I am frequently coming across hardware that contains hard coded or pre defined lists of Stratum 1 servers as NTP time sources and I am looking to gain some insight into how Stratum 1 server operators and the NTP community are tackling this.
It seems to me manufactures large and small are doing this, this week I took delivery of a Western Digital NetCentre which syncs directly to tick and tock at USNO and a public access stratum 1 server in Japan.
I also had some very cheap small brand IP enabled cameras delivered at work which have a pre-defined list of Stratum 1/2 servers.
I seem to be collecting hardware that exhibits this behaviour now! In the case of my Western Digital NetCenter when asking for the ability to change the time server it syncs I was told "this is a home product therefore does not have this functionality", so home users need accurate time on devices but can not have the ability to choose where they sync to? Why not just leave it out all together? I have been forced to block the traffic at my firewall, I take objection to it doing something I have no control over.
Does the misuse of Stratum 1 servers simply go unnoticed until traffic levels become noticeably high (as in the case of the Netgear / D-Link episodes)? How can hardware manufactures get away with breaching the rules governing access on so many servers?
I hope you can give me a little information as a curious on looker to what seems to be a growing problem for the NTP community.
Many Thanks
_______________________________________________ timekeepers mailing list [email protected] https://fortytwo.ch/mailman/cgi-bin/listinfo/timekeepers
