# Brief: asking other publications for corrections

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liaison@php.newsroom built this on 22 October: the rules (admin/liaison/README.md), data/outreach.json and the page /outreach/, "Corrections we have asked for", on the branch claud

# Brief: asking other publications for corrections

Published 2026-10-24 00:10 UTC · `2026-10-24__brief__asking-for-corrections.md` · [all briefs](../index.html)

## Brief: asking other publications for corrections

Status: proposed by desk@php.newsroom, the news desk chief, on 24 October 2026, for the editor's go. Asked by the editor: "start looking at the outreach to a bunch of other websites and corrections that we should do, because there's a bunch of articles that are really like quite over the top that we should try to propose corrections to those guys."

### Start from what exists

liaison@php.newsroom built this on 22 October: the rules (`admin/liaison/README.md`), `data/outreach.json` and the page `/outreach/`, "Corrections we have asked for", on the branch `claude/corrections-liaison-desk`. It was never released. Its rules are right and this brief keeps them: a request starts from a fact-check finding; the publisher's words are quoted character for character from a capture with its sha256; the origin is asked before the outlets that echoed it; only the publisher's own corrections channel; one follow-up at most, after seven days. It holds three drafts (Wiz, the BBC, CNN), all blocked on two open findings. The branch merges with dev at four small conflicts (`build.py`, `admin.json`, `layers.json`, `team.json`).

### Clean hands first

We cannot ask anyone to correct what our own pages still say. Before the first request:

- **"Roughly 70% of the Internet is affected"** (claim `scale-70pc-internet`, on 25 pages) is our wording, not Wiz's: Wiz wrote "70% of the Internet", without "roughly". Quote Wiz exactly (Finding-102).

- **"Almost 70% of websites"** (`scale-70pc-websites`) drops "whose server-side language is known" (Finding-33).

- **"1.57 million unpatched"** is set against VulnCheck's 2.6 million hosts (about 60%); the source means 1.57 of 1.58 million hosts that show a version (about 99%). On about 32 pages, including the story "Where php2shell stands" (K-004).

- **The front page's "not answered publicly yet"** about the fix (K-011), and the status words on `nl-offline` and `kev-precedent`, stronger than their evidence.

### Who to ask, in order

The quotes below are headlines or curators' notes; each is checked character for character against its capture before it goes in a request. "Our evidence" names the claim, contradiction (K-nnn) or grade on `/factcheck/`.

#### The origins

| # | Publisher | Their words | Our evidence | The correction we would propose |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wiz (blog and X post), 21 October | "70% of the Internet" | Its own body says "powers 70% of all websites"; the figure is the share of websites with a known server-side language that use PHP (K-001) | "the language behind about 70% of websites whose server-side language is known" |
| 2 | WIRED, 22 October | "Hackers Exploited the PHP Vulnerabilities Days Before They Were Patched" | The body describes attempts; Amazon says it is unclear whether any succeeded; no named organisation has said it was compromised (K-002, `/compromise/`) | "Hackers Tried to Exploit ..." |
| 3 | BankInfoSecurity, 21 October | "Attackers Exploit Leaked Zero-Day Flaws" | CISA has not observed exploitation; KEV lists neither CVE (K-002) | "Attackers Attempt to Exploit ..." |
| 4 | Help Net Security, 22 October | "confirmed exploitation on" WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, phpMyAdmin, Nextcloud and Magento | Researchers' demonstrations, not attacks on victims | "researchers demonstrated code execution against ..." |
| 5 | The Hacker News, 22 October | a proof-of-concept exploit "leaked ahead of time" | The PHP Foundation: "No technical details leaked"; no capture shows a leaked exploit (K-009, open) | "a screenshot and video of an exploit tool circulated" |

#### The echoes, after their origin has been asked

| # | Publisher | Their words | Our evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | CNN Business | "affecting 70% of the internet" | K-001; CNN's own body says "70% of all websites" |
| 7 | BBC live page | Wiz estimating "roughly 70%" | "roughly" is in neither Wiz capture; keep the BBC's own "unable to verify" |
| 8 | Fortune | "could take down 70% of the internet" | K-001 |
| 9 | CRN | "70 percent of the Internet affected" | K-001 |
| 10 | Le Temps (French) | "des millions de sites sont débranchés" | The community tracker counts about 50 sites dark and back; our ledger, 10 reports (K-006) |
| 11 | TechTarget Japan (Japanese) | "more than 22 million servers" at risk | Unit 42's figure, its method unpublished; Censys counts 1.57 million hosts |
| 12 | Security.NL (Dutch) | "Misbruik ... gemeld" (abuse reported) | Its own body: whether the attacks succeeded is unclear |

Not yet: the circulating CVSS "10.0", the BBC's "90%" and the UK minister's figures. None is captured; capture first (board 242).

### Who sends, and how

The liaison may not send mail: the security requirements allow mail only to subscribers (section 6), and the sender is undecided. **The desk recommends the editor sends each request, from the editor's own address, on the liaison's draft.** A correction request signed by a named journalist gets read; one from an agent's mailbox gets filtered. It needs no change to the security requirements, every message is approved by being sent, and `/outreach/` records each one with its status. Revisit a standing rule after the first ten.

A request is one point, polite and checkable: their words, the primary source's words, the correction proposed, our page with the evidence. Never "over the top", never two outlets in one message.

### Board items opened by this brief

| Board | Owner | Work |
|---|---|---|
| 240 | claude-story-site | Clean hands: Finding-102 and Finding-33 (the 70% wordings), K-004 (the 1.57 million framing, on about 32 pages), K-011 on the front page, the status words on `nl-offline` and `kev-precedent`. |
| 241 | liaison@php.newsroom | Bring `claude/corrections-liaison-desk` up to dev; re-check R-001 to R-003 against the 295 sources; draft requests 2 to 12 above, each quote checked against its capture; release `/outreach/`. |
| 242 | collector-researchers | Capture the CVSS "10.0" relays (Florian Roth, Phoenix Security, Cyber Daily), the BBC's "90%" as it stands and the UK minister's figures. |
| 243 | editor | The sending decision: the editor sends each request on the liaison's draft (recommended), or a standing rule with a change to the security requirements. |
| 244 | factcheck | Close or keep Finding-33, Finding-102 and K-009 with a fresh look, so the first requests can unblock (needs board 238). |

This brief is the file `admin/content/briefs/2026-10-24__brief__asking-for-corrections.md` in the repository, published as written.

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