Many people see artificial intelligence as the inevitable downfall of the world in the near future, but one incredibly ominous time-computing glitch could indeed be the event that breaks the internet as a whole, causing catastrophe across the world.
Nearly every system and process across the globe now relies on a combination of technology and the internet, affecting everything from medical procedures to the world of finance, so any disruption would prove to be potentially devastating.
That's why power outages earlier this year across Spain and Portugal were so worrying, and the reason why the impending threat of a solar storm sourced from the Sun could prove dangerous and even wipe trillions from the global economy.
Experts have been aware of an issue known as the 'Year 2038 problem' for nearly two decades now, but with the time drawing ever closer it could prove to be the thing that breaks the internet for good.
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What is the Year 2038 problem?
As reported by Supercar Blondie, the Year 2038 problem is an almost identical recreation of the Y2K terror that made many recoil in fear at the turn of the millennium, and it could have the potential to shutdown the internet and countless vital systems across the world.
In essence, it refers to a time-computing glitch that would affect systems that use 32-bit signed integers to store Unix time — referring to the process that counts seconds from the Unix epoch, 00:00:00 UTC on January 1, 1970.
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32-bit systems can only store a specific amount of time before it reaches its limit, at which point it would 'overflow' and cause all relevant computing systems to reset the date to 1901, understandably causing major issues.
When would the Year 2038 problem takes place?
As the name itself suggests, relevant 32-bit systems affected by the Year 2038 problem would reset on exactly 03:14:07 UTC on January 19, 2038. From that point onwards it would get 'stuck' from 00:00:00 UTC on January 1, 1901, which isn't exactly an ideal scenario.
It's unclear what exactly would happen after this time overflow, and how much that would affect systems that rely on accurate time representations, but it's not something that many people would be willing to risk in order to find out.
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We still thankfully have just under 13 years in order to attempt to avoid the issue, but knowledge that experts have been aware of it from as early as 2006 doesn't exactly fill you with confidence.
Can the Year 2038 problem be fixed?
In simple terms the primary way to 'fix' or prevent the Year 2038 problem is to transition all 32-bit systems to 64-bit equivalents, as this allows time data to be tracked and stored far further into the future, essentially delaying the problem for a significant amount of time.
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However, this is far easier said than done — especially as many of the systems that still remain on 32-bit are based in essential legacy infrastructures that would prove both difficult and costly to replace, such as medical devices, power stations, and transportation systems.
Taking these offline would undoubtedly cause disruption in areas that are required to be on all the time, so it's an issue that will be tricky for governments and companies to navigate, especially as the clock continues to tick towards the problem itself.