{"podcast":{"title":"Unreliable Witness | Storycast","slug":"unreliable-witness-storycast-573722","podcast_index_feed_id":573722,"rss_url":"https://feeds.captivate.fm/unreliable-witness/","website_url":"https://news.sky.com/story/storycast-podcasts-true-crime-and-murder-mystery-12041779","image_url":"https://artwork.captivate.fm/cd46e8b3-9e8f-406a-b494-613f6c1fc70d/6195c239e8488a9253d0c584dcd4bc37.jpg","author":"Sky News","episode_count":54,"summary":"SEASON 6: Unreliable Witness (2024/25) Investigating the high-profile case of Ellie Williams, the young woman jailed for lying about sexual assault and grooming in her home town. Sky News’ Jason Farrell and Liz Lane look at what could have led her to make these claims and if, underneath it all, there is some other secret buried amongst the lies. NEW YORK FESTIVALS RADIO AWARDS - GOLD, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM PODCAST SEASON 5: Patient 11 (2024) Following the death of her brother, young mother Alexis Quinn seeks temporary respite in NHS psychiatric care, never imagining that three days, would turn into more than three year ordeal that would ultimately expose a national scandal. PRESS GAZETTE FUTURE OF MEDIA AWARDS - PODCAST OF THE YEAR NEW YORK FESTIVALS RADIO AWARDS - SILVER, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM PODCAST SEASON 4: StoryCast 21 (2021) Through extraordinary personal stories, Sky News revisits 21 of the world’s biggest news events this century. NEW YORK FESTIVALS RADIO AWARDS - GOLD, PERSONAL LIVES DRUM MEDIA AWARDS - PODCAST OF THE YEAR SEASON 3: Polonium and The Piano Player (2020) Two Russian agents release a miniature nuclear weapon in a 5-star London hotel. But former KGB sp…","last_synced_at":"2026-06-21T10:21:19.269816+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/unreliable-witness-storycast-573722"},"episode":{"title":"StoryCast '21: EP 21/21 The Y2K Prison Bug","slug":"storycast-21-ep-21-21-the-y2k-prison-bug","published_at":"2021-12-30T04:00:03+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/unreliable-witness-storycast-573722/storycast-21-ep-21-21-the-y2k-prison-bug","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/unreliable-witness-storycast-573722","url":"https://news.sky.com/story/storycast-podcasts-true-crime-and-murder-mystery-12041779","audio_url":"https://episodes.captivate.fm/episode/271b45de-85c1-4c9b-8bb1-a2818294d881.mp3?aw_0_1st.showid=b6cf3528-8036-4ac1-976b-616b44fe1004&aw_0_1st.episodeid=271b45de-85c1-4c9b-8bb1-a2818294d881","summary":"The biggest, and very first story of the year 2000, involved a bug that was expected to impact tens of millions of lives all over the world. But unlike the Covid-19 pandemic of today, The Millennium Bug, or Y2K for short, was a computer programming problem, with predicted Armageddon-like consequences. In the months leading up to the year 2000, people feared the world was on the brink of disaster; that planes would fall from the sky, cardiac pacemakers would stop, and nuclear reactors would shut down. The problem was devastatingly simple - computers were never programmed to read dates beyond 31 December 1999. And the inability to do so, at 12-midnight on 1 January 2000, could lead to a global computer crash. Governments around the world spent an estimated $500 billion trying to fix the problem. Each individual nation had their own unique concerns. In Russia, the military moved to protect the software that secured their nuclear weapons systems. And in Western Australia, the Ministry of Justice feared an overly automated prison system would fail, allowing the opportunity for thousands of inmates and the state’s most dangerous prisoners, to escape. So, they hired Matthew Hackling, a young, unassuming cyber security engineer, who was then dispatched to the state’s most notorious prisons. Could Matthew win the race against time to prevent this millennium catastrophe? In 2021, Sky News is marking some of the century’s biggest news events through the personal stories of lives defined by unforgettable moments from the last 21-years. The Y2K Prison Bug is episode 21 — and the final instalment of StoryCast ’21. CREDITS: The Y2K Prison Bug was written and produced by Rob Mulhern. Recordings and original idea, by Tom Gillespie with special thanks to Matthew Hackling. Archive, Simon…","meta_description":"The biggest, and very first story of the year 2000, involved a bug that was expected to impact tens of millions of lives all over the world. But unlike th…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":1123,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/unreliable-witness-storycast-573722/episodes/storycast-21-ep-21-21-the-y2k-prison-bug/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/unreliable-witness-storycast-573722/storycast-21-ep-21-21-the-y2k-prison-bug.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}