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Daniel Stenberg
Personal blog · daniel.haxx.seprogrammingsecurity
Daniel Stenberg's personal blog at daniel.haxx.se covers programming and security. Since 2009, 654 different Hacker News readers have linked it 1,160 times, most often “Death by a Thousand Slops”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-22, and you can follow it by feed.
Rarely recommended · 3 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link his posts on AI-generated bug reports, people emailing him about curl found in unrelated software, and HTTP and curl internals. Some find specific posts funny or a favourite.
- Recommended for · 3 comments
- One commenter enjoyed a hacked-Instagram email post; one calls a post funny; one calls another a favourite example.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Documentation and ramblings of Daniel Stenberg, founder and lead developer of curl.
Most-linked posts?
- Death by a Thousand Slops23 people · 24 mentions · first linked 2025-07-14
- AI generated security reports about curl19 people · 20 mentions · first linked 2024-01-02
- “I will slaughter you”16 people · 18 mentions · first linked 2021-02-19
- “I have toyota corola”16 people · 17 mentions · first linked 2016-11-14
- Mythos Finds a Curl Vulnerability15 people · 15 mentions · first linked 2026-05-11
- Removing the Powershell Curl Alias?12 people · 12 mentions · first linked 2016-08-19
- Memory safe ‘curl’ for a more secure internet11 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2020-10-09
- Administrative Purgatory10 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2018-07-28
- Daniel Stenberg (curl) has been denied entry to the US for 870 days10 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2018-11-08
- A Tale of a Trailing Dot (2022)9 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2022-05-12
What Hacker News says?
Perhaps the knife was a bit exagerated. It will be considered a weapon in many jurisdictions. Lynx however will/should hardly be considered a hacking tool. curl has been in deep waters many times, equally perplexing as the lynx scenario. https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2016/01/19/subject-urgent-warnin...
Comment linking /blog/2016/01/19/subject-urgent-warning/
on “W3C abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns”Submitted “I have toyota corola” as a story · 1155 points
HN discussionHa, hadn't seen that one before. I did enjoy this related post about him hacking someone's Instagram. https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2016/01/19/subject-urgent-warnin...
Comment linking /blog/2016/01/19/subject-urgent-warning/
on ““I'm basically giving myself a permanent vacation from being BDFL””Submitted “I will slaughter you” as a story · 567 points
HN discussionYou're probably thinking of Daniel Stenberg of curl fame: https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2016/11/14/i-have-toyota-corola/
Comment linking /blog/2016/11/14/i-have-toyota-corola/
on ““I'm basically giving myself a permanent vacation from being BDFL””- of · 2016-03-02
Submitted Curl vs. Wget as a story · 532 points
HN discussion They could spam you with low-quality AI (but I repeat myself) PRs. Maybe add some vaguely plausible but utterly incorrect bug reports as well. Look at the some of the AI slop curl deals with -- https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2025/07/14/death-by-a-thousand-s... -- and imagine your issues list filled with that.
Comment linking /blog/2025/07/14/death-by-a-thousand-slops/
on “GitHub is no longer independent at Microsoft after CEO resignation”Submitted Curl is C as a story · 512 points
HN discussionHere's a list of AI slop reports: https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2025/07/14/death-by-a-thousand-s... I've read all of them. It's interesting how over the last 2 years badger moved from being polite to zero fucks given.
Comment linking /blog/2025/07/14/death-by-a-thousand-slops/
on “You did this with an AI and you do not understand what you're doing here”Submitted HTTP-over-QUIC will officially become HTTP/3 as a story · 498 points
HN discussionMaintainer or curl gave recently a talk on AI slop in security reports, showing this and other examples: https://youtu.be/6n2eDcRjSsk?si=p5ay52dOhJcgQtxo -- AI slop attacks on the curl project - Daniel Stenberg. Keynote at the FrOSCon 2025 conference, August 16, in Bonn Germany by Daniel Stenberg. Plus, linked above, his blogpost on the same subject https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2025/08/18/ai-slop-attacks-on-th...
Comment linking /blog/2025/08/18/ai-slop-attacks-on-the-curl-project/
on “You did this with an AI and you do not understand what you're doing here”Submitted Curl, 17 years old today as a story · 420 points
HN discussionIs there something about cUrl that attracts these AI bots, or is it just better documented by them - because I was going to say that this is old, but then I checked the date and realized that this is a new problem. Going down the rabbit-hole, @badger has made multiple posts [0][1] about AI slop. [0] https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2025/07/14/death-by-a-thousand-s... [1] https://gist.github.com/bagder/07f7581f6e3d78ef37d…
Comment linking /blog/2025/07/14/death-by-a-thousand-slops/
on “You did this with an AI and you do not understand what you're doing here”Submitted Memory safe ‘curl’ for a more secure internet as a story · 407 points
HN discussionIt's kind of depressing to read Daniel's article[1] on this issue given the rising "popularity" of these lazy attempts at cash grabbing. I hope they manage to combat the AI slop in a way that does not involve fighting fire with fire though. [1] https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2025/07/14/death-by-a-thousand-s...
Comment linking /blog/2025/07/14/death-by-a-thousand-slops/
on “You did this with an AI and you do not understand what you're doing here”Submitted “Subject: Urgent Warning” as a story · 407 points
HN discussionIt gets old very quickly. I used to have a phone number that was one easily mistaken digit away from the largest pizzeria in town, and people angrily complaining about wrong or delayed orders was not funny. One of my siblings sometimes took orders he had no intention of fulfilling :P Edit: see also legal (or other) threats, from the same author (mentioned elsewhere in the comments) https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2016/0…
Comment linking /blog/2016/01/19/subject-urgent-warning/
on ““I have toyota corola””Submitted Curl’s backdoor threat as a story · 403 points
HN discussionHe previously posted one about someone emailing him about a hacked Instagram after finding his name and the email @haxx.se in the licenses. EDIT: Here's the link: https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2016/01/19/subject-urgent-warnin...
Comment linking /blog/2016/01/19/subject-urgent-warning/
on ““I have toyota corola””Submitted Fewer mallocs in curl as a story · 392 points
HN discussionFabrice, if you're reading this, please consider replacing Rust instead with your own memory safe language. The design intent of Rust is a powerful idea, and Rust is the best of its class, but the language itself is under-specified[1] which prevents basic, provably-correct optimizations[0]. At a technical level, Rust could be amended to address these problems, but at a social level, there are now too many people who…
Comment linking /blog/2024/12/21/dropping-hyper/
on “Fabrice Bellard Releases MicroQuickJS”Submitted Considered "18+" as a story · 391 points
HN discussionhttps://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2017/03/27/curl-is-c/
Comment linking /blog/2017/03/27/curl-is-c/
on “Rust in the kernel is no longer experimental”Submitted Creator of cURL wins Polhem Prize 2017 as a story · 373 points
HN discussionNot quite the same, but maybe of interest: https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2020/10/09/rust-in-curl-with-hyp...
Comment linking /blog/2020/10/09/rust-in-curl-with-hyper/
on “This shouldn't have happened: A vulnerability postmortem”Submitted AI generated security reports about curl as a story · 371 points
HN discussionHTTP pipelining is not normal usage of HTTP/1.1. And it means that if request number 1 fails, usually request number 2 and 3 are lost because servers will slam the door shut because of the lack of framing around HTTP it is too dangerous to try and continue parsing the HTTP requests that are incoming without potentially leading to a territory where they are parsing the incoming text stream wrong. This is what led to…
Comment linking /blog/2019/04/06/curl-says-bye-bye-to-pipelining/
on “The HTTP crash course nobody asked for”Submitted Daniel Stenberg (curl) has been denied entry to the US for 870 days as a story · 337 points
HN discussionThis is my favourite example of why letting random users send in complaints is bad: https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2016/11/14/i-have-toyota-corola/
Comment linking /blog/2016/11/14/i-have-toyota-corola/
on “GitHub Should Start an App Store”Submitted Poll on macOS 10.12 is broken as a story · 337 points
HN discussion
