Clock drift refers to several related phenomena where a clock does not run at the exact right speed compared to another clock. That is, after some time the clock "drifts apart" from the other clock. This phenomenon is also used for instance in computers to build random number generators. On the negative side, clock drift can be exploited by timing attacks.
Read more about Clock Drift: Clock Drift in Normal Clocks, Atomic Clocks, Relativity, Random Number Generators, Timing Attack
Famous quotes containing the words clock and/or drift:
“I open with a clock striking, to beget an awful attention in the audience—it also marks the time, which is four o’clock in the morning, and saves a description of the rising sun, and a great deal about gilding the eastern hemisphere.”
—Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816)
“But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)