

Pulsars are a secure time source - arete
http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2007/09/secure-time-broadcast.html
"Nature provides clocks that are oblivious to the malicious intentions of any outside parties. In the case of a remote high-energy system such as a pulsar, this means anybody. Pulsars are many orders of magnitude more accurate than random delays that face attackers on the Internet. If critical Internet servers were synchronized to natural clocks in a secure and timely fashion, they would be immune to attacks that relied on uncertainties in timing."
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arete
"Nature provides clocks that are oblivious to the malicious intentions of any
outside parties. In the case of a remote high-energy system such as a pulsar,
this means anybody. Pulsars are many orders of magnitude more accurate than
random delays that face attackers on the Internet. If critical Internet
servers were synchronized to natural clocks in a secure and timely fashion,
they would be immune to attacks that relied on uncertainties in timing."

Forget GPS, syncing your clocks to a pulsar is much sexier!

~~~
michaelneale
Yeah, until we realise the aliens are exploiting us by manipulating the
pulsars ;)

Ever read Iain M Banks? I like how the ships subtly re-arrange star formations
so that 10000 years it spells out a rude word from the viewpoint of some star
across the galaxy. (of course these ships originally came from human AI, and
thus inherited and encourage the eccentric human sense of humour).

