[log in to unmask] wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> My brother has mentioned that his  ZoneAlarm program has  classified Atomic 
> Clock, a freeware from the National Institute of Standards  and Technology 
> (http://www.worldtimeserver.com/atomicclock) as spyware. It's  a very 
> convenient program and I'd like to keep it if possible but the fact  that it 
> was categorized as "spyware" is upsetting. Is Atomic Clock in fact  spyware?

Well, doing a WHOIS on worldtimeserver.com using:

http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jsp

Shows that worldtimeserver.com is registered by "Chaos Software Group" 
with a technical contact of "Cyber World Internet Services".  So I doubt 
that the software is from NIST.

Whether ZoneAlarm is correct that AtomicClock is spyware is unclear.  I 
see a few hits in Google when I search for "atomicclock" and "spyware". 
But nothing definitive.  Maybe it's a false alert just because 
AtomicClock was trying to talk to the time servers.  You would need to 
see what ports it's attempting to communicate with and what servers it's 
talking to.

...

On a related note, if your PC is part of an Active Directory Domain then 
your system should already be getting accurate time from the domain 
controllers.  (Windows XP Pro and Windows 2000)

If you have Windows 2000 or Windows XP Home that is not part of a 
domain, it already comes with a built-in SNTP client (the W32Time 
service).  This can be pointed at SNTP time sources such as 
time-nw.nist.gov (which is Microsoft's time server).

A list of the Simple Network Time Protocol (SNTP) time servers that are 
available on the Internet:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q262680

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