TimeServer
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TimeTools T1000 syncs your PC's clock with GPS
Here's a likely candidate for most unnecessary, albeit entirely geeky device of the day. TimeTools' T1000 Precision Time Server links up to your Windows, Linux, or Unix workstation in order to obtain "highly accurate time" from GPS satellites. Interfacing via a RS-232 serial port or USB (depending on model), the T1000 connects with GPS systems via the included patch antenna to retrieve the current time within 100 nanoseconds. Furthermore, the 30-gram box is said to be fully weatherproof for survival out in the wild, and while we're not quite sure what the price on this oh-so-precise piece of equipment will be, it's probably only worth it for the bragging rights.[Via NaviGadget]
D-Link relents, agrees to halt its "NTP vandalism"
Although we never got that press release we wanted from D-Link addressing accusations that it was engaging in so-called "NTP vandalism," the company has apparently seen the error of its ways and been shamed into come to a settlement with the Danish admin whose time server its routers were programmed -- without permission -- to regularly query. In the absence of any government-sponsored options, Poul Henning-Kamp had set up his own NTP server (with donated bandwidth) so that 2,000-odd Danish server administrators could reliably sync their clocks, but because D-Link began coding the server's address into all of their hardware, Henning-Kamp's traffic skyrocketed and his ISP threatened to hit him with a multi-thousand-dollar bill. After writing an open letter exposing D-Link's misdeeds, Henning-Kamp finally heard back from the company that had previously been ignoring him, and the two parties apparently agreed that products already on the market can continue to query the server (which means some sort of payment was probably made), but that D-Link will remove its address from hardware manufactured in the future. Lesson learned: if you've got a problem with a big, faceless corporation, instead of wasting your time in fruitless attempts to contact their lawyers and executives, just make a big public stink until someone pays you to shut up.
Danish server admin exposes D-Link's "NTP vandalism"
It seems that incompetence on the part of the coders who write network hardware manufacturing giant D-Link's router firmware, and possibly even more insidious willful ignorance at higher levels of the company, may force Denmark's only networked time server to permanently shut down its vital public service. Apparently thousands of Danish servers use Poul-Henning Kamp's pro bono publico NTP server to sync their own clocks -- which is hosted for free by the Danish Internet Exchange (DIX) with the understanding that it is restricted to server-level access, but whose address D-Link hard coded into their device firmware without ever having asked Kamp's permission. The traffic from D-Link devices consists of well over 75% of the packets that the server handles, and has caused DIX to hit Kamp with an $8,800 per year connection fee that may mean the end of the free service and extra work for those thousands of Danish admins, not to mention the embarrassment Danes will have to face when mocked for living in an NTP-free technological backwater (despite their army's snazzy MP3 pillows). Kamp claims that although D-Link is well aware of the issue (they've since updated some, but not all, of the firmware on their site), but instead of fixing their mistake and encouraging customers to upgrade their firmware, the company simply offered Kamp an unspecified amount of "hush" money that doesn't even cover his most direct expenses. Hey D-Link, please drop us a press release if and when you decide to address this issue, because we think your "NTP vandalism" isn't very cool.[Via The Inquirer]
