<
https://thenewstack.io/farewell-to-the-internets-master-timekeeper-david-mills/>
"Dr. David L. Mills, the visionary behind the Network Time Protocol (NTP) that
synchronizes time across billions of devices globally, died at age 85 on Jan.
17, 2024.
The Chicago song goes, “Does anyone really know what time it is? Does anybody
really care?” The answer to both questions for the internet was Dr. David L.
Mills.
While not as well known as Jon Postel, one of the internet protocols inventors,
and Vint Cerf, co-creator of TCP/IP, Mills’s work on the Network Time Protocol
(NTP) was, and is, essential for running the internet. As Cerf wrote,
announcing the news of his passing, “He was such an iconic element of the early
Internet. Network Time Protocol, the Fuzzball routers of the early NSFNET,
INARG taskforce lead, COMSAT Labs and University of Delaware and so much more.”
Today, only network engineers pay close attention to NTP. We don’t think about
how hard it is to synchronize time around the world to within milliseconds. But
everything, and I mean everything, depends on NTP’s accuracy. It’s not just the
internet, it’s financial markets, power grids, GPS, cryptography, and far, far
more. NTP syncs up literally billions of devices every moment of every day."
Via Steven Vaughan-Nichols, who wrote "Without him, there would be no Network
Time Protocol, and without NTP, the Internet, indeed our modern world, wouldn’t
exist."
RIP,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
