I tried searching for answers as to why these machines are reaching out to numerous locations despite not using PrusaConnect. Location lookup returns the expected Czech, as well as location across the US. I recently also set a friend up with with an Elegoo printer and that was expectedly noisy as hell, but I was surprised with Prusa being the ‘privacy pick’.

For those curious, here’s the logs since about midnight, it seemingly doesn’t talk during the day.

209.51.161.238:123
195.113.144.238:123
23.150.41.122:123
193.29.63.226:123
162.244.81.139:123
64.246.132.14:123
172.104.182.184:123
66.85.78.80:123
68.234.48.70:123
129.250.35.250:123

Edit: Midnight brain forgot what ports are for, and that is for NTP, thanks yall

  • ThirdConsul@lemmy.ml
    21·
    3 hours ago

    Anything that connects to the network needs a synchronized clock with other devices it directly communicates with in order to make sure it’s not being subjected to timing attacks

    Please explain what kind of timing attacks because what you wrote doesn’t make sense in the context of a damn printer.

    Server? Sure. Printer? Why can it even access public internet?

    • doodoo_wizard@lemmy.ml
      1·
      2 hours ago

      The types of attacks can be mischaracterized as “race conditions but over the network”. Theres about forty years of history here and it’s way more complicated so unless you really wanna get into it I’ll leave it there.

      The printer doesn’t know if it’s plugged into a private network or is internet facing. Timing attacks can occur on private networks as well as on the internet. Having accurate utc is almost always a prerequisite for communicating with other devices.

      Therefore, the printer needs to know what time it is. It does this through ntp on port 123 just like phones, computers and network connected paper and ink printers do.

    • floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      1·
      2 hours ago

      I’m not sure why you think any digital device shouldn’t know what time it is. It’s not leaking any kind of personal information, just literal facts about reality.

      Maintaining a shared “now” is actually an interesting problem from a relativistic point of view, considering you need time to communicate what time it is. NTP is a relatively simple protocol with some clever tricks around latency; it is organized by strata which go from very precise, authoritative sources (these are atomic clocks at universities, not the NSA) to various levels of “mirrors”, down to within your LAN. It is massively distributed and decentralized by nature, to be able to handle everyone to be in sync without overwhelming a handful of primary clocks.

      The end device does not need to be able to talk to the internet at all, just to your router (or designated NTP server if you’re into that). It is such an old protocol that it is embedded in most consumer routers, and getting a server running in Linux is literally just install, start. You don’t need to connect upstream at all, you can absolutely say “on this network I am the god-clock”.