The Limits of Fingerprint Blocklists: A Reproducible Java Certificate Bypass
Comments on “The Limits of Fingerprint Blocklists: A Reproducible Java Certificate Bypass”
3 judges. Scored by all three judges. Only the day’s top stories get the claim check. How far stories are checked
Sonatype researchers found that Java's blocked.certs list, which matches certificates by SHA-256 fingerprint, rejected listed intermediates from the eMudhra incident but accepted re-encoded versions of the same certificates that still validated in tested configurations.
Why it ranked
No. 37 of 124 with a score of 0.64. The panel rated it highest on new information (0.81) and technical depth (0.77), lowest on audience breadth (0.53).
Every answer behind this is in the table under Score.
Score
0.64total under rubric v2.2
- Significance0.61
- Reader interest0.75
- Audience breadth0.53
- Practical relevance0.74
- Substantiated0.64
- Technical depth0.77
- New information0.81
- Counts against: Promotional0.08
- Counts against: Overclaim0.29
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 | 0.57 | 0.55 | 0.72 | 0.61 | 0.17 | +0.24 | +0.147 |
| Reader interest | 0.65 | 0.70 | 0.90 | 0.75 | 0.25 | +0.26 | +0.195 |
| Audience breadth | 0.57 | 0.50 | 0.52 | 0.53 | 0.07 | +0.13 | +0.069 |
| Practical relevance | 0.74 | 0.70 | 0.78 | 0.74 | 0.08 | +0.22 | +0.163 |
| Substantiated | 0.61 | 0.50 | 0.82 | 0.64 | 0.32 | +0.05 | +0.032 |
| Technical depth | 0.81 | 0.70 | 0.79 | 0.77 | 0.11 | +0.05 | +0.038 |
| New information | 0.78 | 0.70 | 0.94 | 0.81 | 0.24 | +0.05 | +0.040 |
| Promotional | 0.06 | 0.15 | 0.03 | 0.08 | 0.12 | −0.19 | −0.015 |
| Overclaim | 0.27 | 0.45 | 0.16 | 0.29 | 0.29 | −0.11 | −0.032 |
| Sum of contributions | +0.638 | ||||||
| Claim-check penalty | 0.000 | ||||||
| Total, as published | 0.638 | ||||||
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/2026-10-27/37/"><img src="https://rubric.hrih.si/badge/2026-10-27/37.svg" alt="Ranked #37 on Rubric, 27 Oct 2026" width="245" height="28"></a>Also covered by
No other coverage was clustered with this story.
Elsewhere
Elsewhere: HN 2 pts, not on front page
Recorded for context only, checked 27 Oct 2026, 05:46 UTC. It played no part in the ranking.