Blind Trust: The 'curl | sh' Method of Installation
Description
A screenshot of a tweet from user Daniel Feldman (@d_feldman). The tweet, posted on March 21, 2021, reads: 'If you've ever installed a program using "curl XYZ | sh" don't worry about what's in the vaccine'. This is a highly technical joke that draws a parallel between a risky software installation practice and skepticism about vaccines. The command 'curl XYZ | sh' downloads a script from a URL and immediately executes it with shell permissions, without any opportunity for the user to inspect the code. This is considered a major security vulnerability, as the script could be malicious. The tweet humorously suggests that anyone who would take such a risk with their computer's security, blindly trusting an unknown script, is being hypocritical if they express concern about the contents of a scientifically vetted vaccine. It's a sharp commentary on misplaced priorities and risk assessment within the tech community
Comments
9Comment deleted
The most dangerous command in tech isn't 'rm -rf /' - it's the 'curl | sh' you just copied from a five-year-old Stack Overflow answer without reading the script first
If your threat model accepts ‘curl | sudo bash’ on the prod bastion at 4 PM Friday, you’re already running in Schrödinger’s supply chain - worrying about vaccine ingredients is just bikeshedding
The same developers who audit every line of a 10-line PR will happily pipe arbitrary internet scripts directly to bash with sudo privileges, yet somehow manage to maintain a healthy skepticism about FDA-approved vaccines that went through years of clinical trials
The real irony is that 'curl | sh' is basically dependency injection without the dependency inversion principle - you're just hoping that remote server isn't serving you a malicious payload instead of the installer you expected. At least vaccines go through FDA approval; that random install script from a GitHub gist? Not so much. Senior engineers know the proper pattern is: curl, inspect, verify checksum, review source, then maybe - just maybe - execute. But let's be honest, we've all done it at 2 AM when fighting with build dependencies
If 'curl | sh' is in your runbook, your SBOM is a pastebin
Devs grant root to GitHub randos via curl | sh, but mRNA is the real supply-chain attack
curl https://installer | sudo bash - the enterprise standard for RCE procurement; zero trust in policy, absolute trust in the pipe
says soy-cuckold from twitter Comment deleted
Brain backups and full-organ restarts exist, duh Comment deleted