this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2026
627 points (99.5% liked)

xkcd

17940 readers
344 users here now

A community for a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

xkcd #3314: Vulnerability

Title text:

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

Transcript:

Transcript will show once it’s been added to explainxkcd.com

Source: https://xkcd.com/3314/

explainxkcd for #3314

top 41 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world 5 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

I'm glad I learned about this. I was about to make a private key with the number 5. Now I will make it with half 6 knowing that it's more secure, and backed by science!

[–] m4xie@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 hours ago

I heard encryption is based on prime numbers. You might want to try 7.

[–] RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 4 points 11 hours ago

I prefer Quarter Dozen

[–] lawks@aussie.zone 8 points 16 hours ago
[–] jballs@sh.itjust.works 29 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

The explainXKCD being down for this is kinda hilarious

[–] dfyx@piefed.social 10 points 19 hours ago

explainXKCD runs on MediaWiki which is PHP, so yeah...

[–] MarcomachtKuchen@feddit.org 83 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Half Life Half-Six confirmed

[–] Coffeephilic@lemmy.cafe 2 points 17 hours ago

We got GTA half VI before GTA VI

[–] cypherix93@lemmy.world 20 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] Zorque@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Portal square root of nine

[–] cypherix93@lemmy.world 2 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

I hope you mean Portal abs(square root of nine)

[–] Zorque@lemmy.world 2 points 2 hours ago

You dont want to play the prequel as well?

[–] ouRKaoS@lemmy.today 3 points 8 hours ago

Left 4 Dead ≈π

[–] Xanvial@lemmy.world 4 points 17 hours ago
[–] palordrolap@fedia.io 53 points 1 day ago (2 children)

"Half six" is fraught with peril. One slight misunderstanding and you'll have Germans and Dutch at your door when you least expect it and a bunch more people an hour later.

[–] cooltrainer_frank@lemmy.world 36 points 1 day ago (1 children)

And the Danes will think you're talking about 50

[–] ekky@sopuli.xyz 17 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (6 children)

*Puts on glasses* Akchually, that's only if you're counting 10's, since we count 1's as decimal and 10's in pairs of snes/snaes (20), hence fifty is half three snes or 3*20-0.5*20 = (3-0.5)*20 = 50.

Or if you're talking 1's, aka. decimal, you'd just remove the snes part, since common math is in decimal anyway, so half 3 decimal would be 3*1-0.5*1 = 3-0.5 = 2.5.

EDIT: Fun fact: 100, aka. "en hundrede/one hundred", can therefore also be called "fems" or "fem snes/five snaes". And then there's the ones who actually say "in twenty" instead of "snes", so it'd be "fem i tyvende".

[–] BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 hours ago

That's only partly correct.

Write out the name for 50 and it becomes "halv tre sinds tyve", where "sinds" is a old word for multiply. Thus making a complete translation "half three times twenty" https://sproget.dk/sprogviden/spoergsmaal-og-svar/dansk-sprognaevn/sv00000047/

[–] sangriaferret@sh.itjust.works 4 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

What is the origin of this system? It's nuts.

[–] ekky@sopuli.xyz 2 points 9 hours ago

It's just pre-imperial. We've left everything else behind for metric, but the snaes still roams the shadows of our counting system.

Everyone knew what a snaes was and everyone measured in snaes enyway, it also happened to be about the amount that we stored fish and eggs as. So, instead of having to count all the fish, we simply asked for one snaes/box of fish. And if you needed 2,5 snaes of fish? well, then you simply asked for half three snaes.

For a very interesting example of modern culture using such improvised counting systems, look no further than the USA's obsession with measuring everything in football fields, elephants, etc..

And for an example for saying "half x"? Ask anyone who has ever said "let's meet at half six".

[–] saltesc@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

But you never said which game on the SNES these cheat codes actually for.

[–] ekky@sopuli.xyz 6 points 1 day ago

Oh no, no game, that's how you enable the dev tools in retro-future mode. :p

[–] TimeRonin@lemmy.world 2 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

I would really like to understand more, why do you simplify 320-0.520 as (3-0.5)*20? Is this system actually insightful into arithmetic? Is there a good tutorial about such and such?

[–] ekky@sopuli.xyz 3 points 19 hours ago

Well, it is just arithmetics.

The left side of the equation is just the natural expansion of the paranthesis to signify and drive home the point that we're specifically talking half off 20.

The middle is how it's usually represented and follows best practices. Aka. Simplifying the equation without touching the variables and constants.

The right side is the result for calculating the equation.

I'm unsure of any tutorials regarding the danish counting system, though there's bound to be some. :)

Did I misunderstand the question?

[–] cooltrainer_frank@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Det ved jeg godt :)

But it's fun to show that meme off. Danish numbers are wild. My bad danish gets me mistaken numbers all the time

[–] ekky@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Tænkte det nok x)

It's just fun to blow some non-Danes' minds every now and again. <3

[–] Kanda@reddthat.com 2 points 11 hours ago

Every time we take the ferry to get drunk our minds are blown by fem og halv treds

[–] NochMehrG@feddit.org 5 points 1 day ago

So that’s why Duolingo hides numbers from us! (And probably also why Danish people switch to English or German no matter if you start in Danish or not..)

[–] techt@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

puts on novelty slinky eye glasses

Fascinating.

Also, small thing:

3*1 - 0.5*1 = 3 - 0.5 = 2.5 ----------------^

[–] ekky@sopuli.xyz 2 points 22 hours ago

Nice spot ^,^' Seems not even a Dane is danish enough to Dane.

[–] Ghoelian@piefed.social 11 points 1 day ago

Can confirm this caused a lot of confusion for the 6 months i lived in the uk as a dutch person lol. Eventually we just ended up saying the numbers.

[–] CovertOperative@piefed.zip 30 points 1 day ago

Nah man, 5 is right out.

[–] BillyClark@piefed.social 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

In England, "half six" would mean the same as "half past six" aka 6:30.

And I've been doing this for years: If I "accidentally" get into the 10 items or fewer line with 11 items, I just tell myself it's a "baker's 10." And, of course, 12 items is a "baker's baker's 10," as we have no other name for 12.

[–] Warl0k3@lemmy.world 5 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

Reinventing church numerals as a rationalisation for grocery checkout hijinks - I absolutely love this.

[–] schuelermine@leminal.space 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Isn't this Peano numerals? Church numerals would be if a baker's four doubled two was sixty-four.

(That being (λf. λx. f (f (f (f (f x))))) (λn. λf. λx. n f (n f x)) (λf. λx. f (f x)))

[–] Warl0k3@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

Would they not be equivalent systems for this purpose? Both use the successor function as a unary representation of the natural numbers.

[–] BillyClark@piefed.social 2 points 19 hours ago

I guess if I say that 1 is baker's 0, and 2 is baker's baker's 0, then I've invented the baker's unary base.

[–] 18107@aussie.zone 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] NotAnonymousAtAll@feddit.org 5 points 19 hours ago

True, but on the other hand consider https://xkcd.com/221/

[–] Dadifer@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago

XKCD spitting fire

[–] ekky@sopuli.xyz 6 points 1 day ago

Heh, reminds me of my national counting system where "halv seks" would mean 5,5. Aka. half before six, and not half of six. :P