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GitHub Private Repos Considered Private-­Ish

tylercipriani.com

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Re: GitHub Private Repos Considered Private-­Ish

#141
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Every CI platform under the sun has support for secrets and config that should never live in git. It's worth ensuring people know this, of course, but I'm not sure storing secrets in git is all that prevelant. Many platforms also have secrets scanning to ensure you don't accidentally do this too.

> Many platforms also have secrets scanning to ensure you don't accidentally do this too. The reason secrets scanning even became a thing is because of how often secrets get committed to git. Some of them even lead to intrusions. Uber (2016) – Attackers gained unrestricted access to Uber’s private Github repositories, found exposed secrets in the source code, and used them to access millions of records in Amazon S3 b…

Yes, they happened in the past. Over 3 years back. Times change.

You can use this and crenedials rotation, amazing, I know...

https://docs.github.com/en/code-security/secret-scanning/abo...

https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/application_security/secret_...

https://circleci.com/blog/detect-hardcoded-secrets-with-gitg...

https://www.gitkraken.com/media/events/azure-spring-clean-20...

edit: used config/secrets management for as long as I can remember doing this cloud stuff (several years), so the excuses are very, very poor imho.

Re: GitHub Private Repos Considered Private-­Ish

#142

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...

This comment is complete FUD as you’re linking to a tertiary paragraph in a document describing how your data may be used if the owner of a private repository enable it, for such use as Dependabot, CodeQL, or secrets scanning.

The top of the document is:

> GitHub aggregates metadata and parses content patterns for the purposes of delivering generalized insights within the product. It uses data from public repositories, and also uses metadata and aggregate data from private repositories when a repository's owner has chosen to share the data with GitHub by enabling the dependency graph. If you enable the dependency graph for a private repository, then GitHub will perform read-only analysis of that specific private repository.

> If you enable data use for a private repository, we will continue to treat your private data, source code, or trade secrets as confidential and private consistent with our Terms of Service. The information we learn only comes from aggregated data. For more information, see "Managing data use settings for your private repository."

Taking a single paragraph out of context isn’t worthy of the top-voted comment.

Re: GitHub Private Repos Considered Private-­Ish

#143
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Genuine question) what is a use case where an employee needs to fork your company’s repo rather than open a PR? The only one I can think of is what you mentioned (testing CI workflows that match a branch name) but at least at our company that can usually be done in a PR. I don’t see any obvious reason why an employee would ever need to fork a company’s private repo to their personal GitHub account.

For large projects this can happen. Think the Linux forks that AMD etc maintain and then regularly do a series of PRs to integrate them into some staging branch which then makes its way to the kernel if approved. It’s a typical workflow for inter-org codebase.

Those are public repositories.

I do not see the benefit of forking private repositories and have disabled it in the company org that I manage.

Re: GitHub Private Repos Considered Private-­Ish

#144

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...

This comment is complete FUD as you’re linking to a tertiary paragraph in a document describing how your data may be used if the owner of a private repository enable it, for such use as Dependabot, CodeQL, or secrets scanning. The top of the document is: > GitHub aggregates metadata and parses content patterns for the purposes of delivering generalized insights within the product. It uses data from public repositorie…

I call BS. OpenAI was originally meant to be an open source and non-profit company. It is now a closed source, for-profit company and is controlled by the company that gave FUD its original meaning for discrediting others who stood against it. It is supreme naivety to think they will not use whatever they can to gain power in the AI arena. There is nothing in that statement that a high powered lawyer can not twist and bend to their liking. I can easily see the transformer matrix weights being defines as "aggregate data" -- "they are just floating point numbers -- they are not anyone's source code."

Re: GitHub Private Repos Considered Private-­Ish

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment is complete FUD as you’re linking to a tertiary paragraph in a document describing how your data may be used if the owner of a private repository enable it, for such use as Dependabot, CodeQL, or secrets scanning. The top of the document is: > GitHub aggregates metadata and parses content patterns for the purposes of delivering generalized insights within the product. It uses data from public repositorie…

I call BS. OpenAI was originally meant to be an open source and non-profit company. It is now a closed source, for-profit company and is controlled by the company that gave FUD its original meaning for discrediting others who stood against it. It is supreme naivety to think they will not use whatever they can to gain power in the AI arena. There is nothing in that statement that a high powered lawyer can not twist an…

OpenAI != GitHub even if GitHub has allowed training on public repositories (which I believe to be an absolute mistake because it should be preserving licensing on the processed repositories and we know that it is not doing so).

There are many reasons to distrust Microsoft. The wording of this particular paragraph explaining how data gets used in accordance with the linked terms of service (which are the actual governing documents, not the page you’ve linked to) is not one.

Re: GitHub Private Repos Considered Private-­Ish

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I call BS. OpenAI was originally meant to be an open source and non-profit company. It is now a closed source, for-profit company and is controlled by the company that gave FUD its original meaning for discrediting others who stood against it. It is supreme naivety to think they will not use whatever they can to gain power in the AI arena. There is nothing in that statement that a high powered lawyer can not twist an…

OpenAI != GitHub even if GitHub has allowed training on public repositories (which I believe to be an absolute mistake because it should be preserving licensing on the processed repositories and we know that it is not doing so). There are many reasons to distrust Microsoft. The wording of this particular paragraph explaining how data gets used in accordance with the linked terms of service (which are the actual gover…

GitHub = MS, OpenAI = MS, so by transitivity OpenAI = GitHub (where = means "controlling or related interest").

I agree that the particular wording is not sufficient to specify much of anything, but does it sure doesn't shut the door on the possibility either.

Re: GitHub Private Repos Considered Private-­Ish

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenAI != GitHub even if GitHub has allowed training on public repositories (which I believe to be an absolute mistake because it should be preserving licensing on the processed repositories and we know that it is not doing so). There are many reasons to distrust Microsoft. The wording of this particular paragraph explaining how data gets used in accordance with the linked terms of service (which are the actual gover…

GitHub = MS, OpenAI = MS, so by transitivity OpenAI = GitHub (where = means "controlling or related interest"). I agree that the particular wording is not sufficient to specify much of anything, but does it sure doesn't shut the door on the possibility either.

OpenAI is not a subsidiary of Microsoft. GitHub is.

Unless you can meaningfully show that Microsoft is actively applying a subsidiary relationship (that is, where it directs OpenAI’s product direction), I have to disagree with your base notion.

At this point, I reiterate that your original claim is 100% FUD and disinformation.

I’m not asking you to trust GitHub or Microsoft, but legal terms have meaning and the terms do not support your assertions.

Re: GitHub Private Repos Considered Private-­Ish

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GitHub = MS, OpenAI = MS, so by transitivity OpenAI = GitHub (where = means "controlling or related interest"). I agree that the particular wording is not sufficient to specify much of anything, but does it sure doesn't shut the door on the possibility either.

OpenAI is not a subsidiary of Microsoft. GitHub is. Unless you can meaningfully show that Microsoft is actively applying a subsidiary relationship (that is, where it directs OpenAI’s product direction), I have to disagree with your base notion. At this point, I reiterate that your original claim is 100% FUD and disinformation. I’m not asking you to trust GitHub or Microsoft, but legal terms have meaning and the terms…

MS is a partner w OpenAI. https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2023/01/23/microsoftandopen...

Re: GitHub Private Repos Considered Private-­Ish

#149
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's basically an analog password manager, we have gone full circle. Or we return the metaphor to github repos, having a separate cabinet is like having a secret vault so that secrets are not directly in plain view in the repo itself, which is exactly what you should be doing.

Not quite full circle as we have now agreed that writing your passwords down on paper is acceptable.

I'll grant you that, it's not the medium that matters. But pen on paper wasn't my objection, it was the post-it note on the bezel of your monitor.

Re: GitHub Private Repos Considered Private-­Ish

#150
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 (rightful…

For example, those repositories contain a lot of privately identifiable information This seems to miss my point - I have no idea why PII is in a code repo.

Those of the workforce, that is a pretty typical situation. Timestamps of activity etc. .
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