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Comment by berbec | Hacker News Reader

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berbec

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First, to anyone reading, please don't run that command!

---

I realize that:

• We're on Hacker News, and most Hacker News users will know what that command does.

• Nobody should be running random Terminal commands found on the internet without understanding what they do.

The fact remains that some child might be browsing HN, see this "automation hack", and try running it to find out what happens. There's fundamentally no good reason to post destructive commands without a warning. It isn't funny.

hey, that's a very useful trick indeed! i suggest all try it

He was polite and did not spoil the ultimate trick without tilde character.

The version with the tilde character is worse! At least with the bare slash, some versions of rm will simply refuse to run (they require --no-preserve-root). Plus, even if it works, “rm -rf /“ is likely to start at something like /bin and spew a ton of errors unless you use sudo, giving you ample time to abort before it starts wiping the stuff you care about in /home, /usr, etc.

On the other hand, with the tilde, it will just start wiping your personal files right away and will probably not run into any permission errors.

   $ git clone git@github.com:dotfiles '$HOME'
   Cloning into '$HOME'...
   *ugh...*
   
   $ rm -rf $HOME
   *wait...*

   $ cd $HOME
   cd: no such file or directory: /Users/admin
   *fuuuuuuuu*

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