7 ms·

GitHub did this to me a few years ago. I still feel violated. Not by my idiot former employer. I feel violated by GitHub. I got my account back. Sort of. They d

GitHub did this to me a few years ago. I still feel violated. Not by my idiot former employer. I feel violated by GitHub. I got my account back. Sort of. They detached a significant amount of my content from my account, and returned to me a gimpy lobotomized version of myself. All my old GitHub comments are credited to “ghost” now. I was somewhere in the first 12,000 GitHub accounts. My relationship with GitHub significantly predated my dalliance with this one employer years ago. I trusted GitHub. My GitHub account was a formative part of my identity. I still can’t believe it and I still can’t forgive them. I lost some of my sparkle that day.

rorykoehler 6y ago
Why would anyone think that is ok?
jimbob45 6y ago
The million dollar question is what you use now instead of GitHub.
- mikorym 6y ago
  Not OP, but have a look at sourcehut.com; it used to be sr.ht if the name is unfamiliar. The latter URL is still used internally for some parts of it.
  - zck 6y ago
    A note -- it's sourcehut.org. And all the actual content (repos, bug tracking, even the login page) is at sr.ht.
- ajobforme 6y ago
  atlassian's?
- Accacin 6y ago
  Sourcehut! I love it and have moved most of my stuff over. I'm not sure how it works for teams, but for my personal stuff I couldn't be more pleased.
snack_man 6y ago
The specter of this sort of violation hangs over the shoulder of every internet user now - the loss of an account on a service like Facebook, GitHub, or Trello could be life-altering. Our digital selves are all at risk of becoming The Trial's protagonist. Do we have any protection besides moving to a new platform that's not big enough to betray its users yet?
- skybrian 6y ago
  Although it's certainly annoying to lose an old account, for many services it's just a hassle. I went through this with a Reddit account that got hacked. I was able to get the spammer shut down but had to create a new account, and really, it's okay. The people who know you will reconnect, and the others don't matter much. It used to be that everyone got a new phone number when they moved, and we managed.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- nicedicerice 6y ago
  perhaps its easier just to create a you fake persona n the internet and use it instead.
- ZWoz 6y ago
  Unix graybeards selfhost. That saying "cloud is someone else's computer." is relevant here. Now, you can ask, what self-hosting really means and that is complicated. Does rented server count? Colocation? Or only way is own premises? I have worked places, where last one is hard requirement. Generally though, I am pleased with colocation, some places even have customer provided locks on racks. But even if you have cheap VPS, at least you can backup it (regularly and before troubles) and restore some other place. With SaaS, you can't always have export in nice and useful form.
  - FeepingCreature 6y ago
    I'd say the metric should be "if you can make a backup and do something useful with that backup even if your first provider goes belly-up."
flattone 6y ago
I feel moved to strictly only use fake names online. Like.. I recently moaned and whined to my friend about how when i was growing up a person/entity (to my recollection) would feel.. like they received a magical gift just to send a message online.. having a web page was like.. winning the nerd superbowl.. Now it's like.. we are supposed to take a knee to any company that gets sufficient presence and significance (linkedin, etc trying to find a job). What actions had you taken toward trying to remedy this ?
- drdeadringer 6y ago
  > I feel moved to strictly only use fake names online. Isn't this how usernames started?
  - flattone 6y ago
    I'm not sure how they started. Was it because of people feeling their 'honest' self info was being used to identify then control them via highjacking their personal accounts in honor of some ex employer?
  - necovek 6y ago
    Usernames probably come from the multiuser nature of early computers, and some of the early limitations of software implementations (eg no spaces so your homedir could match your username on a fs that supports no spaces). Aliases or nicknames are a common human choice, which allows one to be represented by a word/name of one's own choosing that portraits you in a light you want, without tying to your real identity which might have other implications (sometimes negative, of course).
caseysoftware 6y ago
That's ugly, I'm sorry. It's also why I oppose using social authentication with anything. While we have access to our [Facebook, Twitter, Github, Google, LinkedIn] account today, what happens if they shut it down? We have no clue of the real consequences and no appeals process. It's the worst of both worlds.
- derangedHorse 6y ago
  That’s one of the motivations for the “new” project Tim Berners Lee is working on, Solid. The amount of foresight people working on the web have is crazy. I read an article interviewing Lou Montulli the other day and was amazed to find out how how extensively he thought about the nefarious use of cookies when they were being designed
  - meristem 6y ago
    Can you share the URL for that interview with Montulli, please? Thnx!
    - Deebster 6y ago
      I'm not OP but there is him talking on his blog about cookies: https://montulli.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-reasoning-behind-web-cookies.html https://montulli.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-reasoning-behind-w... https://montulli.blogspot.com/2013/05/why-blocking-3rd-party-cookies-could-be.html https://montulli.blogspot.com/2013/05/why-blocking-3rd-party... He doesn't come across as overly prescient there, but there's definitely some of the familiar juggling trade-offs in his design decisions.
  - syshum 6y ago
    Funny because when those same people actually had a chance to stop alot of the privacy violating and non-open things in the web they caved to the pressure from Google, and others to make the Web less open, less private, and less free. Tim Burners Lee was one of those people that caved with HTML5 standard, and several other standards under the W3C
bryanrasmussen 6y ago
So now I worry there may be a downside to Github is now free for teams https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22867627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22867627
diggan 6y ago
> I trusted GitHub I feel like every netizen goes through this at one point of their life, where they trust an entity, get burned, and learn the lesson of never trusting another entity (100% without condition) again, keeping your data closer to yourself. Much like in real life, where at one point you trusted some too much/naively, and after that point you're more careful, even of things/people you do trust.
- Silhouette 6y ago
  A lot of people seem to develop a strange sense of loyalty to services they like (and haven't been stung by, obviously). Try suggesting that you can run a software business without using GitHub as your single point of failure^W^W^W^Wsource control system, and a lot of young developers will just laugh and wonder what you've been smoking. Try challenging Apple's walled garden philosophy and suggesting that their mobile devices could implement standard protocols for transferring your own data on and off them directly like almost every other mobile device in the past decade, instead of relying on their not-properly-secured iCloud system, and plenty of Apple fans will wonder why you might care. Even the HN community falls victim to this mentality from time to time. I find people here tend to be more rational about these issues than average, but any suggestion that one of the YC success stories that has become an HN idol has done something unwise or even bad can sometimes end up brutally suppressed. It would be better, IMHO, if people kept in mind that behind these services they have allowed themselves to depend on so much is usually just a business, even if it's a big and famous one, and that businesses generally have no obligation to anyone to continue doing anything other than to the extent that either the law requires it or there is compensation changing hands and a contractual obligation.
  - abjKT26nO8 6y ago
    > Try suggesting that you can run a software business without using GitHub as your single point of failure^W^W^W^Wsource control system, and a lot of young developers will just laugh and wonder what you've been smoking. TBH, I've never worked at a company that would host their source code at a third party service. At my first job, we wouldn't even use a web UI for the repositories (I still think that's not all that useful to begin with). At my current job, we use cgit. We use Jira (that we pay for, obviously), but as to source control --- a company hosting it on GitHub? Never seen it with my own eyes. But I work as a C++ dev, so maybe it's different here than, say, in webdev world.
p2t2p 6y ago
Lemme just go and de-attach my personal Github account from corporate one, just in case....
- bluGill 6y ago
  If only there was a way to do that without creating multiple accounts. At least my company doesn't host anything on public guthub (guthub for enterprises has everything) so they don't need to be connected. If you have personal and company stuff you are in trouble even if you separate them.
znpy 6y ago
I'm not sure if this is related, but I made a point of never using the social login feature, at least for personal stuff. Always signup via e-mail (my own e-mail). The risk is just too big. With login via email I can still be in control of that account no matter what.
mcv 6y ago
I wonder if this is something you can sue them over. Do you legally own your content? Did they or the former employer steal something from you? It's bizarre to see so many companies handle this in such a user-hostile way. It looks like a clear sign not to use Atlassian or Github for anything private. Makes me wonder if Gitlab might be next...
coffeefirst 6y ago
Can you explain how? GitHub organizations should make this a non issue. I assumed that they’re mostly competent, but if literally any past job I had could pull the plug that’d be a huge problem.

rorykoehler 6y ago

Why would anyone think that is ok?

jimbob45 6y ago

The million dollar question is what you use now instead of GitHub.

mikorym 6y ago
Not OP, but have a look at sourcehut.com; it used to be sr.ht if the name is unfamiliar. The latter URL is still used internally for some parts of it.
- zck 6y ago
  A note -- it's sourcehut.org. And all the actual content (repos, bug tracking, even the login page) is at sr.ht.
ajobforme 6y ago
atlassian's?
Accacin 6y ago
Sourcehut! I love it and have moved most of my stuff over. I'm not sure how it works for teams, but for my personal stuff I couldn't be more pleased.

snack_man 6y ago

The specter of this sort of violation hangs over the shoulder of every internet user now - the loss of an account on a service like Facebook, GitHub, or Trello could be life-altering. Our digital selves are all at risk of becoming The Trial's protagonist. Do we have any protection besides moving to a new platform that's not big enough to betray its users yet?

skybrian 6y ago
Although it's certainly annoying to lose an old account, for many services it's just a hassle. I went through this with a Reddit account that got hacked. I was able to get the spammer shut down but had to create a new account, and really, it's okay. The people who know you will reconnect, and the others don't matter much. It used to be that everyone got a new phone number when they moved, and we managed.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
nicedicerice 6y ago
perhaps its easier just to create a you fake persona n the internet and use it instead.
ZWoz 6y ago
Unix graybeards selfhost. That saying "cloud is someone else's computer." is relevant here. Now, you can ask, what self-hosting really means and that is complicated. Does rented server count? Colocation? Or only way is own premises? I have worked places, where last one is hard requirement. Generally though, I am pleased with colocation, some places even have customer provided locks on racks. But even if you have cheap VPS, at least you can backup it (regularly and before troubles) and restore some other place. With SaaS, you can't always have export in nice and useful form.
- FeepingCreature 6y ago
  I'd say the metric should be "if you can make a backup and do something useful with that backup even if your first provider goes belly-up."

flattone 6y ago

I feel moved to strictly only use fake names online. Like.. I recently moaned and whined to my friend about how when i was growing up a person/entity (to my recollection) would feel.. like they received a magical gift just to send a message online.. having a web page was like.. winning the nerd superbowl.. Now it's like.. we are supposed to take a knee to any company that gets sufficient presence and significance (linkedin, etc trying to find a job). What actions had you taken toward trying to remedy this ?

drdeadringer 6y ago
> I feel moved to strictly only use fake names online. Isn't this how usernames started?
- flattone 6y ago
  I'm not sure how they started. Was it because of people feeling their 'honest' self info was being used to identify then control them via highjacking their personal accounts in honor of some ex employer?
- necovek 6y ago
  Usernames probably come from the multiuser nature of early computers, and some of the early limitations of software implementations (eg no spaces so your homedir could match your username on a fs that supports no spaces). Aliases or nicknames are a common human choice, which allows one to be represented by a word/name of one's own choosing that portraits you in a light you want, without tying to your real identity which might have other implications (sometimes negative, of course).

caseysoftware 6y ago

That's ugly, I'm sorry. It's also why I oppose using social authentication with anything. While we have access to our [Facebook, Twitter, Github, Google, LinkedIn] account today, what happens if they shut it down? We have no clue of the real consequences and no appeals process. It's the worst of both worlds.

derangedHorse 6y ago
That’s one of the motivations for the “new” project Tim Berners Lee is working on, Solid. The amount of foresight people working on the web have is crazy. I read an article interviewing Lou Montulli the other day and was amazed to find out how how extensively he thought about the nefarious use of cookies when they were being designed
- meristem 6y ago
  Can you share the URL for that interview with Montulli, please? Thnx!
  - Deebster 6y ago
    I'm not OP but there is him talking on his blog about cookies: https://montulli.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-reasoning-behind-web-cookies.html https://montulli.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-reasoning-behind-w... https://montulli.blogspot.com/2013/05/why-blocking-3rd-party-cookies-could-be.html https://montulli.blogspot.com/2013/05/why-blocking-3rd-party... He doesn't come across as overly prescient there, but there's definitely some of the familiar juggling trade-offs in his design decisions.
- syshum 6y ago
  Funny because when those same people actually had a chance to stop alot of the privacy violating and non-open things in the web they caved to the pressure from Google, and others to make the Web less open, less private, and less free. Tim Burners Lee was one of those people that caved with HTML5 standard, and several other standards under the W3C

bryanrasmussen 6y ago

So now I worry there may be a downside to Github is now free for teams https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22867627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22867627

diggan 6y ago

> I trusted GitHub I feel like every netizen goes through this at one point of their life, where they trust an entity, get burned, and learn the lesson of never trusting another entity (100% without condition) again, keeping your data closer to yourself. Much like in real life, where at one point you trusted some too much/naively, and after that point you're more careful, even of things/people you do trust.

Silhouette 6y ago
A lot of people seem to develop a strange sense of loyalty to services they like (and haven't been stung by, obviously). Try suggesting that you can run a software business without using GitHub as your single point of failure^W^W^W^Wsource control system, and a lot of young developers will just laugh and wonder what you've been smoking. Try challenging Apple's walled garden philosophy and suggesting that their mobile devices could implement standard protocols for transferring your own data on and off them directly like almost every other mobile device in the past decade, instead of relying on their not-properly-secured iCloud system, and plenty of Apple fans will wonder why you might care. Even the HN community falls victim to this mentality from time to time. I find people here tend to be more rational about these issues than average, but any suggestion that one of the YC success stories that has become an HN idol has done something unwise or even bad can sometimes end up brutally suppressed. It would be better, IMHO, if people kept in mind that behind these services they have allowed themselves to depend on so much is usually just a business, even if it's a big and famous one, and that businesses generally have no obligation to anyone to continue doing anything other than to the extent that either the law requires it or there is compensation changing hands and a contractual obligation.
- abjKT26nO8 6y ago
  > Try suggesting that you can run a software business without using GitHub as your single point of failure^W^W^W^Wsource control system, and a lot of young developers will just laugh and wonder what you've been smoking. TBH, I've never worked at a company that would host their source code at a third party service. At my first job, we wouldn't even use a web UI for the repositories (I still think that's not all that useful to begin with). At my current job, we use cgit. We use Jira (that we pay for, obviously), but as to source control --- a company hosting it on GitHub? Never seen it with my own eyes. But I work as a C++ dev, so maybe it's different here than, say, in webdev world.

p2t2p 6y ago

Lemme just go and de-attach my personal Github account from corporate one, just in case....

bluGill 6y ago
If only there was a way to do that without creating multiple accounts. At least my company doesn't host anything on public guthub (guthub for enterprises has everything) so they don't need to be connected. If you have personal and company stuff you are in trouble even if you separate them.

znpy 6y ago

I'm not sure if this is related, but I made a point of never using the social login feature, at least for personal stuff. Always signup via e-mail (my own e-mail). The risk is just too big. With login via email I can still be in control of that account no matter what.

mcv 6y ago

I wonder if this is something you can sue them over. Do you legally own your content? Did they or the former employer steal something from you? It's bizarre to see so many companies handle this in such a user-hostile way. It looks like a clear sign not to use Atlassian or Github for anything private. Makes me wonder if Gitlab might be next...

coffeefirst 6y ago

Can you explain how? GitHub organizations should make this a non issue. I assumed that they’re mostly competent, but if literally any past job I had could pull the plug that’d be a huge problem.