Whom amongst our readers (including your's truly) would have thought that the Abdication of the Emperor of Japan (slated for mid-Spring, 2019) would have anything to do with time keeping issues - inclusive of calendaring problems, leading the island nation into it's own Y2K-like debacle? As a matter of course, the change in Epoch's also affects information security related processes and systems, including for example both role based access control and discreationary access control systems, identity management, incident logging and investigatory activities amongst others.

Now, via The Gaurdian's Alex Hern, comes word of what some might say as the coming crisis in Nipponese society due to the calendaring issues brought on by the Abdication of Emporer Akihito (the announced abdication to make way for Emperor Akihito’s son, Crown Prince Naruhito). For a country that bases it's time and date keeping functions on the Epoch which begins on the date a Crown Prince ascends the Chrysanthemum Throne as Emperor of Japan. This is not some mere disfunction of the calendar - it resonates in the very soul of the Emperor's subjects - the citizens of Japan, and their traditional method of marking the passing days, months and yeears. In regards to the Unicode debacle with the new Epoch, please read the post at The Guardian for additional details, as space is at a premium for this post. Certainly Today's MustRead!

“The magnitude of this event on computing systems using the Japanese Calendar may be similar to the Y2K event with the Gregorian Calendar,” said Microsoft Corporation Shawn Steele. “For the Y2K event, there was world-wide recognition of the upcoming change, resulting in governments and software vendors beginning to work on solutions for that problem several years before 1 Jan 2000. Even with that preparation many organisations encountered problems due to the millennial transition. - via Microsoft Corporation and MSDN's