After the millennium bug scared many people before the turn of the year 2000, another possibility began to intrigue the tech world in recent years. This is a new possible systems error that already has a scheduled date to happen, being called the millennium bug 2038.
Even though many relationships are made between the two bugs, they have different explanations. Therefore, it is worth recalling the logic behind the millennium bug.
At the time, the fear was related to the registration of dates in the machines, which had a standardized system and focused on saving memory. Thus, two digits were used to represent date, month and year.
In practice, if it was 05/21/98, the system understood that the marked year was 1998. However, the turn to the year 2000 was represented by the digits 00, which the computers understood as 1900.
Therefore, the confusion in the date could generate errors in series, including in essential equipment that guarantee the survival of portions of the population. In reality, the turn of the millennium was not marked by major disasters, even if there were some occasional failures.
But, after all, what is the “millennium bug” of 2038?
The new bug also has to do with timekeeping systems, but with a different problem. On 32-bit processors, and on 32-bit systems running with these components, a limit will be reached related to available values for calendar entries.
After all, 32-bit systems can work with a count that goes up to 2³², where each value represents one second. In total, the account reaches 4,294,967,295 values, which vary between -2,147,483,647 and 2,147,483,647 — that is, with “only” 2,147,483,647 values available for counting.
Since the databases of many systems start on January 1, 1970, the count of 2,147,483,647 seconds after that has a specific ending: January 19, 2038, more specifically at 03:14:07 am.
From this moment on, several computers can return to the 1970 date, simply because they are unable to advance their specific time counts.
A similar situation happened in 2014, when the hit “Gangnam Style” was the first YouTube video to reach 2,147,483,647 views. At the time, the social network counter used a 32-bit architecture, which switched to a negative number as soon as this limit was reached — later the system was changed to a 64-bit one, which supports up to 9,223,372,036,854,775. 80 (more than nine quintillion) views. Because of this, the 2038 bug has also been called the Gangnam Style bug.
And what might the consequences be?
At the moment, it’s hard to predict what proportion the 2038 bug will cause worldwide. However, it is likely that it does not represent a major catastrophe for humanity, just as the millennium bug did not generate any problems of this magnitude either.
Several platforms and their respective operating systems already use the 64-bit architecture, due to other advantages it offers. Therefore, they already come with this “natural” ability to tell time for a longer period.
Microsoft, for example, already distributes 64-bit versions for its system since 2005, with Windows XP Professional. In turn, Apple’s macOS works exclusively in 64-bit since 2011 — in both cases, the use of 32-bit machines should be a thing of the distant past in 2038.
On the other hand, some very specific devices must still suffer from the new 2038 bug, especially in industrial environments infrastructures. In these cases, it will be necessary to pay extra attention in relation to general failures, which can leave the systems vulnerable to the action of intruders or other similar situations.
Source: The Guardian, CISOAdvisor, HowStuffWorks, Exam
