[LEAPSECS] private smear goes public

[Brooks Harris]

On 2016-12-01 06:28 PM, Stephen Colebourne wrote:
> On 1 December 2016 at 19:45, Brooks Harris <brooks at edlmax.com> wrote:
>> As I read it I think Google's intention is to publish their method and
>> algorithm in the hopes others may follow it. It would be better if everybody
>> did it the same way, but it will remain to be seen if others will choose to
>> follow the example.
> The page reads clearly enough to me that:
>
> - Google will leap over 20 hours this time because it is too late to
> change their plans
> - They plan to leap over 24 hours next time to match Amazon and others
> - The propose an informal "standard" of 24 hours leaps henceforth
>
> If all the big IT players agree on a 24 hour leap, 12 hours either
> side of midnight UTC, then we have all moved a step forward. Even more
> so if they write up the approach as a formal standard.
That's all good, I think.
>
> The next issue is that there are then two types of NTP server -
> smeared and non-smeared - and no way to tell the difference. Call me
> naive, but that seems like a perfectly soluble problem, either within
> NTP or external to it.
One quick thought - the smeared NTP servers could be distinguished by 
their DNS names, something along the lines of "time.smear20.google.com" 
or "time.smear24.google.com?
>
> For the record, I think that both leap-smeared and leap-accurate
> broadcast time have value, but it should be easily possible to tell
> which is being received. I also desperately want there to be a name
> for the proposed informal standard, so we can all talk about it.
Hmmm. I agree, a name would be helpful.

"Smear" seems to have taken hold, if not technically exact, at least 
intuitively descriptive. I don't know what a technically proper term for 
that would be.

Above I implied names that signaled the smear's span - "smear20", 
"smear24". There might be other characteristics to incorporate in a name?

-Brooks

>
> Stephen
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