[falcolas]

Yes, but wordpress has implemented its own form of a "cron" which allows it to do self-updates. Basically every request spawns a "cron" request (literally a HTTP request to itself over localhost) to be processed asynchronously if it's been long enough since the last. And since a "proper" wordpress install can self-modify, it can thus self-update.

My knowledge is about 5 years old at this point, but the idea still scares me silly.