Comment on What is behind the current Lemmy meme about 4 being a private key?

• StabbingSky@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Not if you’re brute forcing it.

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  • balsoft@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I think it technically was not “brute forcing”, but specifically someone tried generating private keys with numbers 0-255, and surprisingly found a few.

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    • Hal@piefed.nz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      So why did it take so long for someone to try it?

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      • balsoft@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        We don’t know whether anyone tried it before April 2025, because that’s when the vulnerable certificates were issued. If someone did try it before then, they would not find any certificates (as expected) and probably wouldn’t even talk to anyone about it.

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  • AmyAye@nord.pub ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    “Time to brute force this key, I guess I will go get some lun…. What do you mean it’s already done? Who uses 4????”

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  • Xtallll@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000100

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• scytale@piefed.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Security by obscurity is what it’s called in the industry, and yeah it’s not a good way to do it. Automation and scripts would make it trivial to guess.

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• theneverfox@pawb.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  It’s kinda like locking your door by putting a wedge in the crack. Probably, no one is going to try to open your door anyways, and probably, even if they did no one is going to take 5 seconds to examine the door and figure it out

  But if someone does, it’s laughably easy to figure it out

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  • Tetsuo@jlai.lu ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Except this is internet and pretty much anybody on the planet could test the security of your doors.

    I like the analogy but I think it doesn’t really apply when it comes to devices that are connected to the internet.

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    • ilinamorato@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I think their analogy is still good. Just add “…and your door opens onto Times Square.”

      That doesn’t quite get the full scope, but it does imply the danger pretty well. Plus, if you add in “…Times Square of robots, and the robots are all thieves, and your most expensive possession is visibly sitting right inside, and…” it starts to get pretty unwieldy.

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• balsoft@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Well, someone did guess it so it’s not that hard. The entropy was really low.

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  • davetortoise@reddthat.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    ‘Entropy’ doesnt apply here

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    • klankin@piefed.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      It does doesn’t it?

      The higher the number of bits, the more entropy in the system.

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      • davetortoise@reddthat.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        It’s a pointlessly obscure way of saying there are more numbers

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    • balsoft@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      No it absolutely does, the method they used to generate private keys ended up having just 8 shannons of entropy which led to the discovery we are discussing

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