dd
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 19 of 86 privilege escalation tools by recommenders
Recommended for exact byte-for-byte copies and disk cloning. Main caveat: its odd syntax and a wrong target can destroy data.
Recommended for exact byte-for-byte copies and disk cloning. Main caveat: its odd syntax and a wrong target can destroy data.
25 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 18
- criticize it
- 7
- approval share
- 72%
Recommended in 8 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 18 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 8 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Byte-for-byte copying without guesswork
“`dd` is a real power user command, I’d prefer that it isn’t doing “intelligent” things”
Comment from 15 Sep 2026 in “Ubuntu 26.10 completes transition to Rust-based coreutils” “it does byte for byte copies instead of 100kloc fuckery”
Comment from 31 May 2026 in “Openrsync: A BSD-licensed implementation of rsync, by the OpenBSD team” Low-level control over block sizes
“I like being able to explicitly set block sizes and force sync writes.”
Comment from 9 Mar 2026 in “Flash media longevity testing – 6 years later” “it's a low level tool to do exactly that”
Comment from 24 Nov 2025 in “Unpowered SSDs slowly lose data” Straightforward, reliable disk cloning
“I just did dd if=/dev/nvmeOldLaptop of=/dev/nvmeNewLaptop and was good to go”
Comment from 8 Aug 2026 in “Apple Introduces Leasing Program for iPhones and Other Devices” “This is the most straightforward reliable option”
Comment from 25 Nov 2025 in “Unpowered SSDs slowly lose data”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Easy to destroy the wrong device
“Long live dd! Except every time I use it I am terrified I'll blow out the brains of the wrong device”
Comment from 7 Oct 2026 in “Shipping JPEG XL in Chrome” “dd is the software equivalent of removing the riving knife from a table saw.”
Comment from 12 Dec 2025 in “Programmers and software developers lost the plot on naming their tools” “the risk of catastrophic data loss from misuse of `dd`”
Comment from 9 Mar 2026 in “Flash media longevity testing – 6 years later” Bizarre, unintuitive command syntax
“Seriously, it's a weird obtuse command. Weird syntax that doesn't match anything else”
Comment from 15 Sep 2026 in “Ubuntu 26.10 completes transition to Rust-based coreutils” “not have to remember dd's bizarre snowflake command syntax”
Comment from 8 Apr 2026 in “Running Out of Disk Space in Production”
Other privilege escalation tools people recommend
The four most recommended other privilege escalation tools, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 86 privilege escalation tools, rankedWhat people said
22 of the 25 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Long live dd! Except every time I use it I am terrified I'll blow out the brains of the wrong device”
“It would appear GNU dd 9.9 still does a call for every block.”
“`dd` is a real power user command, I’d prefer that it isn’t doing “intelligent” things”
“Seriously, it's a weird obtuse command. Weird syntax that doesn't match anything else”
“otherwise anything else than dd”
“The problem with dd is, that you can't really run it on a running system”
“it doesn't always seem to work for ISOs”
“I just did dd if=/dev/nvmeOldLaptop of=/dev/nvmeNewLaptop and was good to go”
“This looks great. Going to give it a try.”
“A project like this was on my wishlist for a long time.”
“we can run docker on Mac’s with no vm”
“it does byte for byte copies instead of 100kloc fuckery”
“not have to remember dd's bizarre snowflake command syntax”
“I suppose that occurs because dd breaks the pipe.”
“I like being able to explicitly set block sizes and force sync writes.”
“the risk of catastrophic data loss from misuse of `dd`”
“dd is the software equivalent of removing the riving knife from a table saw.”
“But man, do I love me some dd.”
“This is the most straightforward reliable option”
“You should absolutely be doing a full block read of your disk”
“it's a low level tool to do exactly that”
“I'm unsure if dd if=/the/disk of=/dev/null does the read function.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.