Live data from Hacker News

“I will slaughter you”

daniel.haxx.se

51–60 of 265 posts

Re: “I will slaughter you”

#51
post #24

I've seen the theme of "maintainer of popular open source product is threatened by person who doesn't understand it's just a component" show up a few times, but when I think about it most those times have been related to curl specifically. Maybe it's because of the domain haxx.se? Or maybe Daniel just writes about it a lot? Does this kind of thing happen so regularly to others?

I'm guessing it is because people who create these hacking tools often need to do HTTP requests, so they just copy in libcurl source and before you know it Daniel's name is associated with all these tools and attacks.

Re: “I will slaughter you”

#52
post #9

Not sure what this solves really. Some pissed off weirdo is an idiot aye. Either it's scary and get law enforcement involved or it's not and we're gawking and laughing at someone at their worst moment. In an attempt to take this post at its most charitable I agree, it fucking sucks there's not enough focus on mental health in the world.

When you get messages like this, sometimes you end up taking it differently to how it appears as a third party. Any threat of violence online can be interpreted as a joke, it's not easy to tell the difference sometimes and it's harder when you're on the receiving end of it.

Re: “I will slaughter you”

#53
I think we all owe Daniel a certain amount of thanks for somehow, incidentally, maybe, preventing nutjob exhibit A from getting a multi million dollar defense project.

And anytime such unrealistic threats are made, this always makes it seem like maybe it's not so bad:

https://youtu.be/Nw1643T0RD0

(One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces, by Pink Floyd)

Re: “I will slaughter you”

#54

Daniel was probably warned by many not to respond a second time, or maybe he thinks that this emailer is a crank who isn't worth responding to, but I kinda wish he would. The emailer is either experiencing the effects of curl exploits, and doing a bad job of explaining it, or is very confused about the role curl plays in exploits in general. I'm not willing to assume the latter, although I think that's the assumption…

I agree: it's a good way to handle angry people by taking it in a soft tone and explaining; it may have a positive impact on the person because someone cares, and if the person was just angry at the moment it may also help them learn something. I often tend to take some time to respond to such kind of angry messages though, you really need to make an effort on yourself to get back to a "kind" state of mind for it to work.

Re: “I will slaughter you”

#55
What a strange person and what a peculiar email.

What does any of the listed software have to do with curl? You might as well attack GET and POST.

And in the middle of a violent rant, he also gives a backhanded compliment - "Formula 1 racecar" - that's the part I agree with.

Re: “I will slaughter you”

#57

Daniel was probably warned by many not to respond a second time, or maybe he thinks that this emailer is a crank who isn't worth responding to, but I kinda wish he would. The emailer is either experiencing the effects of curl exploits, and doing a bad job of explaining it, or is very confused about the role curl plays in exploits in general. I'm not willing to assume the latter, although I think that's the assumption…

Yeah I think a reply ignoring the threat and just explaining what Curl is would be the best approach here.

Either the person is just a crank and in that case no harm done, or the person has legitimately been affected by an exploit and at the very least it will inform them of what actually happened and how Curl isn't to blame at all.

Re: “I will slaughter you”

#59

The general demeanor of that person, some of the lingo used like "rooting" or "federal server hijacking", the fact that in the screenshot he's using some text editor with ads in it to browse the offending code combined with the fact that he doesn't know what Curl is (if he did he wouldn't have sent this e-mail) screams "script kiddie" to me. I'm not sure whether this person is actually responsible for a multi-million…

[deleted]

Re: “I will slaughter you”

#60

Um, so is this a bad time to bring up Rust?

Yes it is. And also, all the other times. This has nothing to do with any vulnerability in curl, just that someone might have used curl to script requests. You might as well attack the HTTP protocol.
Post reply on HN