overview
Daylight Saving Time (DST) is being extended by 4 weeks starting this year. It starts 3 weeks earlier and ends one week later under provisions of the U.S. Energy Policy Act of 2005. This is the first nationwide change to the DST schedule in approximately 20 years. The new and former DST dates for 2007 follow:
DST Begins (advance 1 hour): Sun., 3/11/2007, 2 a.m. (formerly 4/1/2007)
DST Ends (back 1 hour): Sunday, 11/4/2007, 2 a.m. (formerly 10/28/2007)
So why do we care? At first it might seem trivial that the date on a computer is off by one hour, but many, many important functions that we take for granted depend on the computer system time being correct. Examples of these are login and authentication technologies such as kerberos, encryption technologies such as RSA certificates for https web page security and ssl encryption for secure shell, sftp, etc, and calendar packages such as iCal, Oracle Calendar, Groupwise, Now UpToDate,etc. Without the correct system time it would be almost impossible to keep most of our financial, calendar and identity information private and correct.