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by helloplanets 10 days ago
Pretty sure the developer could get in serious legal trouble if this happened to cause issues with a larger company's system.

Has anything similar happened before?

2 comments

Yes, and way before vibe-coding is a thing. Back in 2022, a version of node-ipc formatted the disk of users in Russia and Belarus.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/03/sabot...

> I ship code

> I add disclaimed that i am not liable for jack

> Someone uses my code wrong and now there's damage

Is this legally my fault? I have no idea, just curious

I am not a lawyer but I’m pretty sure you can’t just slap an MIT or whatever else license on public code with an intentional trojan hidden in it and expect to not be held accountable for the damages caused by the trojan running.

If the damage resulted from an unexpected problem like a bug, then you’re probably fine. But this phrase was intentionally placed by the author and intended to inflict at least a little damage (destroy code) onto specific users.

Whether some words are legally equivalent to an actual virus, I couldn’t say.