A glitch in the program of a North Brunswick, N.J.-based
technology company, Webcraft Technologies Inc., caused
about half a million senior citizens in Washington state and
Idaho to receive statements from the Social Security
Administration with incorrect Social Security numbers
printed on them. Computer World

-- spider (spider0@usa.net), December 07, 1999

Answers

Folks, this is a symptom of a very large problem. It is impossible to imagine or comprehend how many errors are occuring already. Programming resources will be stretched thinner and thinner over the weeks and months to come.

These symptoms will continue to increase in frequency of occurrence. It's important to understand that the most damaging errors to application databases are those that are not immediately visible.

-- TA (sea_spur@yahoo.com), December 07, 1999.

Inquiring minds want to know: Is this glitch the result of Y2K "fixes" or system replacements that were ramrodded into place without adequate testing?

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), December 07, 1999.

Inquiring minds want to know: Is this glitch the result of Y2K "fixes" or system replacements that were ramrodded into place without adequate testing?

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), December 07, 1999.

My guess is that this is a result of "fixed" code going in without adequatete testing, probably to make management look good in the short term.

Here's a link to a thread providing some good insight into actual Y2K programming examples.

Link

-- TA (sea_spur@yahoo.com), December 07, 1999.

I wonder if this could just be a merged letter they are sending, and they messed up the field number input. I don't know why they would want to separate the 3 parts of the SS number, unless certain reports are run based on different sections of the number. Does anyone know what SS numbers correspond to? Location at birth, date of birth, city or state? It would be helpful to know.

-- Darla (dnice@hgo.net), December 07, 1999.

First three digits are related to the state/region where the user got registered - usually, this is birth state.

Half-million, eh? I'm certain they can get this fixed in three days - ---- except they found it two days ago and it hasn't been fixed yet.....remember, you saw it on this forum first.

How does that song go? "We've only just begun.....

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), December 07, 1999.

You know, letters, tax returns, etc. cannot be printed overnight. I worked for a catholic diocese for 10 years and was in charge of their annual appeal to parishioners. We sent out approx 45,000 letters, cards and stuff and it took us about a month just to print everything and then another 2-3 weeks for stuffing envelopes (retired nuns did the stuffing). Anyway, we had what I would call a fairly high-speed laser printer which printed about 20ppm. Of course, we only had one printer. I don't know how fast printers are now, but I don't think speed has increased that much. I just wonder how long it took them to print those they sent with errors and how long it will take to reprint the corrected ones.

-- Darla (dnice@hgo.net), December 07, 1999.

From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr (pic), near Monterey, California

This sounds like the kind of thing that must have been wrong on all of the individuals that they processed in that batch. Howcome they didn't double-check a portion to be sure stuff was OK? Isn't this normal procedure, particularly after installing new code? These are the people who managed the conversion to the new software? Everybody, get a printout of your social security "Statement of Earnings" and get another one next June or so.

Yeah... Social Security is "done." Done for, more likely.

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage), December 08, 1999.