StarkZarn

It’s just an NTP pool. The device is trying to update it’s time. Likely it made many other requests to other servers when this one didn’t work.

Maintaining up to date lists of anything is a game of whack a mole, so you’re always going to get weird results.

If you’re actually unsure, pcap the traffic on your pfsense box and see for yourself. NTP is an unencrypted protocol, so tshark or Wireshark will have no problem telling you all about it.

That said, I’d still agree with the other poster about local integration with home assistant and just block that sucker from the Internet.

Potentially, but precision is important, especially if you’re going to make sweeping claims about a topic, acting as an authority.

This is absolutely not what DNSSEC is. DNSSEC provides authenticity of the response, not privacy. You’re describing a means of encrypted name resolution, like dns-over-tls, dns-over-https, etc.

That all sounds correct to me. The random port you’re seeing in the logs is a high port, often referred to as an ephemeral port, and it is common for source ports. All good there.

Sure, but no one asked about studies from a specific country, we just got an unsolicited “tut tut” for no reason. I can live in Germany and read Canadian articles all I want. This particular poster just doesn’t have an open mind about the world.

Lolwut.

Does your holier-than-thou country not believe in peer reviewed science?

That sort of configuration after the fact would be a fantastic addition, if not already in place.