this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2025
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Natural selection in IT (isanybodyusingthisprivatekey.com)
submitted 1 day ago by tfm@piefed.europe.pub to c/programmer_humor@programming.dev
29 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

That's a meme page. Do NOT submit your real private keys!

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[–] NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de 26 points 1 day ago (2 children)

To save anyone the trouble, here's a key I've generated just now:

-----BEGIN OPENSSH PRIVATE KEY-----
b3BlbnNzaC1rZXktdjEAAAAABG5vbmUAAAAEbm9uZQAAAAAAAAABAAAAMwAAAAtzc2gtZW
QyNTUxOQAAACAqTGrNcWWZrKjDzAgG1KaCYAOOAoqSSQvvWVgUx7PdMgAAAJgzuRsTM7kb
EwAAAAtzc2gtZWQyNTUxOQAAACAqTGrNcWWZrKjDzAgG1KaCYAOOAoqSSQvvWVgUx7PdMg
AAAEC8jODzrMngnvJlMwtlhqwlI6qS42WlzSDADbEYaCsRzCpMas1xZZmsqMPMCAbUpoJg
A44CipJJC+9ZWBTHs90yAAAAEXUwX2E0MzhAbG9jYWxob3N0AQIDBA==
-----END OPENSSH PRIVATE KEY-----

(and if I did it wrong enough, well, you can hack me but please let me know how I fucked up)

Change any random character in there to see how the website reacts to a unique key. I changed an O to an o and it accepted it.

[–] r00ty@kbin.life 17 points 1 day ago

Wait, that's my key. Ohhh QIDBA not QADBX.

[–] NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de 18 points 1 day ago (2 children)

FWIW this is what I did:

$ ssh-keygen -f fake_ssh_key

(press Enter twice for no passphrase)

and then:

$ cat fake_ssh_key

Which I then just copy-pasted from the terminal. Surely this can't reveal anything about my other private keys, right?

[–] 30p87@feddit.org 13 points 1 day ago

Yes. It only reveals stuff about your defaults, which should be ed25519 globally now anyway.

[–] A_norny_mousse@feddit.org -1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

We know your unique machine ID now.

[–] NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 day ago

I'll be impressed if you tell me what operating system I'm using.