Detecting the use of “curl – bash” server side

Re:Detecting the use of “curl – bash” server side by coldtea on Wednesday April 20, 2016 @08:41PM (#11538857)

The thing is, if thousands use it, then you'd know if it's unsafe...

Beyond that, yeah, nothing is absolutely certain in life except death and taxes...

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Re:Detecting the use of “curl – bash” server side by raesene6 on Thursday April 21, 2016 @07:20AM (#11541105)

in security where breaches can cost a lot of money, relying on heavy use as an indication of trustworthiness may not be a great idea.

For example OpenSSL was and is used by lots of people, this has not stopped it having a lot of security problems...

And true once the vulnerabilities get published you get to know about the problems more quickly but then in a world of targeted attacks and professional exploitation that might not be great comfort..

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Re:Detecting the use of “curl – bash” server side by tamana on Thursday April 21, 2016 @12:36AM (#11539724)

This assumption fails in the network connected world where a program can download custom instructions after installation.

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Re:Detecting the use of “curl – bash” server side by coldtea on Thursday April 21, 2016 @02:39AM (#11540088)

It doesn't fail, it's still as usable as ever -- just not infallible, which nothing is anyway.

The dynamics of something with a larger user base being more trustworthy don't change because we're on the internet. It's a simple network (no pun intended) effect.

If the program "can download custom instructions after installation" then a large user base still means that users will be bound to find it sooner or later (and make it public/fix it) and it makes it less likely to be you (because you're 1 from 200,000 downloading it, not 1 of 20 or 200).

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