How a “trivial” change yielded a 13× throughput increase. We recently released an open-source Clojure implementation of Roughtime, a protocol for secure time synchronization with cryptographic proof. When a client asks for the time, it sends a random nonce. The server replies with a signed certificate containing both the nonce and a timestamp, proving the response happened after the request. Responses can be chained together with provable ordering; if any server’s timestamps are inconsistent wit...