GitHub had connectivity problems • Hacker News Board

Re: GitHub had connectivity problems

#151

Post by bdcravens » Tue, Aug 25, 2015, 3:46 PM UTC

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #145

kzhahou wrote: post #112

It seems a certainty to me that github will be breached one of these days, and all internal data (i.e., private repos) made public. On that day, so many companies will inadvertently become open source! Do we have any info on what steps github takes to prevent this? I ask as a paying customer (with both personal and corporate accounts).

On that day, so many companies will inadvertently become open source! Well, no. They would be inadvertently source-available. If the license doesn't comply with the Open Source Definition, it's not open source. EDIT: Downvoted as usual for correcting false impressions about how free software and open source works.

This. If we accept "stolen and leaked information" as open source, we may as well start coaching discussions about privacy leaks in the same way. "Ashley Madison customers' information open sourced"

Re: GitHub had connectivity problems

#152

Post by LinuxBender » Tue, Aug 25, 2015, 3:47 PM UTC

If GitHub folks are technical in nature, couldn't they simply have a secondary mirror of their own that they host on their own servers / clouds and then reference both primary and secondary? Perhaps redirect the secondary to the primary if it is reachable to avoid bandwidth issues?

Re: GitHub had connectivity problems

#153

Post by bdcravens » Tue, Aug 25, 2015, 3:50 PM UTC

marinintim wrote: post #6

All these ideas like "let's fetch our deps directly from github" sound good until github is not down.

I'd venture to say that more downtime occurs via local issues (Internet, hardware, virus) than Github.

Re: GitHub had connectivity problems

#154

Post by bdcravens » Tue, Aug 25, 2015, 3:54 PM UTC

nadams wrote: post #103

marinintim wrote: post #6

All these ideas like "let's fetch our deps directly from github" sound good until github is not down.

Or "let's move our entire business workflow to github!". Doh! This is why you should run indefero/srchub/gitlab or any of the other self hosted source code control apps.

For most, the cost of setting up and maintaining those systems than they lose when Github is down.

Re: GitHub had connectivity problems

#155

Post by allannienhuis » Tue, Aug 25, 2015, 3:57 PM UTC

disordinary wrote: post #2

Well that's me not able to work.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11459475/should-i-check-i...

That might not be your specific problem, but I'm guessing a few people have this problem today. I'm glad I check my libraries into my local repository :) Using a local fall-back for popular libraries hosted on cdns is a good idea too.

To be fair, I don't do it because I think it's stupid not to, I do it because I often work on my laptop while travelling and have to be able to continue to work without an internet connection :)

Re: GitHub had connectivity problems

#156

Post by stingraycharles » Tue, Aug 25, 2015, 4:13 PM UTC

mrks_ wrote: post #127

atonse wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If such a massive scale breach would happen, it would probably have to take weeks because GitHub probably has so much data. (I would guess on the order of hundreds of TB or a few PB). It would be more likely to just have handful of high visibility repos.

You're probably right. It's unlikely that a hacker would care about my private repos. That being said, I'm also curious about GitHub's efforts to prevent such a scenario.

Which makes me wonder: how would one prevent such a scenario, where you cannot simply encrypt with a shared key given github's auth model ?

Re: GitHub had connectivity problems

#157

Post by Qualman » Tue, Aug 25, 2015, 4:23 PM UTC

kzhahou wrote: post #112

It seems a certainty to me that github will be breached one of these days, and all internal data (i.e., private repos) made public. On that day, so many companies will inadvertently become open source! Do we have any info on what steps github takes to prevent this? I ask as a paying customer (with both personal and corporate accounts).

I'd imagine that for legal/security reasons, you'd get about the same response as any other company:

"We use better than industry standard encryption on private repo data, encrypted with AES-1024 and encrypted in transit via TLS-3 etc etc..."

But, I don't know. What was that quote? "Don't put anything on the internet that you wouldn't want to see on your grandma's coffee table."

Re: GitHub had connectivity problems

#158

Post by zo1 » Tue, Aug 25, 2015, 4:25 PM UTC

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #145

kzhahou wrote: post #112

It seems a certainty to me that github will be breached one of these days, and all internal data (i.e., private repos) made public. On that day, so many companies will inadvertently become open source! Do we have any info on what steps github takes to prevent this? I ask as a paying customer (with both personal and corporate accounts).

On that day, so many companies will inadvertently become open source! Well, no. They would be inadvertently source-available. If the license doesn't comply with the Open Source Definition, it's not open source. EDIT: Downvoted as usual for correcting false impressions about how free software and open source works.

"EDIT: Downvoted as usual for correcting false impressions about how free software and open source works."

Are you seriously suggesting that the OP you responded to was comparing "stolen" or "leaked" software to open source? That is probably why you're being downvoted, not because people around here have a false impression as to what constitutes open-source.

Re: GitHub had connectivity problems

#159

Post by Retr0spectrum » Tue, Aug 25, 2015, 4:35 PM UTC

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #128

Retr0spectrum wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to fetch them from somewhere. If you are fetching deps from multiple sources, there is a much higher chance of at least one source being down.

Not being able to fetch one is just as bad as not being able to fetch all.

That was my point.

Re: GitHub had connectivity problems

#160

Post by vezzy-fnord » Tue, Aug 25, 2015, 4:37 PM UTC

zo1 wrote: post #158

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On that day, so many companies will inadvertently become open source! Well, no. They would be inadvertently source-available. If the license doesn't comply with the Open Source Definition, it's not open source. EDIT: Downvoted as usual for correcting false impressions about how free software and open source works.

" EDIT: Downvoted as usual for correcting false impressions about how free software and open source works. " Are you seriously suggesting that the OP you responded to was comparing "stolen" or "leaked" software to open source? That is probably why you're being downvoted, not because people around here have a false impression as to what constitutes open-source.

"Open source" has an established meaning. Even if the poster in question was using the term facetiously, I feel it must be corrected since there is legitimately a large body of misconception surrounding the mechanics of free software and open source, and such humor may fuel it further.

Moreover, it reflects a critical flaw in the open source dogma as compared to free software. Open source puts source code at the forefront, which is fallacious. The key elements are the ability to run unfettered, study, modify and redistribute identical or modified versions. The source code is a necessary precondition for properly exercising those freedoms, but not a central focus in any real sense. It is easy to misinterpret "open source" as being about publicly viewable source code, and many companies have exploited this to their advantage presently or in the past (GitHub with Atom, Epic Games with UE4, etc.)