Wtf is this headline? When this guy dies you put the GMT he died at in hours, minutes, seconds. Not “85”. Respect.
Better to represent it as a 64-bit unsigned fixed-point number, in seconds relative to 0000 UT on 1 January 1900. It’s how he would have wanted it.
Not 1970?
No. 1970 is 0 in Unix time. The NTP RFC specifies 1900. I had to look it up!
Epoch comeback!
ArsTechina is not what it once was sadly. Still one of the better news sites but that would have been something you would have seen 10 years ago
And to think we want to abolish leap seconds because they are ‘too hard’.
Shit. That thing is supposedly hard to understand.
Very. And he was going blind, too. I read a marvellous interview with him not too long ago, I’ll see if I can find it.
Ah, here it is: https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-thorny-problem-of-keeping-the-internets-time
Wow! What an interesting read about someone I’ve never heard of, but whose work has impacted daily life in so many ways. Its amazing how many systems rely on accurately telling time and the intricate solution that NTP is.
https://archive.is/2fw9A With no paywall. Thanks, what an interesting read!
Thank you for the link to the interview!
Dang. NTP is that, isn’t it
image magic
The Internet would not collapse without images. Usability would be bad in many cases, but it would still work. Now imagine your clients don’t know the time and cannot verify if a certificate is still valid?
I don’t know the time right now and I barely function.
Hard to understand but at least there’s multiple implementations other than ntpd, like Chrony and systemd-timesyncd.
Network time protocol protocol
ATM machine
Ass to mouth machine works!
PIN number
Network time protocol, man.
RAS Syndrome
I guess…it was his time
I always really liked that NTP uses port 123 which is the same number that you can dial, in the uk, on a analogue, landline phone, to call an automated service that tells you the precise time.
1194 in Australia, it was discontinued in 2019 after 66 years. It’s now on the internet http://1194online.com/
Was that the one you could use to set callback alarms as well?
Nah that was just the talking clock. The wake up/reminder service was a ‘premium’ service accessible via 1234.
TIL
POP-CORN
I wasn’t aware of him until now and, given the impact of his work on the world, that seems like a real failure in my part.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
On Thursday, Internet pioneer Vint Cerf announced that Dr. David L. Mills, the inventor of Network Time Protocol (NTP), died peacefully at age 85 on January 17, 2024.
The announcement came in a post on the Internet Society mailing list after Cerf was informed of David’s death by Mills’ daughter, Leigh.
In a digital environment where computers and servers are located all over the world, each with its own internal clock, there’s a significant need for a standardized and accurate timekeeping system.
In the 1970s, during his tenure at COMSAT and involvement with ARPANET (the precursor to the Internet), Mills first identified the need for synchronized time across computer networks.
As detailed in an excellent 2022 New Yorker profile by Nate Hopper, Mills faced significant challenges in maintaining and evolving the protocol, especially as the Internet grew in scale and complexity.
His work highlighted the often under-appreciated role of key open source software developers (a topic explored quite well in a 2020 xkcd comic).
The original article contains 471 words, the summary contains 164 words. Saved 65%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
His time has come.
All these people built something amazing that billionaires destroyed because they’re bored of space. The internet was fun while it lasted
What are you talking about?
Epoch is the only time that matters.
Non Token Puntable.
