First, as many have pointed out, eMudhra as a trusted certificate authority has issued eight high-level certificates with a key length of onle 3-8 bits, when they should be 384 bits long. And yes, the smallest key was ‘4’.
But the other point is tha xkcd predicted using 4 as a random number, decades ago. It was supposed to be a joke.
There are two parts to this answer.
First, as many have pointed out, eMudhra as a trusted certificate authority has issued eight high-level certificates with a key length of onle 3-8 bits, when they should be 384 bits long. And yes, the smallest key was ‘4’.
But the other point is tha xkcd predicted using 4 as a random number, decades ago. It was supposed to be a joke.
https://xkcd.com/221/
xkcd also happened to release a comic about a “vulnerability in the number 3” the same day the eMudhra news broke.
Check the alt text on that one :-)
5 is objectively more secure than 4, unless 4 was perfectly random, of course.
That’s not “happened to”; read the title text if you want to remove all reasonable doubt that it’s a reference to it.
I think they italcized that word because it was sardonic.
Oh my god, I thought that was a recent meme someone made because of this debacle, didn’t know it was an OG xkcd…
supposed to …