Timeservice Broadcast

The Timeservice Broadcast sends network heartbeats in regular intervals, currently every 10 minutes. One of the services run by AyrA.

Usage

Subscribtion to the Address BM-BcbRqcFFSQUUmXFKsPJgVQPSiFA3Xash is required. After subscribing, the client will receive a message every 10 minutes if he is connected to the core network. The subscription can be disabled or deleted any time to stop the messages from clogging up the inbox.

This is not an echo service, it will not automatically reply to messages sent to it, however, the admin sometimes does manually reply.

Usage scenarios

The time service can be used for multiple purposes

Randomnes

The time service puts some randomnes to the network and ensures that it has always something to do.

Connectivity check

If users subscribe to the time service they can verify, they are connected to the core network, in case they think something in their connection is wrong.

Actual time telling

The time service tells the accurate time (it is maximum 2 minutes behind the actual time if you receive the message). In case users want to hide even the time zone they are in, they can always add the note, that the time and date they use in messages are timeservice based, this requires setting the computer clock to UTC.

Impact

The service has no impact on the network, it causes 144 messages every 24 hours.

Comparison to echo servers

An echo service will reply to your message. Like a mailing list, an echo service has to compute proof of work for the messages it receives. If it is under load, such as a large influx in echo service users, your reply may be further delayed. Broadcasts can support unlimited users without causing any additional load on the network, but it does not allow the user to check if he can send messages to the network.

Current Message

The current message is the UTC time it was generated (The entry below is an actual message):

Bitmessage Time Service
Network alive @ 03.09.2013 07:56:56 UTC
This represents the Time when the Message was generated, not when the processing finished.
Do not set this time as your computer time.

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Values below are for programmatic access


[PROG-ACCESS]
DATE=03.09.2013
TIME=07:56:56
UNIX=1378195016.19141