[kevhito]

Misleading? Because "rm -rf /" does give a warning. From info rm:

  `--preserve-root'
       Fail upon any attempt to remove the root directory, `/', when used
       with the `--recursive' option.  This is the default behavior.

[gh02t]

Yeah long ago it was not to be the case and rm would happily gobble /, but it started with Sun adding protection. It's been the default in GNU coreutils (hence the vast majority of Linux distros) since 2006.

[nthcolumn]

You forgot the * I put in.