[flagged]
Ask HN: Went to prison for 18 months, lost access to my GitHub. What can I do?
21–30 of 108 posts
Re: Ask HN: Went to prison for 18 months, lost access to my GitHub. What can I do?
#22Why not create a new account and fork your old repositories? You can restart with updating your old projects and overtime you’d build back up that reputation. I’d also add a note that you were the previous author and lost access to the repositories.
Re: Ask HN: Went to prison for 18 months, lost access to my GitHub. What can I do?
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's the same stance I have and why I'm torn. The little quirk here—where it makes slightly more sense—is that they received a legal notice at one point (from the US Government) about my account, there are plenty of online articles to corroborate me as me, and I have a fancy prison release ID that can help me identify me. Unfortunately this context is probably lost on the individuals who work their Zendesk. The pol…
I think the disconnect between you and GitHub support is that you're positioning this as a problem of proving your identity whereas for GitHub support it is a policy. The GitHub policy is: you lose your 2FA, you lose your account. Verifying your identity is not relevant. GitHub provides extensive tooling to protect your account (multiple methods of 2FA, recovery codes etc.) and so from their perspective, while this i…
Part of the problem here is that there is no prior association of an identity with an account. So proving who you are is somewhat irrelevant since even if the account has your name, email, and photo, that's no guarantee that the account was created by you. If identity verification were required ahead of time, then perhaps verifying identity after loss of access could be reasonable recovery method. But of course there are many reasons why requiring such verification is problematic.
Re: Ask HN: Went to prison for 18 months, lost access to my GitHub. What can I do?
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the disconnect between you and GitHub support is that you're positioning this as a problem of proving your identity whereas for GitHub support it is a policy. The GitHub policy is: you lose your 2FA, you lose your account. Verifying your identity is not relevant. GitHub provides extensive tooling to protect your account (multiple methods of 2FA, recovery codes etc.) and so from their perspective, while this i…
These (for good reason) draconian policies are the reason I am still hesitant to embrace 2FA. I understand the significant improvement in your security posture, and I would not want someone not-me to be able to reset my credentials. But the failure mode is just too catastrophic. You lose one thing and you are shit out of luck. We need something better. I don't know what it would be.
I for one would appreciate the option to put an ID on file ahead of time, at least for important stuff like this. I like digital-only accounts for play, but for work stuff with real-world consequence, I’d like to link it to a real-world identity system…
Not unlike the signature cards banks used long ago, I guess.
Sure, maybe somebody motivated could defraud the government into issuing them a replacement ID in my name. But that’s big boy crime, not a casual “bribe a retail employee to SIM swap” kind of undertaking.
Sure, there are issues of access to government ID systems, and I know anything touching government names / “show me your papers” raises hackers’ hackles—I’m not saying require it, just that I’d choose it if it were a MFA option of last resort.
Re: Ask HN: Went to prison for 18 months, lost access to my GitHub. What can I do?
#25> all my personal items were stolen IRL and the same person changed a bunch of my passwords.
Have you filed a police report? Do you know who this person is? Getting your stuff back might be easier than dealing with github support.
Re: Ask HN: Went to prison for 18 months, lost access to my GitHub. What can I do?
#26thief changed your github password? why? how did he get get access to your github account ?
Re: Ask HN: Went to prison for 18 months, lost access to my GitHub. What can I do?
#27Why not create a new account and fork your old repositories? You can restart with updating your old projects and overtime you’d build back up that reputation. I’d also add a note that you were the previous author and lost access to the repositories.
They're private.
Re: Ask HN: Went to prison for 18 months, lost access to my GitHub. What can I do?
#28I'm perpetually worried (and partially prepared) for this sort of scenario, as more of my accounts require 2FA. I dread the day I lose or break my phone, have my items stolen, there's a weather disaster etc. I try to make my hobby repos public and/or backed up in multiple places as a hedge.
Just do as I do and keep all the 2FA TOTP Codes in your keepass.
Re: Ask HN: Went to prison for 18 months, lost access to my GitHub. What can I do?
#29I'm perpetually worried (and partially prepared) for this sort of scenario, as more of my accounts require 2FA. I dread the day I lose or break my phone, have my items stolen, there's a weather disaster etc. I try to make my hobby repos public and/or backed up in multiple places as a hedge.
Don't you have a 2FA Recovery Code?
Re: Ask HN: Went to prison for 18 months, lost access to my GitHub. What can I do?
#30I'm perpetually worried (and partially prepared) for this sort of scenario, as more of my accounts require 2FA. I dread the day I lose or break my phone, have my items stolen, there's a weather disaster etc. I try to make my hobby repos public and/or backed up in multiple places as a hedge.
Yubikey in a safe deposit box is about as good as we can get, at least for the services that allow it.