The test that deleted my home folder
Comments on “The test that deleted my home folder”
Claim-checked. Scored by all three judges, and its checkable claims were compared with the sources it cites. How far stories are checked
Developer Lișneanu Dumitru-Cristian describes how an AI coding assistant, running with auto-approved shell commands on his host machine, deleted his home folder in about ten seconds. To prove a new path-traversal test would fail, it restored the old code and ran the test against real paths. Recovery took about two days, aided by Git-hosted manifests and nightly database dumps; his home backup had stopped 11 months earlier. The account is self-reported and unverified. His fixes: destructive tests in throwaway containers, monitored backups, least-privilege folders.
Why it ranked
No. 4 of 109 with a score of 0.74. The panel rated it highest on practical relevance (0.90) and reader interest (0.87), lowest on significance (0.55). The judges disagreed most on technical depth (spread 0.42), so the story is marked contested. Placed No. 4, No. 5 by score alone: the placement terms moved other stories past it.
- AI judgeJudge 2claude-haiku-5-5
- A practitioner post-mortem on an AI coding assistant running a destructive test on a host, with practical lessons on sandboxing and backups. Substantive and relevant, but a personal incident account with limited broader significance.
- AI judgeJudge 3gpt-5.6-luna
- A detailed firsthand incident explains how an AI coding assistant’s destructive regression test deleted a host home directory, with concrete failure analysis and broadly actionable isolation, backup, permissions, and recovery practices.
Each judge wrote its line after answering the rubric, with the site and the author still hidden. Every answer behind this is in the table under Score.
Score
0.74total under rubric v2.3Contestedjudges differ by 0.42 on technical depth
- Significance0.55
- Reader interest0.87
- Audience breadth0.68
- Practical relevance0.90
- Substantiated0.73
- Technical depth0.75
- New information0.81
- Counts against: Promotional0.03
- Counts against: Overclaim0.12
Each judge’s answer per question (0–1), their mean and spread, and what the question adds to the score (weight × mean).
| Question | Judge 1 | Judge 2 | Judge 3 | Mean | Spread | Weight | Contribution (weight times mean) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SignificanceHow much does this change what people in tech know or can do? | 0.61 | 0.35 | 0.68 | 0.55 | 0.33 | +0.24 | +0.132 |
| Reader interestWould a well-informed senior engineer or tech founder want to read this today, and likely pass it on? | 0.88 | 0.80 | 0.92 | 0.87 | 0.12 | +0.26 | +0.225 |
| Audience breadthHow many people who build technology does it concern? | 0.82 | 0.50 | 0.72 | 0.68 | 0.32 | +0.13 | +0.088 |
| Practical relevanceHow useful is it to someone who builds software or tech products? | 0.97 | 0.80 | 0.92 | 0.90 | 0.17 | +0.22 | +0.198 |
| SubstantiatedHow well is it backed? Consider whether it is the primary source, and whether its main claims come with data, code, a demo, a reproducible method or citations. | 0.81 | 0.60 | 0.78 | 0.73 | 0.21 | +0.05 | +0.036 |
| Technical depthHow technically substantive is it? | 0.97 | 0.55 | 0.72 | 0.75 | 0.42 , above the contested threshold | +0.05 | +0.037 |
| New informationDoes it contain information absent from the stories covered in the last 7 days (list provided)? | 0.72 | 0.85 | 0.86 | 0.81 | 0.14 | +0.05 | +0.041 |
| PromotionalIs it mainly marketing with little substance (a press release, ad or sponsored post with no real information)? A launch post that carries real news is not promotional. | 0.03 | 0.05 | 0.01 | 0.03 | 0.04 | −0.19 | −0.006 |
| OverclaimDo the headline or conclusions claim more than the body supports? | 0.13 | 0.20 | 0.04 | 0.12 | 0.16 | −0.11 | −0.014 |
| Sum of contributions | +0.738 | ||||||
| Claim-check penalty | 0.000 | ||||||
| Total, as published | 0.738 | ||||||
Spread is the highest minus the lowest judge answer. marks a spread above 0.40: the judges disagree, and the story is marked contested.
The badge for this ranking, for the author's page or anyone's: one line of HTML, and it links back here.
<a href="https://rubric.hrih.si/editions/2026-11-06/4/"><img src="https://rubric.hrih.si/badge/2026-11-06/4.svg" alt="Ranked #4 on Rubric, 6 Nov 2026" width="231" height="28"></a>Claim check
Claim check: 8 no source given. Each claim is compared with the source the article itself cites; a flag is published only when both checkers agree.
No source givenNumber
The deletion ran for about ten seconds and removed everything the author's user account could delete.
The article gives no link or citation for it.
The article says “The deletion ran for about ten seconds and removed everything my user could delete”
The source says No source to compare with.
No source givenDate
Services logged a successful script read at 10:12:16 and the first 'file not found' at 10:12:27, placing the deletion within an eleven-second window.
The article gives no link or citation for it.
The article says “One read a script successfully at 10:12:16, and the first “file not found” appeared at 10:12:27”
The source says No source to compare with.
No source givenNumber
Scanning the raw disk for the tool call's unique identifier recovered 351 records of the lost session transcript, including the exact command.
The article gives no link or citation for it.
The article says “recovered 351 records of the lost transcript, including the exact command”
The source says No source to compare with.
No source givenCausal conclusion
The AI assistant stashed the fix to put the old vulnerable code back and ran the tests against it on the host, and this caused the deletion.
The article gives no link or citation for it.
The article says “stash the fix, putting the old vulnerable code back”
The source says No source to compare with.
No source givenCausal conclusion
Three MySQL databases had group-writable data folders; their core files were deleted but they kept running on open file handles until the next-day reboot, after which all three failed to start.
The article gives no link or citation for it.
The article says “The first reboot, the next day, made the deleted files disappear for real. All three databases failed to start”
The source says No source to compare with.
No source givenNumber
The databases were restored from nightly SQL dumps taken a few hours earlier, the only working backup.
The article gives no link or citation for it.
The article says “They were restored from the nightly SQL dumps taken a few hours earlier, the one backup that was working”
The source says No source to compare with.
No source givenNumber
Before the incident, the home folder backup had silently stopped 11 months earlier.
The article gives no link or citation for it.
The article says “Before the incident, the home backup had silently stopped 11 months earlier”
The source says No source to compare with.
No source givenNumber
Recovery took about 2 days.
The article gives no link or citation for it.
The article says “Recovery took about 2 days”
The source says No source to compare with.
Also covered by
No other coverage was clustered with this story.
Elsewhere
Elsewhere: HN 2 pts, not on front page
Recorded for context only, checked 6 Nov 2026, 05:47 UTC. It played no part in the ranking.