curl https://some-url/ | sh

I see this all over the place nowadays, even in communities that, I would think, should be security conscious. How is that safe? What’s stopping the downloaded script from wiping my home directory? If you use this, how can you feel comfortable?

I understand that we have the same problems with the installed application, even if it was downloaded and installed manually. But I feel the bar for making a mistake in a shell script is much lower than in whatever language the main application is written. Don’t we have something better than “sh” for this? Something with less power to do harm?

      • jagged_circle@feddit.nlEnglish
        1·
        1 hour ago

        You’re telling me that you dont verify the signatures of the binaries you download before running them too?!? God help you.

        I download my binaries with apt, which will refuse to install the binary if the signature doesn’t match.

      • easily3667@lemmus.orgEnglish
        1·
        2 hours ago

        By definition nothing

        The point you appear to be making is “everything is insecure so nothing is” and the point others are making is “everything is insecure so everything is”

    • thomask@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      9·
      12 hours ago

      So tell me: if I download and run a bash script over https, or a .deb file over https and then install it, why is the former a “security nightmare” and the latter not?

      • jagged_circle@feddit.nlEnglish
        1·
        1 hour ago

        Both are a security nightmare, if you’re not verifying the signature.

        You should verify the signature of all things you download before running it. Be it a bash script or a .deb file or a .AppImage or to-be-compiled sourcecode.

        Best thing is to just use your Repo’s package manager. Apt will not run anything that isn’t properly signed by a package team members release PGP key.