'Zulu' hour at Pacific Fleet uneventful

Key command and control systems used by the U.S. Pacific Command at itsheadquartersin Oahu, Hawaii, transitioned to the Zulu New Year, or midnight GreenwichMean Time,with no Year 2000 date code problems.

The errorless event indicates that the Defense Department's primary globalcommunications network, the Global Command and Control (GCCS) system usedby allfour services, most likely also rode out the new year unscathed by bad datecode.

Lt. Commander Pete Hildreth, Year 2000 coordinator for Pacific Fleet, said,"We've had no problems.It's uneventful. The data is flowing and the e-mail is flying."

Pacific Fleet has "a handful of GCCS servers and about a dozenworkstations, and we hadno problems with either GCCS or GCCS-Maritime," Hildreth said in a phoneinterviewfrom Pacific Fleet headquarters on Makalapa heights overlooking PearlHarbor.

Pacific Fleet also did not experience the kind of year-end hacker probestop DODofficials had publicly fretted about over the past month. Hildreth said nohackers havetried to attack its unclassified network connected to the worldwideInternet.

The Year 2000 rollover throughout Pacific Fleet has been so low key androutine—arelief after the hype and alarms of the past two years—that Hildreth saidhe has almostdecided to let the duty officers handle the last Year 2000 event of hislong workday:midnight in Hawaii, which occurs at 5 a.m. EST, Jan. 1. That's 22 hoursafter the firstPacific Fleet command on Guam saw its computer systems click over to 2000without ahitch.