In most contexts empty file is indeed a valid executable. Debian folks learned this the hard way recently: https://bugs.debian.org/919341 https://bugs.debian.o

In most contexts empty file is indeed a valid executable. Debian folks learned this the hard way recently: https://bugs.debian.org/919341 https://bugs.debian.org/919341 However, executing /dev/null doesn't seem to work on Linux: $ sudo chmod 777 /dev/null $ /dev/null bash: /dev/null: Permission denied