The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

A week ago, it seems like an eternity in vulnerability land, eMudhra popularised quoting the number four:

• [Wayback/Archive] Indian certification authority eMudhra’s private keys compromised – one of them was the number ‘4’
• [Wayback/Archive] Certification authority eMudhra defends its laughably weak private keys

It felt like the Diginotar debacle, but 15 years later and voluntarily. And like I wrote yesterday, another (partially – hello “O=eMudhra BV, C=NL” next to “O=eMudhra Inc, C=US”) Dutch company involved. Hopefully that’s not a prediction for the future.

Given their laughably weak keys and their laughably excuse, lots of jokes appeared.

Apart from “there is always an XKCD” (I wish [Wayback/Archive] Relevant XKCD Search still functioned, but luckily [Wayback/Archive] Relevant XKCD does, hello [Wayback/Archive] Relevant XKCD=random), Randall Munroe also created a  new one, plus one of the XCKD memes was re-used, so here are three, plus a whole lot of other jokes that quickly appeared:

• [Wayback/Archive] xkcd 221: Random Number
  

  

  Random Number: RFC 1149.5 specifies 4 as the standard IEEE-vetted random number.

• [Wayback/Archive] xkcd 3314: Vulnerability
  

  

  Vulnerability: Other numbers are largely unaffected, but anyone using ‘4’ for their certificate key is urged to upgrade to ‘5’.

• [Wayback/Archive] xkcd 2347: Dependency
  

  

  Dependency: Someday ImageMagick will finally break for good and we’ll have a long period of scrambling as we try to reassemble civilization from the rubble.

Of the other jokes, there are many, so here is a selection I liked most:

• a
  

  a

• [Wayback/Archive] waffles posted an attachment – Infosec Exchange
  

  

  Glass half empty: I need to patch every iot device in my home because of the number 4 Glass half full: I can mitm all of my IoT devices and figure out what data they’re all phoning home with

• [Archive] ira grachevskaya from the hit vn Z.A.T.O. // I Love the World and Everything In It: “omfg they’re ALL FUCKING <255 …” – catgirl.cloud
  

  4   EM OV TLS CA - G3C OV TLS
56  EM EV TLS CA - G3C EV TLS
66  EM OV CS CA - G3B  Code signing
115 EM EV TLS CA - G3B EV TLS
155 EM OV TLS CA - G3B OV TLS
156 EM DV TLS CA - G3B DV TLS
230 EM DV TLS CA - G3C DV TLS
237 EM OV CS CA - G3C  Code signing

• ira grachevskaya from the hit vn Z.A.T.O. // I Love the World and Everything In It: “The key’s randomart image is: …” – catgirl.cloud (cannot be archived)
  

  The key's randomart image is:
  +---[ECDSA 384]---+
  |                 |
  |                 |
  |                 |
  |                 |
  |                 |
  |                 |
  |                 |
  |                 |
  |                .|
  +----[SHA256]-----+

• [Wayback/Archive] Hacker Memes: “#never4get Simspons meme: “4 …” – Infosec Exchange
  

  

  Simspons meme: “4 days since 4”

  Context: Simpsoms Lenford “Lenny” Leonard meme based on [Wayback/Archive] The Simpsons – Days without an accident – YouTube

• [Wayback/Archive] 210561 ✨ [Q]: “I love that during this mess eMudhra…” – Shark corner
  

  I love that during this mess eMudhra still find time to vote on the BRs (but not complete a root-cause analysis on the number 4)

  

  … eMudhra votes YES to SC105 …

  Context: [Wayback/Archive] SC105: Remove High Risk language from TLS BR and EVG by srdavidson · Pull Request #678 · cabforum/servercert

• [Wayback/Archive] Gadi Evron: “Pwn day is a meme gift that keeps on giving…” – Infosec Exchange
  

  

  Modification of the Dr Who Meme ‘Depends on the Context’. Pane 1: ‘Is four a lot?’, Pane 2: ‘Depends on the context.’, Pane 3: ‘As a private key? No.’, Pane 4: ‘PHP vulnerabilities?’ Yes.

  For the original 2019 meme, see [Wayback/Archive] Depends On the Context | Know Your Meme.

• [Wayback/Archive] VessOnSecurity: “The future looks bright… ” – Infosec Exchange
  

  

  tuckner
  @tuckner

  Just used LiteLLM to create my first PHP website. The Al even suggested getting a certificate from eMudhra for HTTPS to protect my login page.
  The future looks really bright 🥳
  6:54 PM Oct 21, 2026

• [Wayback/Archive] Jef Poskanzer: “Count von Count has found your secret key…” – Mastodon.social
  

  

  Count von Count laughing while the number 4 shows with balloons falling down.

  [Wayback] Video

• [Wayback/Archive] q3k :blobcatcoffee:: “press 4 to pay respects https…” – Warsaw Hackerspace Social Club
  

  [Wayback/Archive] www.bseindia.com/xml-data/corpfiling/AttachLive/82503e00-335c-49dc-b022-f4633a08b642.pdf

  

  PRESS RELEASE

  eMudhra to Exit global SSL/TLS Certificate Business; Will Sharpen Focus on Core Enterprise Solutions and trust services other than SSL/TLS

  Bengaluru, India – October [22], 2026 – eMudhra Limited (BSE: 543533 | NSE: EMUDHRA), a global digital trust company, today announced that its Board has decided to voluntarily withdraw from the global SSL/TLS certificate business.

• Wayback (noch) maschinenraum: “We now provide pre-computed se…” – mastodon@bau-ha.us
  

  We now provide pre-computed secure private keys for certificate authorities in need

  

  A4 info sheet with tearable 3 digit numbers. It reads:

  Get your own certificate authority!

  Step 1: Tear off one of the private keys below
  Step 2: Keep it absolutely secret!!!
  Step 3: copy the python code below
  Step 4: Insert your private key HERE (arrow to some python code)

  bla bla python

  Step 5: Enjoy :)

• [Wayback/Archive] ​Piko: “@morph But, alas. Distracted …” – chaos.social
  

  

  Distracted Boyfriend meme: A guy titled “fedi” is looking after a woman titled “php”, while his girlfriend, titled “4” is looking jealous.

• [Wayback/Archive] 🌈 vanta rainbow black 🌈: “#four xkcd 2347 but the thing…” – cyberpunk dot lol
  

  

  xkcd 2347 but the thing is replaced by a 4

• [Wayback/Archive] Rob Carlson: “Hello, nerds Captain Picard s…” – jawns.club 🐘
  

  

  Captain Picard shouting “The private key is four!”

  

  Gordon Ramsay “it’s fucking raw!” Meme. Gordon yelling at another chef, captioned “it’s fucking four!!”

• [Wayback/Archive] Old Mermaid Town – Deborah Pickett: “Advertising my new service for…”
  

  Advertising my new service for certificate authorities: Key Checker Secure™

  Upload your certificate, including private key, to our web site (secured with a highly trusted eMudhra intermediate certificate) and we will perform numerous checks on it, including:
  • Too many 0 bits
  • Not enough 0 bits
  • Key looks suspiciously like ASCII
  • Key contains a song lyric
  • Someone else already uses this key

  Upload your key now!

• [Wayback/Archive] Jonty Wareing: “A screenshot of bash.org: he…” – chaos.social
  

  

  A screenshot of bash.org:

  <Cthon98> hey, if you type in your private key, it will show as stars
<Cthon98> ********* see!
<eMudhra> 4
<eMudhra> doesnt look like stars to me
<Cthon98> <eMudhra> *
<Cthon98> thats what I see
<eMudhra> oh, really?
<Cthon98> Absolutely
<eMudhra> you can go 4 my 4-ing 4
<eMudhra> haha, does that look funny to you?
<Cthon98> lol, yes. See, when YOU type 4, it shows to us as *
<eMudhra> thats neat, I didnt know IRC did that
<Cthon98> yep, no matter how many times you type 4, it will show to us as *
<eMudhra> awesome!
<eMudhra> wait, how do you know my private key?
<Cthon98> er, I just copy pasted YOUR * and it appears to YOU as 4 cause its your private key
<eMudhra> oh, ok.

• [Wayback/Archive] Natanox 🇺🇦🇵🇸: “Last one. #meme Oprah Winfre…” – chaos.social
  

  

  Oprah Winfrey meme where she screams into the crowd. The logo of the emudhra Certificate Authority is over here. Caption: You get a certificate! And you get a certificate! Everybody can get a certificate!

--jeroen