Subject: AAP timestamps

From: Mark Handley <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 06 Oct 1998 12:04:24 -0400

Currently AAP specifies timestamps to be number of seconds since 1st
Jan 1970 as a 32 bit unsigned integer.  This means we're safe from
wrapping timestamps until the year 2106 (assuming everyone implements
them as unsigned).  

Should we consider making these timestamps 64 bits so we'll never have
a problem?  This would almost double the bandwidth or halve the
announcement rate, so the cost of doing so is not insignificant.

Cheers,
	Mark

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From: Steve Hanna <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 13:20:25 -0400 (EDT)

> announcement rate, so the cost of doing so is not insignificant.

I would say no.

We can easily use windowing to redefine the range half way through. That is, 
after the current time is solidly > 2^31 (about year 2039), you redefine the low 
half of the range to start at 2106 and go up to 2175 (or whatever). So long as 
all systems using this protocol are updated every 70 years or less, there is no 
problem. Since all times currently in use will be within a few years of the 
current time (at most), there's no problem of old data.

Thanks,

Steve Hanna