Reading Responses: Status Codes, Headers, and Body Forensics A 403 and a 404 look similar. They mean completely different things. Series: curl — The Request Engine You Never Learned Properly …

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A practical guide to reading HTTP responses as a security practitioner using curl. Covers the three key curl output flags (-I, -i, -v), how to interpret status codes forensically (especially the 403 vs 404 distinction), extracting technology fingerprints from response headers, detecting open redirects, analyzing response body for error leakage, and using timing differentials to detect time-based blind SQL injection. Includes a 3-step response triage workflow and a quick reference cheat sheet.