2009 Mar 27 12:21 PM MDT | Hacks⁹ Linux¹ Programming¹⁸ Windows⁵ Windows-Advanced⁴ Windows-Basic¹ [2009]³

_WARNING: Trying some of these can crash your system!_

I’ll explain a fork bomb to you in simple words:

A fork bomb duplicates itself, eventually killing and shutting the system down by overloading it.

Here are some explained examples:

Windows / Batch

REM Runs self twice and close
%0|%0

Human Readable Code:

Bomb|Bomb
Remove this bomb (end of execution).

Better Batch Fork Bomb:

:s
start %0
%0|%0
goto :s

Explanation

Start 3 instances of self and repeat

Human Readable:

Marker S
Bomb
Bomb|Bomb
Go to Marker S.

Unix Bash Code:

:(){:|:&};:

Reformated as:

:(){ # bomb(){
:|:& # bomb, bomb, and keep both of these in memory
};   # }
:    # execute bomb()

_I hope you don't try any of these on your system, unless you want it to crash!_