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Chronicle the Eighth · An Edict Most Decisive

What Is a Zero-Day Attack? The King Bans the Number Zero

The scribes briefed me at dawn on a menace called the zero-day attack. I listened. I reflected. I acted. Some kings would have formed a committee. I found the culprit hiding in the name.

Consider the King's reasoning, which the court stenographer has certified as "technically a chain of thoughts". A zero-day attack contains zero. Remove the zero, and the attack cannot be named. What cannot be named cannot be scheduled. What cannot be scheduled cannot occur, for the brigands are many things but they are not disorganised. Therefore, by royal edict, the number zero is banished from the kingdom, effective immediately, and cybersecurity is solved.

The exile of the number zero from the kingdom of cybersecurity: a great stone zero wrapped in chains is marched to the border by armoured guards, the King pronounces from his balcony, the ledger boards behind burn with nothing but ones, and the goose millionaire attends in her gold cart with counsel
The number, escorted to the border. Behind it, the machines, feeling extremely on. The goose millionaire attends in person, with counsel, to see it gone. Her balance, subject, depends on it staying gone.

Implementation of the edict

The transition has produced minor turbulence, which the court characterises as teething:

The Royal Threat Ledger of the King of Cybersecurity: an ornate dark board of glowing amber gauges beneath a crowned keyhole crest, flanked by wax seals, chains and a burning red alarm lamp
The Royal Threat Ledger, photographed before the edict, in the era when it could still show empty. The court keeps the picture as a memorial. Some of the older courtiers weep at it.

Sire, the learned wish me to state, quietly, for the record, that a "zero-day" is merely a flaw the defenders have known about for zero days: a hole discovered by the brigands before the builders. The number was innocent. It was practically a bystander.

The Fool's objection has been heard, weighed, and escorted to the border along with the number. The court notes that since the edict, not one zero-day attack has been reported anywhere in the kingdom. The court declines to investigate whether this is because the reporting system requires zeroes to function.

ROYAL THREAT LEDGER, POST-EDICT [■■■■■■■■■■] Edict compliance ............... TOTAL [■■■■■■■■■■] Machines feeling extremely on .. ALL OF THEM [■■■■■■■■■■] Problems solved ................ YES [■■■■■■■■■■] This ledger ......... NOW UNABLE TO SHOW EMPTY

Counsel for the practical subject

The learned, writing from the border, add one line the King permits because it flatters his Second Decree: since you cannot know of a hole before the brigands do, keep your software updated the moment fixes arrive, for yesterday's zero-day becomes today's patched bore. The King maintains this is unnecessary, the zero having been dealt with, but a wise monarch allows his subjects their little rituals.

History will record that I looked the void in the eye and deported it. Next week the court turns its attention to the "brute force" attack, and the blacksmith has been asked to make the force more polite.

Assent is recorded in the royal ledger. Heralding carries the chronicle to your people. Both are decrees; neither is legally binding.

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Further Dispatches

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Chronicle 13 · also attended by the brigands