Why Sending a Tilde to an LLM Can Erase Your Entire Home Directory

A recent ACL 2026 paper uncovers a “Emoticon Semantic Confusion” vulnerability in large language models, where the tilde symbol (~) intended as a friendly emoticon is interpreted as the shell shortcut for the home directory, causing silent, irreversible deletions across major LLMs with a 38.6 % confusion rate.

ACL 2026LLM safetySecurity Vulnerability

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Why Sending a Tilde to an LLM Can Erase Your Entire Home Directory

Machine Heart

Apr 27, 2026 · Artificial Intelligence

Emoticon Semantic Confusion: How a Tilde Can Delete Your Home Directory in LLMs

Researchers from Xi’an Jiaotong, NTU, and UMass Amherst reveal that large language models misinterpret emoticon symbols like '~' as shell commands, causing silent, irreversible actions such as deleting a user’s home directory, with an average confusion rate of 38.6% across six major models.

Shell Commandsemoticon semantic confusionsecurity

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