Cloudflare Time Services • Hacker News Board

Re: Cloudflare Time Services

#21

Post by Avamander » Fri, Jun 21, 2019, 5:02 PM UTC

privateSFacct wrote: post #15

maxclark wrote: post #12

So frustrated that Cloudflare didn't just add resources/support the existing NTP Pool. Hard to even pretend their motives are altruistic at this point.

Disgusting that supposed "hackers" and experts on hackernews advocate for single point of failures in the internet infrastructure. The internet is supposed to be distributed. If the NTP pool admins go nuts, have a fight etc, I'm glad there is an alternative. You can generally specify multiple sources, this would be a new source. And it's always the BS "they're evil" argument - when the posters contribute nothing them…

I don't get it either to be honest. If the software is free (as in freedom) then there's practically no lock-in or lock-out. NTP people could also provide roughtime watchdogs/time to get their time to more people.

Re: Cloudflare Time Services

#22

Post by e1ven » Fri, Jun 21, 2019, 5:02 PM UTC

aquabeagle wrote: post #8

https://www.cloudflare.com/resources/images/slt3lc6tev37/5SB... Has this designer never seen an actual clock?

What's your objection?

It has 12 evenly distributed lines, which are commonly used to represent the numbers on an analog clock.

It has an hour hand, a minute hand, and a second hand.

The only thing I can see that seems even a little off is that the hour hand seems slightly past the 1 mark, whereas the minute hand being on ~54 suggests it might want to be slightly before.

It seems very clock-like to me..

What gives you such a visceral reaction to it?

Re: Cloudflare Time Services

#23

Post by dsp » Fri, Jun 21, 2019, 5:02 PM UTC

jjoergensen wrote: post #7

I assume Cloudflare does not serve leap-smeared time? In regards to rough-time, does anyone know what the result would be when both Cloudflare and Google are used at the same time, and Google serves leap-smeared time?

Leap smear is how true time is defined in the roughtime spec.

Re: Cloudflare Time Services

#24

Post by johnklos » Fri, Jun 21, 2019, 5:03 PM UTC

Personally, I don't trust Cloudflare. There's just something a bit shady about a company that defends web sites which pretend to have Adobe Flash updaters or pretend to be bankofamerica.com as free speech.

That said, I don't imagine they could screw up NTP too badly, except, of course, logging and tracking users.

I hope they don't smear leap seconds like Google, or do any of a number of other dumb things simply because they're big enough to get away with it:

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/02/google_public_ntp_s...

Re: Cloudflare Time Services

#25

Post by diggan » Fri, Jun 21, 2019, 5:04 PM UTC

giancarlostoro wrote: post #18

diggan wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

pool.ntp.org is a open source project (under Apache License) with a open group of contributors (volunteers). Basically the opposite of what Cloudflare is and stands for. Sponsoring servers in pool.ntp.org wouldn't support Cloudflare's goal(s).

I don't think they were implying it would support Cloudflares goals, but it would be nice to see big companies helping to fund public services, especially when many companies profit from open source tech.

I agree with what you say but if a person sets up a for-profit company, their goal will always be to generate profits, not to be/do good. That's why we don't see Cloudflare supporting things like pool.ntp.org

Re: Cloudflare Time Services

#26

Post by yingw787 » Fri, Jun 21, 2019, 5:05 PM UTC

This link on the site takes me to a 404 (not sure why, I'm presuming it's a static site?): https://developers.cloudflare.com/time-services

I think it'd be nice to have some middleware hooking into the build process that curls every link at a depth of 1 to ensure that HTTP 400/500 error codes aren't returned.

Re: Cloudflare Time Services

#27

Post by apeace » Fri, Jun 21, 2019, 5:08 PM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #4

Are the local time servers stratum 1, or do they have some central stratum 1 source that they then distribute out to the edge datacenters? What's the value over just building your own stratum 1 source? (Shameless plug: https://github.com/jrockway/beaglebone-gps-clock/blob/master... )

Many folks these days are deploying in the cloud, where it's difficult to deploy your own hardware. Many would see it as too costly to maintain the hardware in a separate datacenter with a fast connection to their cloud provider.

The advantage of this is that it runs on Cloudflare's network, where your cloud provider surely has a fast connection to the nearest edge.

Re: Cloudflare Time Services

#28

Post by nullbyte » Fri, Jun 21, 2019, 5:29 PM UTC

amclennon wrote: post #19

I'm a huge fan of Cloudflare in general, but sometimes I'm a bit uncomfortable with how much critical infrastructure is increasingly consolidated into a few single entities.

Couldn't agree more. They offer an amazing service for free; however, we shouldn't forget that they control millions of websites at a DNS level.

That's a lot of power, and a lot of responsibility. If there was an internal breach at CloudFlare, a sizeable chunk of the modern web would be in danger.

Re: Cloudflare Time Services

#29

Post by nstart » Fri, Jun 21, 2019, 5:31 PM UTC

e1ven wrote: post #22

aquabeagle wrote: post #8

https://www.cloudflare.com/resources/images/slt3lc6tev37/5SB... Has this designer never seen an actual clock?

What's your objection? It has 12 evenly distributed lines, which are commonly used to represent the numbers on an analog clock. It has an hour hand, a minute hand, and a second hand. The only thing I can see that seems even a little off is that the hour hand seems slightly past the 1 mark, whereas the minute hand being on ~54 suggests it might want to be slightly before. It seems very clock-like to me.. What gives yo…

Only looking at this because I saw this reply. I don't have a visceral reaction to it, but I do believe that the design of the clock is rather ambiguous. From my perspective, the minute hand is actually at ~24 hence the hour hand being a little past 1.

Given that it's so easy to mix up (I had to stare at it to be sure), I'm guessing the parent commenter got frustrated with it. ️

Re: Cloudflare Time Services

#30

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jun 21, 2019, 5:32 PM UTC

jjoergensen wrote: post #7

I assume Cloudflare does not serve leap-smeared time? In regards to rough-time, does anyone know what the result would be when both Cloudflare and Google are used at the same time, and Google serves leap-smeared time?

[deleted]