You missed a key point -- the 10.x.x.x and the 192.168.x.x addresses are reserved explicitly for this. If you use some other set of numbers, you will be stepping on someones toes, but this won't affect them, it'll only make it so you can't talk to the real computers in that subnet.

So, what Tony's reccomending is to create two networks, one the "real" network, and one that consists of You And Your Empeg only. Both of these networks can live on the same network card(*). As long as you don't specify a gateway for your private network, any traffic for the outside world will go over your network with the usual gateway.

Of course, none of this helps you to run or not run ntp.

Matthew

(*)Assuming you're using a Real OS or a recent Microsoft attempt at one.