Geoff Mulligan

“Still one of the strangest fixes I’ve ever had to deploy.”

The Day I weaponized Time #networking #dev #cybersecurity

Root cause? One mistyped IP address. Thousands of systems. One character. Most failures aren’t complex—they’re simple mistakes at scale. Full story (free): 👉 @geoffmulligan/the-day-i-weaponized-time-047125204cdd" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">medium.com/@geoffmulligan…

Until every system was off by exactly 42 minutes. Yes 42 !😁 Two days later—silence.

So I changed the server code and nudged their clocks forward. Minute by minute. Across thousands of machines.

Then I noticed something in the NTP protocol: Time cannot just make a large jump suddenly— but you can slowly skew it!!!!

Turns out NTP clients are smarter than that. They ignore wildly incorrect time… and keep asking. Still 1000s of requests!

Since I was working for SunMicrosystems and had the source code... I modified my NTP server. First attempt: return completely random time. Didn’t work.

A week went by. My network was basically unusable. Turning off my server didn’t help—they just kept hammering me anyway.

I called their network team. They didn’t understand. I escalated. They said they’d “look into it.” Nothing changed.

Thousands of their machines were accidentally pointed at my network for NTP (time sync). My bandwidth? Gone. Completely saturated.

Years ago, my home network was under a denial-of-service attack. The source? A major university. The cause? A typo. I fixed it by… breaking time.

Ugh. I'm not doing well in the mens bracket!!! I took it out on the mosaic! Ha Ha. fanpost.art/marchmadness #marchmadness #fanpost

Every tile is a fan’s reaction. All together, it’s March Madness in one mosaic. Show your support for your school or bracket! post it, and see it join the grid. fanpost.art/marchmadness #MarchMadness #fanpost #FanArt Write your words before tonight'game. Go Longhorns!

Just watched @latelateshow and realized why @JKCorden is leaving. There is no more space for celeb pics and signatures #nomorespace. Really sorry to see him go. I live for his news - #newssogood @reggiewatts and @iankarmel ain't bad. Sorry I won't get to see the show live #bye

@belkin has announce EOL of the wemo camera. no update. devices will be useless. they should release source or new firmware that has open API and/or allows camera to send images via email or http! #shameonbelkin

If you happen to be using HPE servers you should check this announcement. If you do not update your firmware your SSDs WILL FAIL 3 years and 9 months after first use (32768 hours - for the techies a 16 bit signed integer - ugh) support.hpe.com/hpsc/doc/publi…

@Medtronic And I can only hope that they believe in patient centric privacy and security. #protectwhatyoucollect

We're designing the next generation of remote monitoring and believe a patient-centric approach is vital when designing #DigitalHealth. Sign up for more. bit.ly/2xaVS7p