Live data from Hacker News

GitHub Private Repos Considered Private-­Ish

tylercipriani.com

31–40 of 150 posts

Re: GitHub Private Repos Considered Private-­Ish

#31

Don’t forget OpenAI and Microsoft using your github data for training GPT. Their privacy statement says your content will not be read by “human eyes.” https://docs.github.com/en/get-started/privacy-on-github/abo...

I couldn't find the privacy policy for Azure Repos. Does anyone know if it has the same type of statement regarding 'human eyes' for private repos ?

Re: GitHub Private Repos Considered Private-­Ish

#32
post #18
post #9

Recommendations missing from the article: - Enable mandatory 2fa within your Github organization (if you don't use an organization, you probably should) - Disable the ability to fork repos in your organization - Configure and enable mandatory SAML authentication. In combination with mandatory 2fa, this makes phishing and even key leakage less likely (specific keys need to be double authorized for SAML, so that random…

Your other points are useful but I find the below questionable and counterproductive: > - Disable the ability to fork repos in your organization If someone can read it, they can trivially fork it (clone locally, then republish as new repo). The only thing you're preventing with this advice is the free discoverability and tracking of forks which you get with forks created with the GitHub "fork" button. The forks are s…

But now it becomes a harder mistake to make. Creating a new repository is easy, but not so easy you would do it by accident.

Importantly when this is discovered you can fire the person who did it, and they can't say it's was an accident, while the fork button to the wrong place is potentially an accident.

Re: GitHub Private Repos Considered Private-­Ish

#33
post #18
post #9

Recommendations missing from the article: - Enable mandatory 2fa within your Github organization (if you don't use an organization, you probably should) - Disable the ability to fork repos in your organization - Configure and enable mandatory SAML authentication. In combination with mandatory 2fa, this makes phishing and even key leakage less likely (specific keys need to be double authorized for SAML, so that random…

Your other points are useful but I find the below questionable and counterproductive: > - Disable the ability to fork repos in your organization If someone can read it, they can trivially fork it (clone locally, then republish as new repo). The only thing you're preventing with this advice is the free discoverability and tracking of forks which you get with forks created with the GitHub "fork" button. The forks are s…

The idea is to protect against accidental sharing. A rogue employee can simply take dump and share on 4Chan no matter what tools you use.

Re: GitHub Private Repos Considered Private-­Ish

#34
post #11
post #2

> We cram our secrets into git Excuse me?!

If source code isn't public, it's a secret by the traditional definition of the word.

> by the traditional definition of the word.

Sure, but in computer programming “secrets” is also industry jargon for small strings of characters that enable authentication, like passwords or private keys, which have much higher standard of secrecy than the rest of the codebase.

Re: GitHub Private Repos Considered Private-­Ish

#35
GitHub Enterprise had (has?) an interesting loophole to discover the existence of private repositories.

Attempting to transfer ownership of a repository to another user was aborted if the user had a repository of the same name—even if it was private.

Public GitHub doesn’t seem to have this issue with the transfer request system, though. Maybe it did at some point?

Re: GitHub Private Repos Considered Private-­Ish

#36
This post is mostly FUD. Case in point, the following advice:

> So, if you’re worried about it: stop putting sensitive data into private repositories.

Most of the issues mentioned in the post (misconfiguration, phishing, mistakes, zero-days) apply to all software, including non-cloud software. So the above advice is equivalent to "stop putting sensitive data into computers". It's run-of-the-mill popular-security nonsense that conveniently ignores that the alternatives come with their own risks, including security risks, and doesn't even attempt to perform a cost-benefit analysis.

Less of this stuff, please.

Re: GitHub Private Repos Considered Private-­Ish

#37
This is true for everything in the cloud that isn’t end-to-end-encrypted. There is the saying that the cloud is just someone else's computer. But in addition, you also have no control over your data on that computer not being leaked elsewhere, or the computer ending up becoming someone different’s computer.

Re: GitHub Private Repos Considered Private-­Ish

#39

I dunno about other people but I’ve always assumed that if we’re giving employees, who we may have to fire someday, access to the code base that repos should be treated as if they could be exposed to the world at any time any way.

This is a great baseline, but it is often easier said than done.

For example, those repositories contain a lot of privately identifiable information, it is not that easy to get such a baseline ready for that _"should be treated as if they could be exposed to the world at any time any way."_

Depending on jurisdiction this can affect sensitive information that requires much stronger controls in place when you (rightfully!) expect the repository to become public despite it is a private one.

Re: GitHub Private Repos Considered Private-­Ish

#40
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> formerly reputable corporations I'm sorry but when was Microsoft ever reputable? They have a long history (and reputation) of being merciless in every single way they can, and have for as long as I can remember.

A cooperation is never reputable. It is easier to reason with a dog than with a cooperation. However, me thinks this relates to the times before Github became an offering by Microsoft. But the deal was just too hard to miss, getting this massive army of minion coders who all pray to the octocat and now do the Balmers dance. Oh so much fun, now it turns out, that all feed the new AI overlords.

Developers developers developers developers
Post reply on HN