(Bloomberg) -- Meet the Y2K-bug’s little brother.
Thanks
to a quirk in how Global Positioning Systems keep track of time, some
devices are due to have their calendars reset at 7:59 p.m. EDT on
Saturday. This echoes the hysteria -- mostly overhyped -- over global
computers systems that gripped the world when the calendar was about to
click over from 1999 to 2000.
Fortunately,
the glitch only affects older GPS systems or ones that haven’t been
updated, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security says it isn’t
expecting wide-scale disruptions. But they’ve still been warning that
utilities, financial systems, airlines and telecommunication systems
could be affected by the problem.
“A
nanosecond error in GPS Time can equate to one foot of position
(ranging) error,” the department’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure
Security Agency said in a memo warning about the problem.
GPS Time: 1024 Weeks
The
issue is caused by the “1024 week number rollover.” GPS systems keep
track of time by counting weeks, but only have enough data to keep track
of 1,024 of them before they reset to Jan. 6, 1980, when the system
first went online.The last time that happened was in August 1999 when
GPS was used a lot less for everything from flying planes to mapping the
best driving routes to locating lost pets.
The next reset occurs tonight.
The
navigation technology manufacturer TomTom NV told users “there’s no
need to worry” if you frequently update your device, but said those who
don’t may find “navigation impossible” among other problems.
Little Worry
Garmin
LTD said its testing has shown the “vast majority” of its GPS devices
will handle the rollover without issue, and those that are affected will
see an incorrect date and time displayed but “the positioning accuracy
will not be affected.”
But other industries that rely on precise time could see an impact.
Edward
Powers, the GPS Operations Division Chief for the United States Naval
Observatory, warned in a 2017 presentation that the rollover could lead
to corrupted data and system failures, with problems occurring beyond
April 6.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ari Natter in Washington at anatter5@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jon Morgan at jmorgan97@bloomberg.net, Ros Krasny, Ian Fisher
For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com
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