Not Kidding! Bash Shell Manual is Part of Epstein Files 🫣

When I first saw a tweet about the Bash Reference Manual being part of Epstein files, I simply thought of it as a joke.

And then there were more tweets. As a Linux user and an open source enthusiast, I was curious and I had to find out if there was any truth in it.

The truth is that indeed Bash Reference Manual is part of the Epstein Files released by the U.S. Department of Justice. You can access it here.

Why is Bash Manual in the Epstein Files?

That's the real question. Epstein Files are about deplorable crime. Or, so I thought.

But when I dove deeper, I realized that not everything released by the government has an actual bearing on the crime.

Basically, there's no deep or sinister reason. Bash Reference Manual is just one random technical document among millions of pages of everything Epstein apparently had on his computers and servers over the years.

Probably it was downloaded by a person who was managing Epstein's systems. It is common for system engineers to save reference manuals on their work computer, right? It should not come as a surprise at all.

And remember, Epstein Files are an extremely broad dump. It is not curated to include only relevant documents. It has all kinds of random stuff like ebooks, audio manuals, articles. So, the Bash manual ended up in there too.

BTW, Bill Gates is in those files

As per media reports, Bill Gates is in Epstein files too and unlike Bash Reference Manual, the reasons are not innocent. And if some reports are to be believed, he contracted STDs from these adventures. Not the first time Microsoft software got infected by a virus.

There are so many big names in the Epstein files but you know who is not there? Your homeboy, Linus Torvalds.

On an absurdly ridiculous level, does the inclusion of the Bash reference manual in Epstein files give you a reason to start using Zsh instead? Okay, bye 😜