OS X: $ cat /dev/random asks me to print

Question

When I run:

$ cat /dev/random

on OS X 10.9, after a short period of time, a print dialog pops up asking me if I want to print gibberish (iTerm2).

Using the native terminal application, it just crashes.

I understand that /dev/random produces noise but why does this print dialog randomly show up and why does the native terminal application crash?

Answer 1

You've inadvertently tripped over the concept of Fuzz Testing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzz_testing) in which software is tested using random inputs in an effort to make it crash or act unexpectedly.

The mechanism at play is that a terminal application interprets every character it's sent to see if it should perform some special function such as bolding text, ringing the "bell" or even printing the screen.

Report any bugs you find to the software makers (though a common response to bugs discovered through fuzz testing is "well don't do that").