Reddit Gold: Alice and Bob, Caught in a Web of Lies

Alice and Bob, the beloved (or not-so-beloved, depending) placeholder characters often used in cryptography examples, have been spotted in the middle of a web of deceit and intrigue by eagle-eyed Redditers. Think lies. Broken hearts. Even…murder. Yep, you heard that right.

It all starts with the Wikipedia page for explaining what man-in-the-middle (MiTM) attacks are, which uses a helpful Alice-and-Bob (and Mallory) example to make things a bit clearer:

Source: Wikipedia

However, someone (presumably of the coder or crypto persuasion) decided to edit that example to, shall we say, move the plot along a bit further:

Source: Reddit

Sadly for the story of Alice and Bob (RIP), the travesty is that we’re not sure if she ever found love. And it’s unclear if Mallory was ever pinged for the crime.

That’s because after being noticed, posted and thoroughly appreciated on Reddit, the Wikipedia page was alas edited back to its same old utilitarian self. Fortunately though, there’s a whole Subreddit devoted to programmer humor, so proof does still exist that coders can be funny too.

What’s your favorite code-humor example? Feel free to comment below.

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