Why does my router send an NTP request to ntp.nasa.gov?

Question

I have enabled logging on my router and restarted it. At the end of the log file it says:

Sat, 2000-01-01 02:02:19 - Send out NTP request to ntp.nasa.gov
Wed, 2014-01-15 18:01:39 - Receive NTP Reply from ntp.nasa.gov

I know about the stratums and the Network Time Protocol a little bit but is there a specific reason for NASA?

Solution

There is no real answer to this question without reading the mind of the engineers who designed and configured the base image for your router, but I would posit that because NASA runs some public (S)NTP servers that are very accurate (atomic) and they are non-commercial, but the agency doesn't have the same stigma as DOD, DOE, USNO, or lately NIST servers, so most people who look would not feel disturbed by NASA knowing they had a host at a given IP address.

I imagine its just about positive optics. I usually use time.nist.gov, but NASA is an equally appealing choice.

Comments

[Clarus]

It may also be that they are using a general catch-all like pool.ntp.org and that the DNS request returned ntp.nasa.gov.