this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2024
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submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 48 points 8 months ago (2 children)

The question is, what will happen in 2038 when y2k happens again due to an integer overflow? People are already sounding the alarm but who knows if people will fix all of the systems before it hits.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (5 children)

It's already been addressed in Linux - not sure about other OSes. They doubled the size of time data so now you can keep using it until after the heat death of the universe. If you're around then.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Finally it'd be the year of desktop linux with all the windows users die off

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago

This is the funniest comment I have ever read here. Thank you.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago

debian for example is atm at work recompiling everything vom 32bit to 64bit timestamps (thanks to open source this is no problem) donno what happens to propriarary legacy software

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Obviously new systems are unaffected, the question is how many industrial controllers checking oil pipeline flow levels or whatever were installed before the fix and never updated.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Being somewhat adjacent to that with my work, there is a good chance anything in a critical area (hopefully fields like utilities, petroleum, areas with enough energy to cause harm) have decently hardened or updated equipment where it either isn't an issue, will stop reporting tread data correctly, or roll over to date "0" which depending on the platform with industrial equipment tends to be 1970 in my personal experience. That said, there is always the case that it will not be handled correctly and either run away or stop entirely.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

I think everything works in windows but the old windows media player. You can test it by setting the time in a windows VM to 2039.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

As a future boltzmann brain, I agree.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago (4 children)

2038 is approaching super fast and nobody seems to care yet

[–] [email protected] 46 points 8 months ago (3 children)

At the rate of one year per year, even.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago (1 children)

For each second that passes we're one second closer to 2038

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

Except for leap seconds. Time is the worst to work with :(

[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

AfaIk that's not entirely true, e.g. Debian is changing the system time from 32 bit integer to 64 bit. Thus I assume other distros do this as well. However, this does not help for industrial or IOT devices running deprecated Unix / Linux derivatives.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago (1 children)

industrial or IOT devices running deprecated Unix / Linux derivatives

This is my concern, all the embedded devices happily running in underground systems like pipes and cables. I assume there are at least a few which nobody even considered patching because they've "just worked" for decades!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Or like... PLANES! Some planes still update their firmware using floppy disks

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago

They do at least get updates though, and they're big enough that they don't get forgotten!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago

That's not true, lots of people are panicking about how fast they're getting older

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Well that's justifiable. We're not sure if we're even going to make it to then