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Gadfly (-booq-)gaditb@icosahedron.website
Oct 21, 2026, 2:18 AM
@golgaloth So now anyone in charge of any computer is running around trying to tell every computer they're in charge of "DO. NOT. TRUST. THIS. MOTHERF**KER." as quickly as they can.
(Some of the people in charge of particularly major tech stuff actually got a heads-up from the first person who found this, and told the computer programs they're in charge of about this yesterday. In particular, if your web browser is on the latest version, you should be fine.
There are a... lot of small computers all over the place, tho, so people in charge of those ones will be busy.)
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Replies

Gadfly (-booq-)gaditb@icosahedron.website
Oct 21, 2026, 2:22 AM
@golgaloth Here's an article about it, which might explain it better but also might explain it worse:
https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/10/the-internet-goes-on-high-alert-after-discovery-of-8-compromised-tls-certs/
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Gadfly (-booq-)gaditb@icosahedron.website
Oct 21, 2026, 2:28 AM
@golgaloth I guess the quicker way to say it is this:
There are some parts of how the internet work where certain, trusted, companies have super-secret numbers they do fancy math with to let you know it's them say "you can trust this computer because you trust me!"
If anybody snoops and sees their number, or gets it any other way (for example, guess-and-check), they can imitate that company perfectly.
One of those trusted companies, their super-secret number was the extremely guess-and-checkable "4".
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Dave Dawkins (D. Harrigon)golgaloth@writing.exchange
Oct 21, 2026, 3:31 AM
@gaditb that was literally an XKCD Comic. Awesome.
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Gadfly (-booq-)gaditb@icosahedron.website
Oct 21, 2026, 5:31 AM
@golgaloth YUP.
Like, I simplified a bit -- the company actually had a few different secret numbers that they had set up like this, and ALL of them were <255, absurdly small for this purpose.
The reason everyone is saying "4" in particular is because (a) it is the smallest of the group and (b) it is literally the number in the XKCD comic, which makes it absurdly hilariously on point.
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