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   nixCraft 🐧 (nixcraft@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 26-Aug-2025 19:53:12 JST nixCraft 🐧

   What’s the most disturbing, scary linux or unix command you’ve seen or executed ever?

   • Embed this notice
     Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Tuesday, 26-Aug-2025 19:53:10 JST Charlie Stross

     in reply to

     • Peter N. M. Hansteen

     @pitrh @nixCraft The breakage was random, progressive, and entertaining (FSVO "entertaining").

   • Embed this notice
     Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Tuesday, 26-Aug-2025 19:53:11 JST Charlie Stross

     in reply to

     @nixCraft

     chown -R myname:myname /*

     Done by a clueless tech author (username: myname) who'd just been given a new workstation and thought to tidy up all those files with random-looking owner and group names.

     (Actually that wasn't on Linux it was on SCO Open Desktop, and I think the flag might have been -r on that, but it's the same principle. Luckily they'd only have the machine for a couple of hours so a complete wipe and reinstall fixed it.)

     (PS: no, it wasn't me!)

   • Embed this notice
     Peter N. M. Hansteen (pitrh@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 26-Aug-2025 19:53:11 JST Peter N. M. Hansteen

     in reply to

     • Charlie Stross

     @cstross @nixCraft I anticipage breakage, interesting in the Chinese sense

     Peter Krefting repeated this.