SNTP
Antifraud Measures using accurate time
Today's parking operations benefit from higher rates and occupancy than ever before. Because each parking space becomes more valuable every year, attempted fraud has been rising. To protect the owner's investment modern parking operations need tighter controls.
One clear aspect of tighter controls is accurate time stamping of card use. In today's modern parking environment card reads must be resolved to the second. Additionally, the time stamp must be consistent across your entire operation. The obvious place to time stamp is at the reader when the card is read. But this introduces a new problem, keeping potentially hundreds of clocks in sync with accurate time.
How does KMS keep accurate system wide time?
To solve this problem we looked for others who have the same problem. We discovered that Internet engineers addressed this issue over ten years ago and designed the standard SNTP (Simple Network Time Protocol). KMS incorporated this standard into our reader interfaces. Essentially the operator console computer gets accurate time from any number of Internet sites like the US Navy or National Bureau of Standards atomic clocks alternatively most larger networks have their own time site. The reader panels use the same SNTP protocol to synchronize their internal clocks with either the console or the time site directly. KMS recommends using the console computer to reduce network traffic.
How does this feature benefit me?
A precise time stamp allows your parking operations tighter controls giving you enough information to separate legitimate equipment failures from potentially fraudulent card use.
KMS offers all products in SNTP configuration.
Copyright 2005, KMS Systems, Inc.
Information current as of
April 2, 2005
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