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Comment by hdjdnxjzhzhs

2 hours ago

Funnily enough that xkcd was created because Debian actually had a hardcoded random variable (the variable should have been randomly generated) ... It was noticed when certs/pub keys for different websites were coming up the same... Mind you this was close to A quarter century ago ....

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hdjdnxjzhzhs

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soneil  2 hours ago

I've seen this mentioned a few times over the last day or two, but it's not true.

The xkcd was 2007 [0], the Debian issue was 2008 [1].

It was used in pretty much every blogpost describing the Debian issue, but it wasn't created because of the Debian issue (unless they gave Randall an 8-month head-start before disclosing it).

(I don't mean this as a "well akshully" - but for me it's more impressive that it's a truism that keeps coming true, than if it was just a swipe at them in the first place)

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20070930232116/https://xkcd.com/...

[1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-security-announce/2008/msg00...