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I'm curious: what have you ever seen Github publish that would indicate there was any such security around your private repos within their organisation? I would

I'm curious: what have you ever seen Github publish that would indicate there was any such security around your private repos within their organisation? I would have assumed there was none myself, but you seem to've assumed they'd treat your private repos like financial data or something. Legit question, in case someone thinks I'm trolling or whatever.

andy_ppp 9y ago
I think they'd treat my data as if it's like gold and not any engineer can take a copy because: a) potentially threaten GitHub's business (blackmail, disgruntled employee, internal threat, security services, concerned comments like this etc.) b) real companies store their source code on GitHub; their source code is, at least, 50% of their business. c) GitHub isn't really a startup anymore, they have hundreds of employees, you can't let that many people have unfettered access to data. Someone could loose a laptop... d) As mentioned, Yahoo! was very careful with customer data e) It's called a Private Repo I'm making a big set of assumptions, you are right. I'll move my GitHub to my own server now... installing GitLab which I absolutely hate but it's better than trusting an unknown set of engineers. I've just realised probably any Digital Ocean engineer can get root on my box if they want to right :-(
- leesalminen 9y ago
  Why do you hate GitLab? I've had it deployed for nearly a year and some recent releases have resolved many of my concerns. > I've just realised probably any Digital Ocean engineer can get root on my box if they want to right :-( I would assume yes.
  - andy_ppp 9y ago
    Just can never bloody find the thing I want. It's the same when I drink Pepsi or Burger King; purely psychological...
    - Aeyris 9y ago
      You want to at least have some control over the hardware. Disk encryption on a dedicated server or (even more ideally) a caged, locked, colocated rack. The system administrators of anything multi-tenant can access your data. The problem is they probably don't care. It's up to you where to draw that line, though. "Administering a mail host is sort of like being a nurse; there's a brief period at the start when the thought of seeing people's privates might be vaguely titillating in a theoretical sense, but that sort of thing doesn't last long when it's up against the daily reality of mess. Now that I think about it, administering a mail host is exactly like being a nurse, only people die slightly less often."
- mnutt 9y ago
  _Someone could loose a laptop..._ Your overall point is valid, but employee losing a laptop is a much narrower problem to solve for: set JAMF policies that enforce full-disk encryption and reasonably strong passwords, write off any machines that are lost/stolen. Figuring out employee trust models is a much broader/harder problem.
danso 9y ago
I don't run a company myself but I would think that the enterprise offering would have some security assurances. Does Github say that its services aren't appropriate for purposes other than open-source development? By security, though, I wouldn't expect the guarantees of financial data or whatever, but internal audit and access controls, i.e. not the scenario of "any engineer at Github" that the GP has inferred. IIRC, for example, at Google only specific engineers, such as SREs, are given uber-access to user data as part of their duties: https://techcrunch.com/2010/09/14/google-engineer-spying-fired/ https://techcrunch.com/2010/09/14/google-engineer-spying-fir...

andy_ppp 9y ago

I think they'd treat my data as if it's like gold and not any engineer can take a copy because: a) potentially threaten GitHub's business (blackmail, disgruntled employee, internal threat, security services, concerned comments like this etc.) b) real companies store their source code on GitHub; their source code is, at least, 50% of their business. c) GitHub isn't really a startup anymore, they have hundreds of employees, you can't let that many people have unfettered access to data. Someone could loose a laptop... d) As mentioned, Yahoo! was very careful with customer data e) It's called a Private Repo I'm making a big set of assumptions, you are right. I'll move my GitHub to my own server now... installing GitLab which I absolutely hate but it's better than trusting an unknown set of engineers. I've just realised probably any Digital Ocean engineer can get root on my box if they want to right :-(

leesalminen 9y ago
Why do you hate GitLab? I've had it deployed for nearly a year and some recent releases have resolved many of my concerns. > I've just realised probably any Digital Ocean engineer can get root on my box if they want to right :-( I would assume yes.
- andy_ppp 9y ago
  Just can never bloody find the thing I want. It's the same when I drink Pepsi or Burger King; purely psychological...
  - Aeyris 9y ago
    You want to at least have some control over the hardware. Disk encryption on a dedicated server or (even more ideally) a caged, locked, colocated rack. The system administrators of anything multi-tenant can access your data. The problem is they probably don't care. It's up to you where to draw that line, though. "Administering a mail host is sort of like being a nurse; there's a brief period at the start when the thought of seeing people's privates might be vaguely titillating in a theoretical sense, but that sort of thing doesn't last long when it's up against the daily reality of mess. Now that I think about it, administering a mail host is exactly like being a nurse, only people die slightly less often."
mnutt 9y ago
_Someone could loose a laptop..._ Your overall point is valid, but employee losing a laptop is a much narrower problem to solve for: set JAMF policies that enforce full-disk encryption and reasonably strong passwords, write off any machines that are lost/stolen. Figuring out employee trust models is a much broader/harder problem.

danso 9y ago

I don't run a company myself but I would think that the enterprise offering would have some security assurances. Does Github say that its services aren't appropriate for purposes other than open-source development? By security, though, I wouldn't expect the guarantees of financial data or whatever, but internal audit and access controls, i.e. not the scenario of "any engineer at Github" that the GP has inferred. IIRC, for example, at Google only specific engineers, such as SREs, are given uber-access to user data as part of their duties: https://techcrunch.com/2010/09/14/google-engineer-spying-fired/ https://techcrunch.com/2010/09/14/google-engineer-spying-fir...