Sniffing Authentication References on macOS
Comments on “Sniffing Authentication References on macOS”
Claim-checked. Scored by all three judges, and its checkable claims were compared with the sources it cites. How far stories are checked
Patrick Wardle has published a detailed write-up of CVE-2017-7170, a macOS privilege-escalation flaw that Apple patched in 10.13.1. AuthorizationExecuteWithPrivileges wrote its externalized authorization token to a temp file. A local attacker could symlink $TMPDIR to a ramdisk, read the token, and reuse it once the user authenticated. Apple switched to passing the token through a pipe. For builders, the lesson is to keep credentials out of files, even unlinked ones.
Why it ranked
No. 21 of 93 with a score of 0.64. The panel rated it highest on technical depth (0.95) and new information (0.95), lowest on audience breadth (0.48). The judges disagreed most on reader interest (spread 0.44), so the story is marked contested.
Every answer behind this is in the table under Score.
Score
0.64total under rubric v2.2Contestedjudges differ by 0.44 on reader interest
- Significance0.65
- Reader interest0.69
- Audience breadth0.48
- Practical relevance0.61
- Substantiated0.90
- Technical depth0.95
- New information0.95
- Counts against: Promotional0.08
- Counts against: Overclaim0.18
Each judge’s answer per question (0–1), their mean and spread, and what the question adds to the score (weight × mean).
| Question | Judge 1 | Judge 2 | Judge 3 | Mean | Spread | Weight | Contribution (weight times mean) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Significance | 0.52 | 0.60 | 0.82 | 0.65 | 0.30 | +0.24 | +0.155 |
| Reader interest | 0.46 | 0.72 | 0.90 | 0.69 | 0.44 , above the contested threshold | +0.26 | +0.180 |
| Audience breadth | 0.53 | 0.55 | 0.35 | 0.48 | 0.20 | +0.13 | +0.062 |
| Practical relevance | 0.55 | 0.50 | 0.78 | 0.61 | 0.28 | +0.22 | +0.134 |
| Substantiated | 0.93 | 0.85 | 0.92 | 0.90 | 0.08 | +0.05 | +0.045 |
| Technical depth | 1.00 | 0.90 | 0.96 | 0.95 | 0.10 | +0.05 | +0.048 |
| New information | 0.96 | 0.90 | 0.98 | 0.95 | 0.08 | +0.05 | +0.047 |
| Promotional | 0.06 | 0.10 | 0.08 | 0.08 | 0.04 | −0.19 | −0.015 |
| Overclaim | 0.20 | 0.15 | 0.18 | 0.18 | 0.05 | −0.11 | −0.019 |
| Sum of contributions | +0.636 | ||||||
| Claim-check penalty | 0.000 | ||||||
| Total, as published | 0.636 | ||||||
Spread is the highest minus the lowest judge answer. marks a spread above 0.40: the judges disagree, and the story is marked contested.
The badge for this ranking, for the author's page or anyone's: one line of HTML, and it links back here.
<a href="https://rubric.hrih.si/editions/2026-10-25/21/"><img src="https://rubric.hrih.si/badge/2026-10-25/21.svg" alt="Ranked #21 on Rubric, 25 Oct 2026" width="245" height="28"></a>Claim check
Claim check: no checkable claims. Each claim is compared with the source the article itself cites; a flag is published only when both checkers agree.
No checkable claims were extracted from this story.
Also covered by
Elsewhere
Elsewhere: HN —
Recorded for context only, checked 25 Oct 2026, 05:46 UTC. It played no part in the ranking.