So today Quora decided to give me a thread on "what is the most dangerous code you have seen?"

Honestly, I expected code that kills - code that makes machines crash and burn, code that makes planes fly into space, code that accidentally fires nuclear weapons, code that makes your toaster a torturing monster, burning your every inch of skin whenever it likes...etc. Indeed, there are a bunch of replies there, including most of the things I mentioned above - _almost_ wrongly firing nuclear weapons, dangerous code that _almost_ kill pilots, code that makes programmable robots do things unusually, code that sneaks so well that you never know you get infected (Stuxnet, if you are interested in it. The [Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet) is worth a read), etc. No, there is still no code that makes your toaster a monster. At least for now. I hope that it won't happen too. 

But, there's a reply that caught my attention. It's just a tiny reply, mentioning...

"**Nvidia graphics driver for Linux that killed the system**"

Great, that's something I'm looking for. 

---

![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmQ7vfXQd8yFh9NKvVEmsxBBoPftsQ8Z1QPeY8dv4SwXQW/image.png)

First sight: Wow. 

Then: Okay let's see where went wrong. 

Later: \*cried while laughing on the floor for 5 minutes*

![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmQHnT3G567re2NPm8MohZYJtsKdE17P3V6ZGHaWk9CNRn/image.png)

Alright, if you don't catch this, let me do some explanation. 

1. `rm` is a command used to delete things. 
2. `-rf` tells the deletion command that it should delete everything in that folder, including folders in it. Besides that, it should forcefully delete everything - leave nothing behind. 
3. `/usr/lib/nvidia-current/xorg/xorg` is the place where the graphics driver lives. Basically, deleting this equals to uninstalling the driver. 

Sounds nothing wrong till now. But, there was a space between /usr and /lib/... 

That would mean...deleting the entire /usr folder instead of the driver folder. If you are a Windows person, then here's some extra information - the name of the folder (usr) means "user usable programs and data" or "user system resources". Deleting this somehow equals to deleting a huge part of C:\Windows\system32 and C:\Program Files, C:\Users, etc. 

In short, it breaks your system. 

All by having an extra space in that single command. That one character killed a bunch of PCs before the developer realise how big a mess he caused. The commit went viral and tons of memes regarding it came out...wow. I never knew that a GitHub commit could go viral and be remembered to this day. It's still the commit with the most amount of comments on GitHub today. 

It is indeed the simplest and the deadliest bug we can find in history. Probably nothing else can surpass it in the long future. 

To developers, always test your code. You know, if you do not dare to test it...then something should be wrong. Believe your instincts. Plus, don't write code when you are tired, there are also a big bunch of tragics (probably comedies) caused by writing code late at night...

<center>![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmVw9bcCX3sTepHRNJswY4LVaTWrM5zK9gmjmXrRfy3Lx8/image.png)</center>

Source: [One of the issue pages on that repo](https://github.com/MrMEEE/bumblebee-Old-and-abbandoned/issues/123)

And this. 

<center>![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmb6x4tUdEEhHh44AFFSnoeoGD29kSHKuUo8ETgFbN4s65/image.png)</center>

Source: [The commit link on GitHub here](https://github.com/MrMEEE/bumblebee-Old-and-abbandoned/commit/a047be85247755cdbe0acce6f1dafc8beb84f2ac#diff-3fbb47e318cd8802bd325e7da9aaabe8)

:)

If you have the time, go and scroll the commit thread (link right above). It's full of laughter instead of rage...and embrace the memes. Even if you read it before, it is still some nice stuff to brighten up your day. 

Have fun, 

--Lilacse