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This is pretty scandalous, and could lead to some legitimate security problems, how severe depends on some details. I'm pretty sure that if this practice was w

This is pretty scandalous, and could lead to some legitimate security problems, how severe depends on some details. I'm pretty sure that if this practice was widely known, there would be some tangible ire directed toward github, at least in the hacker/dev community. > Although according to the customer service response, they would have done the exact same thing even if it had copious early activity. Are you comfortable pasting that response in here? Thanks!

mindslight 8y ago
Relevant bit from support@github.com: > Thanks for reaching out and my apologies for any worry this change has caused you. First, let me assure you that there has been no unauthorized access to your account: your username was changed by GitHub staff. > We were contacted last March by someone with interest in claiming@@mind@@ for their own use. Upon inspection, we found that your account had not been accessed in over two years and we believed it to be abandoned. We released the username so another user could register it, per our name squatting policy: https://help.github.com/articles/name-squatting-policy https://help.github.com/articles/name-squatting-policy (AsteriskAsterisk was changed to @@ due to HN formatting) ---- As I said above, my account definitely had been accessed within the past two years. And it had been created and immediately used. And given that I do email on my own domain, it was pretty easy to see that this wasn't part of some farm of accounts. (I responded with all these points, to no avail). And now here I am again justifying my own position in terms of their deliberately wide-open policy, to make sure I stay on the right side of public consensus - really, if I was "name squatting", then so is anyone who takes a break from using a service. My guess is that someone greased the rules behind the scenes for a friend's startup. Which is of course is illegible to "support", so they just end up running interference.
mindslight 8y ago
I just looked over my account again, and realized I had actually created it in 2008 and had been reporting the occasional bug with it over the years. So we're talking a 10 year old account that shows a definite pattern of use - just maybe not the pattern Github envisions as being their ideal customer. (This had completely slipped my mind - it's been a hell of a year).

mindslight 8y ago

Relevant bit from support@github.com: > Thanks for reaching out and my apologies for any worry this change has caused you. First, let me assure you that there has been no unauthorized access to your account: your username was changed by GitHub staff. > We were contacted last March by someone with interest in claiming@@mind@@ for their own use. Upon inspection, we found that your account had not been accessed in over two years and we believed it to be abandoned. We released the username so another user could register it, per our name squatting policy: https://help.github.com/articles/name-squatting-policy https://help.github.com/articles/name-squatting-policy (AsteriskAsterisk was changed to @@ due to HN formatting) ---- As I said above, my account definitely had been accessed within the past two years. And it had been created and immediately used. And given that I do email on my own domain, it was pretty easy to see that this wasn't part of some farm of accounts. (I responded with all these points, to no avail). And now here I am again justifying my own position in terms of their deliberately wide-open policy, to make sure I stay on the right side of public consensus - really, if I was "name squatting", then so is anyone who takes a break from using a service. My guess is that someone greased the rules behind the scenes for a friend's startup. Which is of course is illegible to "support", so they just end up running interference.

mindslight 8y ago

I just looked over my account again, and realized I had actually created it in 2008 and had been reporting the occasional bug with it over the years. So we're talking a 10 year old account that shows a definite pattern of use - just maybe not the pattern Github envisions as being their ideal customer. (This had completely slipped my mind - it's been a hell of a year).