alert: the 111111 bug

["lsi" <stuart () cyberdelix net>]

platforms affected: all
distribution of threat: wide
severity of threat: potentially serious
leadtime: 6.3 years :)

I noticed one of my customers using the "special" date of 11/11/11 in 
their database.  

I've since realised this practice might be quite widespread, and 
indeed warrants an alert than on or around the 11th of November 2011, 
some crazy things might happen, as folks' "special" dates collide 
with the real date of 11/11/11.  

For this customer 11/11/11 in the date field means, don't process 
this record, which will obviously cause problems with legitimate 
transactions on that date.  

I suspect using a new field to flag a state, instead of "special" 
data, would have been more appropriate.  

Apologies if this is old news for you.

Stu

---
Stuart Udall
stuart at () cyberdelix dot net - http://www.cyberdelix.net/

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 * Origin: lsi: revolution through evolution (192:168/0.2)

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