I don't think it's explicit in the article, but that's a comic (XKCD). Relevant discussion [1] suggests that there's not a specific project referenced by the comic.
When I first read this comic, ntpd [2] [3] came to mind.
At least NTP is a standard protocol and there are a bunch of cromulent alternatives to the original Mills ntpd. Chrony and ntpsec are both reasonable. If any one of the implementations went away tomorrow, distros would scramble but they'd have a place to go.