HONG KONG--Moving fast to quash rumors that it was a computer bug that hit a main computer system on September 9, the Hong Kong Police have announced the failure was caused by a short in the computer system power supply.
At around 11:30pm on September 9, the force's Enhanced Police Nominal Index Computer System (EPONICS) failed a back-up system was immediately activated to keep disruption to a minimum, said the Police. Front line officers never lost access to the system, said the force.
The problem was caused by a "temporary shortage of power supply to computer equipment which was the interface device between the Police Enhanced Command and Control Computer System (ECACCS) and EPONICS." Shortly after midnight the problem was fixed and power was restored to the main system.
September 9 this year was seen as a potential problem for computers because the date, displayed as 9999, is used to signal an end-of-file in the Cobol programming language. However, the day passed with no significant problems.
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