n his job as a communications consultant for Amoco's corporate headquarters in Chicago, Joseph Massucci regularly deals with realworld
situations. He sees a lot on the job. That's where he first became acquainted with the Y2K computer bug. And, as he watched Amoco cope with solving the problem of what will happen
to its computers on Jan. 1, 2000, his mind began playing the "What if?" game.The result of Massucci's blending imagination with the potentially devastating computer crisis is the
industry's first legitimate thriller about Y2K: "The Millennium Project." It will hit the bookstores in November and is likely to generate even more worrying.
"About two years ago we started ramping up on the Y2K issue, and I saw how much was involved in fixing this problem," Massucci said by phone from Chicago. "I was part of the original team to
communicate the problem to our employees. As I worked with th
e project team, it quickly became apparent that this is a massive problem. We can't just go in there and fix a few codes."
That's why the problem is so serious, Massucci said.
"High tech drives our whole company, everything from the offices to deep-sea seismic research," he said. "We realized it will cost tens
of millions of dollars, which is just a drop in the bucket for the oil and gas industry and hundreds of billions of dollars on the worldwide scale.
"We jumped on this a long time ago, even before it became hot in
the public's eye. It's among the largest initiatives going on at Amoco right now – hundreds of people are involved.
"We hired lots of consultants to help us and so new faces are
coming in every day. These consultants could see our networks and proprietary codes and our vulnerabilities. What if one of them
with hostile intent had it in for us? What if there is a conspiracy?"
Massucci was also a published novelist. His debut novel was "Code:
Alpha," which was concerned with genetic engineering and biological warfare.
"The Y2K bug is what gave me the idea for another novel. I
thought this would make a great background for a technothriller," said Massucci. "I proposed the Year 2000 bug idea to my publisher and bringing back the characters from 'Code Alpha,' since the
heroine was a computer guru."
Massucci said that a year and a half ago his editor had never heard of Y2K bug. Then, after Newsweek magazine came out with a cover
story on the problem, Massucci immediately received a contract to do a book. "The Millennium Project" will be published by Leisure Books of New York as a massmarket paperback.
What will be in the book?
"There will definitely be some disaster scenarios," Massucci replied. "I am convinced that we will see some major disruptions. This
affects every computer and every system in the world. Computers are not self-healing. Businesses large and small will be affected."
His own company should be in pretty good shape, the writer said.
"We started early enough and should be completed by the middle of next year," he said. "But even if you test that code and it works, until you see your systems in production and all working together,
you don't really know what will happen. What's scaring the heck out of everyone is that unknown."
Massucci was asked if he thought companies might exchange
knowledge to help the world get through the crisis. He sees problems there, too.
His book opens five days before Jan. 1, 2000 with the crash of a 767 on its final approach to Washington D.C., when the
mission-critical microprocessors used to control that aircraft begin failing. The president of the United States then shuts down the airline industry because critical information was not shared and
people are now dying.
"I'd like to think the airline industry would share, where lives are involved," Massucci said. "But if I tell you a solution and it doesn't
work and people die, am I legally responsible? There may have to be a sort of Good Samaritan act that puts a moratorium on any liability in such cases.
"One of the scenarios that frightens me the most is the possibility of sabotage. CIA Director George Tennant went before Congress and warned about the security risk. He said the Year computer bug
“provides all kinds of opportunities for someone with hostile intent” to gain information or plant viruses. He said we’re building an information infrastructure, the most complex the world has ever
known, on an insecure foundation.
Massucci's book begins five days before the stroke of midnight on Dec. 31, 1999. And as the novel's cover proclaims, "The clock is ticking…"
