Fork in the Outlet: curl | sudo sh, the 'Official' Install Method

Description

A colored cartoon riff on the classic 'kid jamming a fork into an electrical outlet' editorial comic. One person in a blue shirt points anxiously and asks via speech bubble 'YOU'RE SURE THIS IS SAFE?' while another in a red shirt raises a giant two-pronged fork labeled 'curl "$URL" | sudo sh' toward a wall power outlet. The fork-wielder replies in a speech bubble: 'NO WORRIES. THE DOCUMENTATION SAID IT WAS THE OFFICIAL WAY TO INSTALL.' An imgflip.com watermark sits at bottom-left. The meme skewers the ubiquitous and notoriously risky installation pattern of piping a remote shell script from the internet directly into a root shell, normalized because project READMEs present it as the official one-liner install

Common Tags

SoftwareSupplyChainSecurity SoftwareInstallationProcess BashScripting SecurityAwareness ShellScriptingLanguages SecurityBestPractices CLI CommandLineInterface Linux Documentation

Comments

Anonymous ★ Top Pick We threat-model every dependency, then install the toolchain by handing a stranger's bash script root - but it's fine, the README used the word 'official'

Anonymous ★ Top Pick

We threat-model every dependency, then install the toolchain by handing a stranger's bash script root - but it's fine, the README used the word 'official'
Anonymous

The chain of trust is one pipe character long and terminates at root.
@Bormotoon 2mo

У меня это буквально написано в claude.md
@a_646_man 2mo

brew users on macs
@deadgnom32 2mo

I always first download, read, then execute. I'm shitting my pants to execute shell scripts like this.
1. @acidbong 2mo
  
  no, curl | bash is shitting one's pants, what you do is taking your pants off before shitting
  
  @SamsonovAnton 2mo
  
  "It's getting scary... I better take off my pants... just in case..." ©
2. @pooyabehravesh 2mo
  
  Well i always do the same, in reverse. First shitting my pants, execute the script then read the script.
  
  @mihanizzm 2mo
  
  And only theeeen download it☝️