Talk:Year 2038 problem

Transport Layer Security

For interest, TLS (1.0 to 1.2) contains "uint32 gmt_unix_time" (reference http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2246 ) Rombust (talk) 12:50, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Paragraph removed

I removed this sentennce from the intro:

However, any other non-Unix operating systems and software that store and manipulate time this way will be just as vulnerable.

This sounds like a Unix apologist trying to make sure nobody thinks bad things about Unix. Unless some other OS can be identified that has the same bug, this line is about a hypothetical OS and it doesn't belong in the article. Comet Tuttle (talk) 15:59, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Quite the conundrum. On the one hand, I might have removed that sentence myself, due to the fact that the article repeatedly makes it clear that the issue is about how software expects to receive its time info, and has nothing to do with Unix vs Microsoft, or other OS's. And yet, your comment makes it clear that computer illiterates, like yourself, can repeatedly miss that point, so maybe it should be put back. And finally, if I put it back I should include some sort of reference to justify it, but a link to Microsoft's support forums, where many people have asked why this or that piece of software malfunctions in Windows 7 if you push the date to 2038, would be original research. And the subject is so boring you can hardly find any news or magazine articles on it that are written in this century. What to do, what to do? Haha... while thinking about it, I read your talk page, where you try to convince your friend that IE is just as fast as Chrome. What kind of a friend are you? Why don't you just go over to his house and kill his dog while you're at it? Oh, well, I'll let it pass for now. IE is as fast as Chrome... 71.189.63.114 (talk) 10:26, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Formula

Why aren't we showing the formula? I think it's

1970 + ((2^32 / 2) / (60^2*24*365))

--Ysangkok (talk) 22:53, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not a computer god, but...

The image doesn't make much sense. The problem is caused by running out of bits to store data for time. E.G. we run out of room for the "1"s that replace the "0"s. Now if I understand correctly, this means that the binary digit isn't begin represented properly. In the animartion It is a Zero when the year changes to 1991, however, I don't think that should be right because the zero could still be filled by a one. Only AFTER this should the time reset occur. I might be wrong, but I think that the image has this fault. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.101.100.233 (talk) 04:08, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

The first bit is the sign bit. --Ysangkok (talk) 01:49, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Error in Description:

Times beyond this moment will "wrap around" and be stored internally as a negative number, which these systems will interpret as a date in 1901 rather than 2038

Im pretty sure that if the moment 'wraps around' its going to wrap around to Jan 1 1970, and start counting backwards, not jump immediately to 1901. I've never edited a wikipedia post before, so I'll just start with a comment here.

Mixologic (talk) 05:33, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Why do you think that? Look at the image. Why wouldn't the sign bit get set? Or alternatively, what do you think would clear the sign bit? What do you mean by "count backwards"? --Ysangkok (talk) 01:55, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Sorry - I was forgetting some basic computer science that once the sign bit is set its the *twos* compliment of the number that determines its value, not just the value with a sign added. I was thinking that 10000000 00000000 00000000 00000001 = -1, when in fact its -2147483647. Indeed, the image is correct and the wrap around moment does jump back to 1901.

Mixologic (talk) 00:10, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

This might be worth mentioning in the article actually; I had the same thought and had to consult the talk page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.222.164.187 (talk) 08:47, 31 January 2012 (UTC)