I wouldn't joke with that.. Someone may actually try and lose a lot of time and ...

Ao7bei3s · on March 13, 2013

It'd teach them not to run random commands they found on the internet, what rm does, and to make backups. Three valueable lessons.

That is, if it would actually work: modern rm implementations have a special case for /. Read the manpage and/or try this instead:

rm -rf --no-preserve-root /

nivla · on March 13, 2013

Its atleast disabled by default in latest versions of Ubuntu and other distros, but regardless paul_f shouldn't have posted it without any disclaimer.

haileys · on March 14, 2013

If you blindly run code you find on the Internet without understanding what it does, you deserve all you get.