[Ntp] New Liaison Statement, "LS on SG17 agreement on XSTP.epoch"

[Liaison Statement Management Tool <[e-mail]>]

Title: LS on SG17 agreement on XSTP.epoch
Submission Date: 2026-07-21
URL of the IETF Web page: https://datatracker.ietf.org/liaison/2205/

To: Internet Engineering Steering Group, Internet Architecture Board, Network Time Protocols (ntp)
From: ITU-T SG 17
Purpose: For information


Email Addresses
---------------
From: [e-mail]
To: The IAB Chair <[e-mail]>,The IESG <[e-mail]>,Karen O'Donoghue <[e-mail]>,Dieter Sibold <[e-mail]>
Cc: The IAB <[e-mail]>,Karen O'Donoghue <[e-mail]>,Tommy Jensen <[e-mail]>,The IAB Chair <[e-mail]>,The IETF Chair <[e-mail]>,The IESG <[e-mail]>,Scott Mansfield <[e-mail]>,Network Time Protocols Discussion List <[e-mail]>,Dieter Sibold <[e-mail]>,Éric Vyncke <[e-mail]>
Response Contacts: [e-mail]
Technical Contacts: [e-mail]


Body: ITU-T Study Group 17 (Security) is pleased to share that, at its plenary meeting (Geneva, 1–10 June 2026), it agreed the text of XSTP.epoch — “Technical Paper on Global Coordination Requirements for 2038-class rollover events (including but not limited to 2036, 2038, 2106)”. The agreed Technical Paper is provided as an attachment to this liaison statement.

The Chair of ITU-T SG17 warmly thanks the FIRST TIME SIG for its meeting of June 2025, which created the awareness and the conditions that made it possible to propose, establish, develop and agree this Technical Paper.

SG17 is, however, concerned that the world is facing simultaneously a significant AI transformation, a migration to post-quantum cryptography (PQC), a migration to passwordless authentication, and a high level of regulatory fragmentation across national and regional jurisdictions, resulting in a high demand of fragmented implementations — all of this, to recall the mandate of SG17, “in the context of an ever-growing attack surface and confronted with an unbalanced threat landscape”.

Against this backdrop, and recognizing the timing of the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference (PP-26) in November 2026, SG17 hopes that this topic may serve as an input to the PP-26 discussions on Resolution 130, and that this Technical Paper will alert all stakeholders to two points:

   - first, that there is another urgency that must be addressed — the global coordination of 2038-class rollover events; and

   – second, that there is a concerning question of where the resources will be found to achieve all of this at once.

Accordingly, and for action, SG17 would like to encourage the FIRST TIME SIG to keep this community together, and to suggest any next steps — in terms of awareness-raising, projects, or specific standards — that could help advance this cause.

In parallel, SG17 will work to develop a press release to raise broader awareness of this matter among stakeholders.

SG17 looks forward to continuing this collaboration with the FIRST TIME SIG, and with the IETF and ETSI, ISO/IEC JTC 1, CEN/CENELEC, 3GPP, GSMA, IEEE-SA, ITU-R and ITU-D, on this important matter.
Attachments:

    Technical Report ITU-T XSTP.EPOCH 
    https://www.ietf.org/lib/dt/documents/LIAISON/liaison-2026-07-21-itu-t-sg-17-iesg-iab-ntp-ls-on-sg17-agreement-on-xstpepoch-attachment-1.pdf