Command Line Heroes

By Red Hat

What's Command Line Heroes about?

Stories about the people transforming technology from the command line up.

4.5

269 ratings

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LAST EPISODE

All Together Now

05.31.2022

Our show is all about heroes making great strides in technology. But in InfoSec, not every hero expects to ride off into the sunset. In our series finale, we tackle vulnerability scans, how sharing information can be a powerful tool ...

Command Line Heroes episodes:

05.31.2022 All Together Now Our show is all about heroes making great strides in technology. But in InfoSec, not every hero expects to ride off into the sunset. In our series finale, we tackle vulnerability scans, how sharing information can be a powerful tool ...
05.17.2022 Invisible Intruders What began as a supposed accounting error landed Cliff Stoll in the midst of database intrusions, government organizations, and the beginnings of a newer threat—cyber-espionage. This led the eclectic astronomer-cum-systems administrator to create what we know today as intrusion detection. ...
05.03.2022 Ruthless Ransomers It’s a strange situation when someone can hold something hostage from halfway around the world. It’s tragic when your own pictures and files are remotely encrypted. But when it’s a hospital’s system? Ransomware becomes a problem about life or death. ...
04.19.2022 Menace in the Middle All communication leaves the possibility for crossed wires. And as we become more connected, there’s a chance for those with ill intentions to steal our information and meddle in our daily lives—with devastating results. Smriti Bhatt breaks down the complexity ...
04.05.2022 Dawn of the Botnets Overwhelming numbers are scary—even in the best of circumstances. You can plan for them, build up your defenses, and do everything imaginable to prepare. But when that horde of zombies hits, their sheer numbers can still cause devastation. Botnets are ...
03.22.2022 Lurking Logic Bombs Logic bombs rarely have warning sounds. The victims mostly don’t know to expect one. And even when a logic bomb is discovered before it’s triggered, there isn’t always enough time to defuse it. But there are ways to stop them ...
03.08.2022 Terrifying Trojans Sometimes a fun game, a friendly email, or an innocuous link can be the most convenient place for an enemy to hide. And its prey is none the wiser—until it strikes. The trojan horse uses many layers of deception to ...
02.22.2022 Relentless Replicants Computer viruses and worms haunt the internet. They worm their way into a system, replicate, and spread again. It’s a simple process—with devastating consequences. But there’s a whole industry of people that rose up to fight back. Craig Schmugar recalls ...
02.08.2022 Command Line Heroes Season 9: The Horrors of Malware Malware haunts us all. Viruses, worms, trojan horses, and the harm they do often corrupts the promise of the internet. But the world of computing continues to grow. Though it’s changed us forever, malware hasn’t stopped us from connecting. Season ...
12.14.2021 Robot as Vehicle Self-driving cars are seemingly just around the corner. These robots aren’t quite ready for the streets. For every hyped-up self-driving showcase, there’s a news story about its failure. But the good news is that we get closer every year. Alex ...
11.30.2021 Robot as Threat When a robot goes bad, who is responsible? It’s not always clear if the user or the manufacturer is liable when a robot leaves the lot. Human behavior can be complex—and often contradictory. Asking machines to interpret that behavior is ...
11.16.2021 Humans as Robot Caretakers HitchBOT was an experiment in stewardship: A small, rudimentary robot unable to move on its own, depending on the kindness of passersby to help it along its journey. Until it met an untimely end. Trust is a two-way street, and ...
11.02.2021 Robot as Body For years, prosthetic technology focused on form over function, on masking lost limbs, rather than agency and usability. But things are changing. Innovations in robotics are giving more people more options, with lower thresholds of entry—and lower price tags, too. ...
10.26.2021 From Compiler: Do We Want A World Without Technical Debt? Who says tech talk has to be boring? On Compiler, we dig into tech topics big, small, and strange. We talk to people who know the code, and bring their perspectives back to you. Intrigued? Here's a preview episode. Software ...
10.19.2021 Robot as Humanoid It’s hard enough to make a functional, reliable robot. Many people also want to make those robots in our image. That’s a tough needle to thread. Often, the most efficient design isn’t the most human-like one. But that isn’t stopping ...
10.05.2021 Robot as Maker One of the first functional robots appeared on TV in 1966. That’s earlier than some of us expect. The Unimate’s televised premiere sparked the world’s imagination. It represented a host of possibilities. Those possibilities, however, also implied a coming competition ...
09.21.2021 Robot as Software Building a physical robot isn’t cheap—even when it’s the final version. Designing a robot and testing it over and over again? That takes a lot of tries. And likely more than a few failures on the way to success. Luckily, ...
09.07.2021 Robot as Servant The 1980s promised robotic servants were in reach. They’d clean up our houses. Bring us drinks. Usher in an era of leisure. We didn’t get robot butlers. But if we look around, we’ll find an army of robotic servants already ...
08.24.2021 Command Line Heroes Season 8: Broadcasting the Robot Revolution Robots have a special place in our imaginations. Writers, artists, directors, and more have shown how robots can change our world—for better or far, far worse. In the real world, robots seem a long way off. But are they? Season ...
06.29.2021 After the Bubble The Y2K bug generated a lot of fear, but all that hype fizzled when the new millennium didn’t start with a digital apocalypse. It turns out that fear was just aimed at the wrong catastrophe. While plenty were riding high ...
06.15.2021 The World of the World Wide Web 1995 laid the groundwork for a truly global World Wide Web. But not every country took the same path to connecting to the internet. Some resisted, wanting to create their own version. Others had to fight for access, not wanting ...
06.01.2021 Looking for Search The web was growing quickly in the ‘90s. But all that growth wasn’t going to lead to much if people couldn’t actually find any web sites. In 1995, an innovative new tool started crawling the web. And the search engine ...
05.18.2021 Shopping for the Web We put a lot of trust into online shopping: sharing our names, addresses, and handing over money. In return, we have faith that the purchased item appears at our doorstep in a few days or weeks. That trust didn’t come ...
05.04.2021 Web UX Begins Looking at the internet in 1995 is like looking back at awkward grade school yearbooks—all the weirdness and flaws stand out in stark contrast to what it’s grown into since. And web design took awhile to become a career—but it ...
04.20.2021 A Language for the Web The Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) gave everyone a foundation for building and viewing the World Wide Web. In 1995, its standardization led to dominance. Its simplicity helped it spread. And its solid common foundation helped shape the internet. Dr. Belinda ...
04.06.2021 From NSF to ISP 1995 was the year that ISPs became the dominant gateway to the information superhighway. But how’d we go from ARPANET all the way to that? It turns out, none of it would have happened without a team of intrepid engineers ...
03.23.2021 Connecting the Dot-Com The year is 1995. The internet starts going mainstream and the dot-com bubble begins its rapid inflation. But 10 years before all of this, a small team of systems administrators made a seemingly simple decision that would turn out to ...
03.09.2021 Command Line Heroes Season 7: Internet Class of '95 The internet’s been around for awhile now. And it’s safe to say that it’s changed much of our daily lives. But not so long ago, there were few people who realized how transformative the internet would become. Season 7 of ...
01.19.2021 Arlan Hamilton: The Investor Who's Opening Doors If you think hard work is enough to guarantee success, you haven’t been listening. All season long, we’ve profiled Black inventors who haven’t quite been given their due. Arlan Hamilton is helping reverse that trend by leveling the playing field—and ...
01.05.2021 Gladys Perkins: The Pioneer Who Took Us To New Heights Is the moon made of cheese? Of course not. But can a person walk on the surface? Not too long ago, we couldn’t answer that question. But with the help of Gladys Perkins, we soon figured out that we could ...
12.22.2020 Roy Clay: The Entrepreneur Who Transformed an Industry Roy Clay had to chase after opportunities. But landing a promising position wasn’t the finish line. Roy Clay pushed those opportunities beyond their mandate, transforming an industry in the process. Kathy Cotton recounts how few opportunities Roy Clay had growing ...
12.08.2020 Dr. Clarence Ellis: The Developer Who Helped Us Collaborate It’s not easy to learn how to use computers when you can’t actually touch them. But that’s how Dr. Clarence Ellis started his career of invention—which would ultimately lead to reimagining how we all worked with computers and each other. ...
11.24.2020 Dr. Marc Hannah: The Computer Scientist Who Brought Worlds to Life Sometimes an inventor designs a device for a specific purpose. Sometimes it’s to try something new. But successful inventions often shape industries beyond those they initially intended. Dr. Marc Hannah built an invention with far bigger effects than anyone could ...
11.10.2020 Mark Dean: The Inventor Who Made the Computer Personal Dr. Mark Dean has a superpower. He wasn’t born with it. He wasn’t exposed to high levels of radiation. It’s a power he learned from his father. And because of it, he was able to revolutionize the personal computer. David ...
10.27.2020 Dr. Gladys West: The Mathematician Who Reshaped Our World Aristotle and Eratosthenes are big names in geodesy. They got pretty close to measuring the size of the Earth. But the woman who got it done? She grew up a farmer, dreaming of something bigger. And her work changed how ...
10.13.2020 Jerry Lawson: The Engineer Who Changed the Game Many of us grew up playing cartridge-based games. But there's few who know the story behind how those cartridges came to be. And even fewer who know the story of the man behind them: Jerry Lawson. Few people realized how ...
09.29.2020 Command Line Heroes: Meet the Inventors Inventors don’t always get the credit they deserve, even for world-changing breakthroughs. Season 6 of Command Line Heroes tells the stories of ingenious inventors who haven’t been given their full due. These heroes did nothing less than create new industries, ...
08.11.2020 What Kind Of Coder Will You Become? The 10x Coder is often positioned as a mythical developer who can always save the day. Saron and Clive investigate how much of that myth is grounded in truth. Greg Sadetsky argues that coding is much like professional sports—some athletes ...
07.28.2020 Where Coders Code Home office. Corporate park. Co-working space. Funland campus. Coders expect options when it comes to their workplace. The relocation of the average workspace from the office to the home has revealed the benefits of working from home—but also highlighted its ...
07.14.2020 Becoming a Coder Command line heroes are software engineers, developers, programmers, systems administrators—coders. That variety in coding careers is almost as varied as the paths coders take to land their jobs. Saron Yitbarek and Clive Thompson start the season by exploring some ways ...
06.30.2020 Introducing Season 5 of Command Line Heroes After four seasons of epic tales about how command line heroes have shaped the tech landscape, we're tackling a new topic: the job itself. Season 5 covers the job of being a coder. How coding careers begin. How the job ...
05.04.2020 One More Thing with Steve Wozniak Steve Wozniak (aka Woz) has had a tremendous effect on the world of hardware. Season 4 features many of the devices he’s designed, built, worked on, and been inspired by. But for Woz, what’s most important isn’t necessarily the devices ...
04.21.2020 Consoles: The Dreamcast's Life After Death Gaming consoles are pioneering machines. The Dreamcast pushed the limits of what even consoles could do. But that wasn’t enough to guarantee commercial success. Despite that failure, fans say no other console has accomplished so much. The Dreamcast was meant ...
04.07.2020 Open Source Hardware: Makers Unite People never stop tinkering. Hardware hacking didn’t disappear after personal computers became mainstream. But it did change. A new generation of artists, designers, and activists are banding together to change the world—with open source hardware. Hardware hacking used to be ...
03.24.2020 Smarter Phones: Journey to the Palm-Sized Computer Few could imagine what a handheld computer would look like—or even do. But a trio of visionaries saw where computing was headed. To succeed in this new frontier, though, they would need to create everything from scratch, and throw out ...
03.17.2020 BONUS: Floppies Moving from punch cards and paper tape to floppies wasn’t straightforward. Hear the story of An Wang, who pushed computer storage technology forward.
03.10.2020 Floppies: The Disks that Changed the World The floppy disk was one of the greatest breakthroughs in computing. It helped spin up the software industry with a format that endured for decades. And in some cases, it’s conserved treasures once thought to be lost forever. Before floppy ...
03.03.2020 BONUS: Personal Computers Forrest Mims had a lot to say about Ed Roberts. Hear more stories about Ed's meeting with Paul Allen and Bill Gates, and the partnership they started.
02.25.2020 Personal Computers: The Altair 8800 and the Dawn of a Revolution The Altair 8800 is why we have computers in most homes today. It was initially designed for hobbyists. But a few visionaries saw massive potential in this strange little machine—and worked hard to make others see it too. What they ...
02.18.2020 BONUS: Mainframes In the 1960s, Dartmouth saw the GE 225 as a massive opportunity for its students. Hear how a few faculty members and students made the mainframe widely accessible.

Older episodes

Command Line Heroes

What's Command Line Heroes about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Command Line Heroes episodes:

All Together Now

Invisible Intruders

Ruthless Ransomers

Menace in the Middle

Dawn of the Botnets

Lurking Logic Bombs

Terrifying Trojans

Relentless Replicants

Command Line Heroes Season 9: The Horrors of Malware

Robot as Vehicle

Robot as Threat

Humans as Robot Caretakers

Robot as Body

From Compiler: Do We Want A World Without Technical Debt?

Robot as Humanoid

Robot as Maker

Robot as Software

Robot as Servant

Command Line Heroes Season 8: Broadcasting the Robot Revolution

After the Bubble

The World of the World Wide Web

Looking for Search

Shopping for the Web

Web UX Begins

A Language for the Web

From NSF to ISP

Connecting the Dot-Com

Command Line Heroes Season 7: Internet Class of '95

Arlan Hamilton: The Investor Who's Opening Doors

Gladys Perkins: The Pioneer Who Took Us To New Heights

Roy Clay: The Entrepreneur Who Transformed an Industry

Dr. Clarence Ellis: The Developer Who Helped Us Collaborate

Dr. Marc Hannah: The Computer Scientist Who Brought Worlds to Life

Mark Dean: The Inventor Who Made the Computer Personal

Dr. Gladys West: The Mathematician Who Reshaped Our World

Jerry Lawson: The Engineer Who Changed the Game

Command Line Heroes: Meet the Inventors

What Kind Of Coder Will You Become?

Where Coders Code

Becoming a Coder

Introducing Season 5 of Command Line Heroes

One More Thing with Steve Wozniak

Consoles: The Dreamcast's Life After Death

Open Source Hardware: Makers Unite

Smarter Phones: Journey to the Palm-Sized Computer

BONUS: Floppies

Floppies: The Disks that Changed the World

BONUS: Personal Computers

Personal Computers: The Altair 8800 and the Dawn of a Revolution

BONUS: Mainframes