IP: E2A is worse than Y2K

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

>Date: Sat, 25 Dec 1999 18:43:53 -0500
>To: Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>
>From: Matthew Gaylor <freematt@coil.com>
>Subject: E2A is worse than Y2K
>
>[Note from Matt:  Les is a retired computer scientist from Stanford.]
>
>Date: Thu, 23 Dec 1999 22:28:48 -0800 (PST)
>From: Les Earnest <les@Steam.Stanford.EDU>
>To: Matthew Gaylor <freematt@coil.com>
>Subject: E2A is worse than Y2K
>
>
>Forget about the Y2K Armageddon.  The two digit year bug likely will
>cause minor inconveniences to some and will benefit others, who will
>have a paid vacation until their software gets fixed.  Deaths or
>serious injuries?  Not likely, aside from deliberate acts by
>terrorists or dimwits.  The main Y2K threat is the absurd hype
>generated by the media, government agencies and "experts" selling
>fixes.
>
>As you may recall, when serious discussions of the programming bug
>began several years ago it was called the "Year 2000" bug, which
>quickly shrank to "Y2000," then "Y2K."  In a few days this shrinking
>acronym will go "Poof!" and disappear.  The media will likely then
>turn on the "scientists" who they will claim misled them into
>believing that something awful was about to happen.  More bogosity.
>
>Though Y2K and other shinking acronyms pose no long term threat to
>mankind, there is a real threat from Ever-Expanding Acronyms (E2A).
>After tracking this phenomenon for the last 45 years I can confidently
>predict what the U.S. military-industrial establishment will be
>working on in the year 3000 if it doesn't self-destruct in the
>meantime.  Unfortunately the picture isn't pretty.
>
>This story begins in the mid-1950s when a tortured acronym was
>assigned to a project called SAGE, for "Semi-Automatic Ground
>Environment."  This alleged defense system was a technological marvel
>that integrated radar systems with computers operating in real time
>that were supposed to direct manned interceptors and ground-to-air
>missiles against any invading bombers.
>
>However, SAGE was an operational fraud in that it worked only in
>peacetime demonstrations and would have disintegrated under a real
>manned bomber attack, not to mention the ballistic missiles that had
>been developed before SAGE was fully deployed.  However, neither the
>U.S. Congress nor the taxpayers figured out that they had been
>hoodwinked by collaborators from MIT and the U.S. Air Force, with help
>from IBM, RAND and its spinoff, SDC.
>
>The elegant lifestyle that SAGE provided for Generals in the Air
>Defense Command soon induced envy in the Strategic Air Command
>inasmuch as a number of SAGE computer facilities were placed at SAC
>bases.  Not to be outdone, General Curtis Lemay initiated development
>of his own computerized system, called the SAC Control System.  Given
>that transistorized computers had become practical just after SAGE was
>developed, SAC managed to one-up the Air Defense Command by purchasing
>a more reliable (though equally useless) system.
>
>When the full name of SAC's system was written out as "Strategic Air
>Command Control System," the chance juxtaposition of the middle words
>"Command Control" somehow took on mystical meanings in the Pentagon
>and elsewhere that convinced senior officers that they had discovered
>a new paradigm that would transform warfare.  They set up new
>organizations devoted to developing additional "Command-Control
>Systems," sometimes affectionately called "C2 Systems."
>
>The development of C2 Systems became a major growth industry even
>though they were nearly all operationally inferior to the manual
>systems that they were supposed to replace.  The focus of those
>running these development programs was on spending all funds allocated
>to them within each fiscal year, so that they would qualify for an
>increase the following year.  Nobody was expected to meet any
>particular performance objectives inasmuch as everyone knew that
>computerizing their command functions would improve performance.
>
>By the early 1960s there was a World Wide Military Command Control
>System (WWMCCS) being developed for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who
>could not afford to be out-computerized by their subordinate military
>units.  By the 1970s a new generic term was created for systems of
>this type, namely "Command-Control-Communications" or "C3."
>
>Though the military intelligence community had been developing their
>own useless C3 systems from the beginning and had been subject to even
>less Congressional scrutiny than others by virtue of getting some of
>their projects funded in the "black budget," they felt left out of the
>mainstream until the Pentagon coined the term "Command-Control-
>Communications-Intelligence Systems" or "C3I," which I believe came
>into vogue in the 1980s.
>
>A major C3I project of that era was called the "Strategic Defense
>Initiative" or "Star Wars" and managed to surpass all of its
>predecessors by expending several billion dollars without producing
>anything tangible, courtesy of President Reagan's rampant imagination,
>as reportedly stimulated by the bogus advice of Edward Teller.
>
>Earlier this year the government announced the next version of their
>ever-expanding acronym, as reported in the electronic newsletter
>Edupage on March 23:
>    TRENCH WARFARE IN THE INFORMATION AGE
>    The National Research Council has issued a report warning that
>    military forces are not giving sufficiently serious attention to
>    their Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence
>    Systems (known as C4I). "The rate at which information systems are
>    being relied on outstrips the rate at which they are being
>    protected.  The time needed to develop and deploy effective
>    defenses in cyberspace is much longer than the time required to
>    develop and mount an attack."  Military analyst Kenneth Allard
>    says, "Twenty-first century combat is the war of the databases, in
>    which information flows must go from the foxhole to the White House
>    and back down again."  (AP 22 Mar 99)
>
>It is interesting to note that even though computers have been a
>central element of the Command-Control- . . . systems from the
>beginning, the word "computer" was not incorporated into the generic
>name until more than 40 years after this line of development began.
>The fact that it is now included suggests that computers have somehow
>become respectable, even though most modern C4I systems appear to be
>about as useless as their ancient predecessors.
>
>Given that the C2 acronym expanded to C4I in just 40 years, we can
>calculate the average expansion interval as 40/3 = 13 1/3 years.
>Based on this history and assuming that the field continues evolving
>at about the same rate in the "C" direction, we can expect that by the
>end of the next millenium the generic acronym will be "C79I."  Writing
>out the full name and explaining it will substantially increase the
>paperwork required to document these projects, which will further
>enlarge the taxpayers' burden.
>
>Alternatively if there is a more balanced evolution involving the
>addition of both "C" and "I" terms, with the next step possibly being
>to append "Internet" to the name, then in another thousand years the
>military-industrial complex will be building C41I39 systems.  These
>programs and their documentation will ensure full employment for our
>nation, so that our descendants and their corporate employers can look
>forward to an increasingly prosperous future as long as nobody attacks
>us with real weapons.
>
>However, if anything goes wrong with this projection, Y2K will look
>like a picnic by comparison.  Have a Happy New Year and a Marvelous
>Millenium!
>
>Les Earnest (les@cs.stanford.edu)               Phone:  650 941-3984
>12769 Dianne Drive; Los Altos Hills, CA 94022   Fax:    650 941-3934
>
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A Happy Holiday and a safe New Year

from Dave and GG Farber

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