When you're dealing with a bunch of systems that communicate with each other, especially database clusters, having the time synchronized is essential. Without his work the sort of massive clusters of systems we use - deliberately or second-hand - would not be possible. He's as much a contributor to the modern web as Tim Berners-Lee.
It'll only affect 32bit systems with ancient operating systems storing dates in epoch time.
Not a small number. But nowhere remotely near what Y2K could have been.
Hopefully by the time we need to account for a 64bit rollover, I'll be comfortably retired. But by that time, proton decay may be a more worrisome problem.
I know. I’m old enough that I worked through the Y2K problem. Not me literally - I was working on a different class of systems - but I literally sat next to COBOL devs who were paid to work on green screens on an IBM midframe for more than half their time to get rid of the two digit date representations on systems operating cellular communications as well as the ones that ran sales and services for a large telecom company. It was my first real job in the industry, and I remember the Gateway type computers sold at Sears with the “Y2K Compatible!” stickers on the front.
My phrasing was both tongue in cheek and a callback to another problem that similarly had some people dreading the end of the world with nuclear reactors running amok and planes crashing from the sky.
In any case, he had a bigger impact on the world than most humans ever will, and going out peacefully at 85 really doesn’t sound all that bad.
It would have just been really funny if his gravestone could have listed his dates as Born June 6 1936 - Died December 13 1901.
Most microcontrollers have only recently made the switch to 32bit, some are still 16bit. Particularly those used for IoT, where they might still need to check dates for TLS and other certs, could go belly up on 2038.
With 14 more years of IoT creep, it might as well have more impact than Y2K, like "sorry Dave, I can't open the front door, your key won't be valid for another 136 years".
It's a protocol named NTP. If you want to say "the ___ protocol", you can say "the network time protocol" or "the NTP protocol". Both are correct, even if the latter is technically redundant. You would sound really weird if you insisted on saying "the NTP". Let's not bring the worst parts of reddit to the fediverse. Needlessly pedantic is something we can move beyond.
I mean, this is obviously written for a layperson. It's worded this way because most people don't know what "NTP" means but they have a vague idea of what a "protocol" is for computer networking.
I mean, I would assume this is pretty common for less-well-known acronyms.
What I also love about NTP is that its port (123) is open both ways on most networks, even the most locked down ones, so it’s a good place to hide VPN traffic.
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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).