[time-nuts] Cloudflare

[Hal Murray]

kb8tq at n1k.org said:
> Given the relatively low cost of a GPS based “Stratum 1” NTP, it’s not real
> clear  why (at the end of the paper) they go off and “exchange emails
> individually with the  organizations that run stratum 1 servers, as well as
> negotiate permission to use them.”  to source the root time for the system. I
> would have thought that some sort of combo  of on site and off site sources
> would be at the “top of the tree”.

I have no inside information... Maybe reading between some lines.

It's a tangled mess.

Some of their 180 sites do not have stratum 1 servers and/or they may want to 
use external stratum 1 servers for sanity check and backup.  Many sites with 
stratum 1 servers do not want the load they would get from general public 
access but are happy to allow access for a good reason.  Negotiating that 
access would probably involve email.

They are using (old) shared key authentication.  (probably because the servers 
they want to talk to don't support NTS yet)  That requires out of band 
communications to setup the shared key.  Email is probably the most convenient 
way to do that.


-- 
These are my opinions.  I hate spam.