Editing 2958: Hatchery

{{comic
| number    = 2958
| date      = July 12, 2024
| title     = Hatchery
| image     = hatchery_2x.png
| imagesize = 239x336px
| noexpand  = true
| titletext = Anadromous fish are more vulnerable in rivers, since the lack of salt means you can quickly crack passwords using rainbow trout tables.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT EXECUTING REMOTE COD - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
{{w|Remote code execution}} is a type of {{w|software exploit}} that takes advantage of a bug to allow a remote user of a computer application to make it run code that it was not intended to execute. For example, a webserver with such a bug might allow a user of a web page to make it run a program that deletes system files or displays private information.

The joke arising from this comic is that if you remove the "e" from "code", you get "remote cod execution". This refers to killing ("executing") codfish remotely, using an exploit in a network application that allows you to view the hatchery.

The title text contains a pun on {{w|rainbow tables}}, referring to {{w|rainbow trout}}, one type of which ({{w|steelhead}}) is {{w|anadromous fish|anadromous}} (migrating up rivers to spawn -- {{w|salmon}} are another well known example). Rainbow tables are used when trying to crack hashed passwords; it's simply a file with many possible passwords and their corresponding hash values, which can be compared against retrieved hashed passwords. To prevent such comparisons, most modern password systems use "{{w|salt (cryptography)|salt}}", an extra random string that gets appended to the password before hashing so the same password will potentially have many different hashes, and it becomes infeasible to store all of them in a file. An additional pun is that rivers contain fresh water, so there's no salt (the chemical kind) and the fish are therefore more vulnerable.

The comic dialogue itself starts the whole chain of puns off by using the phrase "shooting fish in a barrel", which is figuratively used to mean that the task is a "piece of cake", but here becomes clear that he is literally {{w|Capital punishment|executing}} fish.

{{w|Fish (Unix shell)|fish}} is also the name of a {{w|UNIX shell}}. Shells are popular targets for computer hackers as they are capable of running arbitrary commands.

==Transcript==
:[Black Hat is sitting at a computer desk, with Cueball behind him.]
:Black Hat: Shooting fish in a barrel.
:Computer: Blam!
:A new fish hatchery exploit allows remote cod execution.
{{comic discussion}}