Reply to post: Re: One area of concern/complication - long lag time environments such as space

Boffins want to stop Network Time Protocol's time-travelling exploits

onefang

Re: One area of concern/complication - long lag time environments such as space

The main problem with your "transfer lags of minutes, hours, or even days" is the two minute timeout of TCP/IP. By the time there have been enough minutes to earn the plural designation, the sending system assumes the packet got lost. Forget about hours or days.

A different base protocol will be needed, possibly based on something that is currently being used in deep space missions. Then all the protocols for the next layer might need tweaking, if they assume TCP/IP timeouts.

I'm guessing these sorts of things are already solved problems in deep space spacecraft, their clocks likely have to be in sync with ground based clocks, so they know to send their collected data at the right time, or miss completely, know to fire their rockets at the correct time, etc.

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