Open Letter to D-Link about their NTP vandalism

Wed Apr 12 05:45:20 UTC 2006

BD> Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 23:47:11 -0400
BD> From: Brian Dickson

BD> As to the liability issue, it is easy enough to envision that
BD> someone, somewhere, is relying on time results from NTP for a
BD> life-or-death application, like a medical device, and is innocently
BD> an impacted third party in this.

If I had a life-or-death application depending on NTP, I'd do what I've
already suggested:  Use GPS and multiple stratum-1 servers, and clip
adjustment delta magnitude.  I might also listen for a heartbeat (no pun
intended) saying "device agrees with NTP server", then raise an error if
that condition failed.

BD> Sending bad NTP values could in theory be responsible for killing
BD> someone's scratch monkey...

I can only hope that my life is never entrusted to a device that, at the
suggestion of a lone NTP server, would adjust the clock by 42 years.
IANAL, nor do I play one on TV, but such a setup would seem grossly
negligent.

Automated devices fail.  Pretending otherwise is foolish.  But you _did_
say "scratch monkey". :-)

Eddy
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