Posted: . At: 8:30 AM. This was 1 year ago. Post ID: 8649
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Commands not to run on a Linux machine.

This is an excellent example of a command not to run on a Linux machine. This is commonly posted as a troll.

sudo $(echo "64642069663d2f6465762f7a65726f206f663d2f6465762f73646120636f756e743d3130302062733d314d0a" | xxd -r -p)

And this is what it actually does.

jason@ubuntu:~$ echo "64642069663d2f6465762f7a65726f206f663d2f6465762f73646120636f756e743d3130302062733d314d0a" | xxd -r -p
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda count=100 bs=1M

This will corrupt your hard drive and the Linux user will lose all of their data.

Here is another command that is commonly posted as a troll.

:(){ :|:& };:

This is a fork bomb, this will constantly spawn new processes until your system slows to a crawl. Always be careful of commands posted in less-than-reputable forums. If they are obfuscated like the xxd example, then do not run them, even if you are not using root or if you do not have sudo enabled.

There are trolls that tell people to delete System32 on Windows, but apparently, this does not work as well as people think. The proper command will not delete files as they are locked while Windows runs. The user would need to boot from a Linux live disc and then delete that Windows folder. So be careful when looking for help on websites like 4chan. They might give you something like this as a “helpful” post.

'Helpful' 4chan post.
‘Helpful’ 4chan post.

Here is another command that you might see on the Internet.

sudo $(echo "64642069663d2f6465762f7a65726f206f663d2f6465762f73646120636f756e743d3130302062733d314d0a" | xxd -r -p)

This is not a command you would want to run.

This is what it actually does.

┌──(john㉿DESKTOP-PF01IEE)-[~]
└─$ echo "64642069663d2f6465762f7a65726f206f663d2f6465762f73646120636f756e743d3130302062733d314d0a" | xxd -r -p
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda count=100 bs=1M

So, never run a command like this if it is given to you as a solution.

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