Moreover, each machine on the network has its own clock, which is an actual hardware device: usually a quartz crystal oscillator. These devices are not perfectly accurate, so each machine has its own notion of time, which may be slightly faster or slower than on other machines. It is possible to synchronize clocks to some degree: the most commonly used mechanism is the Network Time Protocol (NTP), which allows the computer clock to be adjusted according to the time reported by a group of servers [37]. The servers in turn get their time from a more accurate time source, such as a GPS receiver.
