"a$$word" LITERALLY SAVED PayPal | Prime Reacts

So, literally "It works on my machine"

Great article, what a writer that dude is. Even better having it read to me as a bedtime story.

Ik the math looks very complicated, but basically it uses the cool fact that a polymomial of degree N is uniquely defined by N+1 points. In other words, if you give me N + 1 points on an N polynomial, I can reconstruct the whole polynomial and evaluate it for *any* value I want. For instance, a line is uniquely defined by 2 points. Similary, there's only 1 unique quadratic that goes through any 3 points you choose. So what the secret sharing thing does is it gives all 8 people their own unique points on a quadratic function (degree 2 polynomial), and basically any 3 of them can then completely recreate the function and find the key (which is, by construction, f(0)) Edit: the original explanation in the article is good in the sense that it tells you exactly *how* to generate such a shared secret, but it doesn't explain well as to *why* it works

3am at a darkened cubicle is never how you want to start a story ngl

The guy that wrote this deserves a fucken award for that article, the storytelling, the twists, the characters, a$$word, everything was top tier

Probably one of the best articles you've reacted to! Well written and a damn good story!

Nobody in the world would ever expect password inputs to be SECRETLY truncated. This is insane. Who programmed that?

To answer the question at 14:55 "what would happen if 6 out of your 8 people were on the same plane" When you implement systems like this, you make sure that never happens. If you need to send more than 5 people from that group to the same place, at the same time, you send them via different airlines, trains, cars, whatever, spaced far enough apart that the chances of a crash involving all of them is essentially zero. If you are implementing a system THIS secure, chances are you have the budget to deal with this kind of invonvenience.

There needs be a website dedicated to “bringing production down” stories. They hit you in the feels. SO HARD.

Silently trim the password to 8 characters. What an amazing security feature!