Strange NTP Services
Here’s something strange and interesting to explore. time.nist.gov is a standard NTP server, used to synchronize the clock on your computer to the government’s atomic clock.
However, it also seems to have another strange service running on ports 78 and 79. Telnet in, and hit enter after connection is established, and you get this:
% telnet time.nist.gov 78
Trying 192.43.244.18…
Connected to time.nist.gov.
Escape character is ‘^]’.
P: P: My name is Patsy: and my husband’s name is Paul:
We come from Pittsburgh: and we sell Peaches::
880-223-821-266-590-908-785
$ 0 875 3000 8 1 0 0
Connection closed by foreign host.
The names, city, and food change each time, but they always start with the same letter. The numbers on the bottom appear to be doing some incrementing based on time, but the pattern hasn’t been figured out yet.
Secret government broadcasts about the JFK conspiracy? The first step in SkyNET becoming self-aware? An equivalent to a numbers station? WHO KNOWS! Let’s get some smart minds working on deciphering this, or at least propose some wacky theories for fun.
Update: No, of course I don’t really think these are secret messages. (OMG CONSPIRACY!) It’s just more fun to posit that they might be. I’d still like to decipher the strange data format of the dump.
Update, again: If you coming in via a direct link to this post, be sure to check out the new post with the official explanation from a NIST employee.
cheesebikini? on 05 Apr 2005 at 12:19 am
Time-signal Weirdness
[This just in from my fellow Berkeley SIMian Matthew Rothenberg:] Here’s something strange to explore. A guy I know recently stumbled across this. time.nist.gov is a standard NTP server, used to syncrhonize clocks on your computer to the govt’s atomi…
Boing Boing on 05 Apr 2005 at 12:36 am
Coded messages on US govt timeserver’s nonstandard port
A US government timeserver has a bizarre service running on a nonstandard port that will output sweet, random coded poems: % telnet time.nist.gov 78 Trying 192.43.244.18… Connected to time.nist.gov. Escape character is ‘^]’. P: P: My name is Patsy:…
Pieces of My Mind on 05 Apr 2005 at 2:10 am
Numbers Stations
I saw this on Boing Boing.
Apparently, one of NIST’s timeservers sends out strange messages on port 78.
$ telnet time.nist.gov 78
Trying 192.43.244.18…
Connected to time.nist.gov (192.43.244.18).
Escape character is ‘^]’.
N: N: My n…
updates @ m.blog » Strange NTP Services–Revealed! on 05 Apr 2005 at 5:03 pm
[...] of the Time and Frequency Divison of NIST Boulder, we have an official explanation of the strange NTP messages: Let me explain what you are seeing. 1. The first text [...]
moongate.org » Blog Archive » Cyberfun on 24 Aug 2005 at 9:00 am
[...] Ya, some sysadmins have a lot of fun. Andrew Wooster has blogged on his analysis of strange http headers, including webservers that send out ascii art! That’s pretty intersting. And of course, you already know the Strange NIST Time Server and Star Wars. [...]
Benjamin Schweizer: blog » Blog Archive » Cyberfun on 06 Sep 2005 at 7:08 pm
[...] Ya, some sysadmins have a lot of fun. Andrew Wooster has blogged on his analysis of strange http headers, including webservers that send out ascii art! That’s pretty intersting. And of course, you already know the Strange NIST Time Server and Star Wars. [...]