[tz] NIST leap-second file not yet updated

Martin Burnicki martin.burnicki at meinberg.de
Thu Feb 18 15:12:18 UTC 2016


Tony Finch wrote:
> Martin Burnicki <martin.burnicki at meinberg.de> wrote:
>>
>> The NIST file doesn't contain a copyright information, neither. So where
>> does the idea come from that the NIST file is in the public domain, but
>> the IERS file isn't?
> 
> I believe works funded by the US federal government are public domain by
> default.
> 
> The easy solution to this problem is for the TZ project to produce its own
> list of leap seconds rather than distributing someone else's.

Of course everybody could easily create his own leap seconds file.
However, the idea is to have a reliable, authentic source of information
rather than a wide variety of files providing different information.

BTW, IMO there should be a kind of signature for the file. Originally
the file was only available via FTP, which can easily be faked.

Now there are some sources via https, so at least when downloading there
is a certain level of security that you get an authentic file.

However, after download you still can't be sure the file has not been
modified. The included SHA1 hash can be generated by anyone to let the
file look secure, but a real security could only be achieved by a
public/private key signature which can be verified at any time.

Martin
-- 
Martin Burnicki

Senior Software Engineer

MEINBERG Funkuhren GmbH & Co. KG
Email: martin.burnicki at meinberg.de
Phone: +49 (0)5281 9309-14
Fax: +49 (0)5281 9309-30

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