[tomphoolery]

That's not really relevant to what's going on here. This isn't some script you're blindly downloading/executing from an untrusted source, and it's certainly not a phishing attempt with a seemingly innocuous URL that is actually malicious once you copy it.

You can just `man curl` and find out exactly what's going on here. (http://unixhelp.ed.ac.uk/CGI/man-cgi?curl, scroll down to the bit on "--form", and check out the example) I think curl.io, the service, merely accepts this form data and stores the file on their servers, allowing you access. But you should easily be able to point at your own HTTP server and do all the same stuff. I don't see any "magic" here, other than a little web app that's responsible for taking in the data and writing whatever that data is to a given filename.

[CyberShadow]

It is absolutely relevant. Did you check the link I posted? I understand completely what's going on here, and the important part is that the website is inviting you to copy a command from the website and paste it into your terminal.

Now, even if you're OK with giving curl.io your files and trust it enough to not insert malicious commands into the command you're pasting (see link from my GP comment), since the connection is on clear text, anyone between your machine and curl.io can in theory modify the command text you're invited to copy-paste, and inject malicious commands of their choosing.

[waxjar]

I think the poster above you meant that someone could change the command to a malicious one if they found a security hole.