3DES Upgrade mandate by December 31, 2007 or not?

As the year starts drawing to a close, I wonder about those machines that were never upgraded to 3DES? They’re still lurking out there somewhere waiting for the axe to fall.  But, will the axe really fall?  Will they really have the guts to shut these machines off?  The last drop dead date has been mandated to December 31, 2007, will all these machines be upgraded to 3DES by then?

This reminds me of the Y2K scare, but this time I think it has more impact – more impact because the large number of machines out there that are not upgraded. How many machines are affected? My guess is that about 5,000 are still running without 3DES, and not to mention the thousands that are not currently using the Visa lab certified EPP.  This reminds me of my boyhood hero Don Meredith, who would sing this tune on Monday night’s football games, “turn out the lights – the party is over” … or is it?