soon, though he said he anticipated no serious problems.
"We're not through this yet. We haven't yet tested the full loads on the systems. That will start Monday and Tuesday," he said.