The article argues that ambiguous deadlines like "Submit by June 5th" are technically broken specifications. They create unfairness because users cannot objectively determine if they've met the requirement. A deadline must be a precise moment, not a vague local date. The problem stems from multiple conflicting timezones—user, server, and organization—being unaccounted for.

A real scenario shows a user submitting at 11 PM on June 5th local time, only for the server to reject it because the UTC deadline had already passed. The solution is explicit definition: a deadline must include a date, a time, and a timezone. Simply adding "end of day" or "end of business" doesn't resolve the core ambiguity.

Developers must push back on incomplete specifications and enforce clarity at every stage: definition, display, and evaluation. Systems should log submission instants for disputes. The core principle is fairness: if a user acting in good faith can't determine whether they've met the deadline, the system's definition is flawed, not the user's interpretation.