Open Letter to D-Link about their NTP vandalism

Wed Apr 12 14:10:47 UTC 2006

"M. David Leonard" <mdl at equinox.shaysnet.com> writes:

> What is to prevent a network from providing unjittered NTP to its
> downstream clients/customers BUT jittered NTP to outsiders?  How is this
> different from providing up-to-the-millisecond stock exchange data to
> paying customers but delaying the same data provided to the general public
> by some time period?

"All quotes and all NTP ticks are delayed 15 minutes" is an amusing concept.

> Are we constrained by fear of litigation from 
> taking appropriate pro-active measures to protect services from abuse and 
> from discriminating between legitimate and questionable requests for data 
> from our own servers?  Is it time to bail out of the Internet business?

Listen to Paul; he's a past master at defending against
gratuitous/stupid lawsuits.  You're under no obligation to provide the
service, but actively providing bad info could be construed as a tort,
and defending/filing lawsuits, like horse racing (owning the horses,
not going to the races), is a sport for the super-well-heeled.

                                        ---Rob