12 ms·
> Nebulous semi-employee with unspecified responsibilities related to a founder? This is the point that stands out for me. That the wife is not an employee of
by buro9 13y ago
> Nebulous semi-employee with unspecified responsibilities related to a founder?
This is the point that stands out for me. That the wife is not an employee of Github but claims to be able to access private company chat records, and also is able to "work" from within the office and interact with the staff.
Even with allowances that company property remains company property and private chat rooms are in fact non-private to the company... there is no scenario in which a non-employee should have access to those chat rooms.
The wife, and the husband (founder), have displayed an incredible lack of professionalism here. There may even be a question about whether those acts are illegal if they are substantiated.
And for companies that use Github to host private repositories, the question should be asked very loud and clear... "Who can access private company data, why, and for what reason?".
If a non-employee can access information that is presumed (even by their own employees) to be private, then our (external companies) assumptions about what is private and secure at Github are weakened and demand very clear statements backed up with clear processes to reassure.
- keithpeter 13y ago"Who can access private company data, why, and for what reason?" This seems to me to be the major takeaway for organisations outside github from this sorry affair. I'm sort of surprised you are the only person to raise this so far. In the UK, the employee who resigned could have a successful day in an employment tribunal. And one aspect of the hearing would be privacy and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act provisions.
- wahsd 13y agoBut you live in the UK, which is still part of Europe, where people are still people that have rights. Your only right in the USA is the right to leave.
- mwfunk 13y agoThe fact that you were able to post this means that your statement is false. Using hyperbole to make a point only serves to invalidate your point, unless your audience is composed of complete idiots (not hyperbole, that's actually what I mean). I would hope that the HN readership isn't a bunch of idiots, although you obviously think they are.
- Chronic26 13y agoHN is in fact, full of idiots. Look at the comments below.
- jrockway 13y agoyou live in the UK where people are still people that have rights The right to be sued for libel whenever they write something that someone else doesn't like?
- keithpeter 13y agoActually, we have no written Constitution, and very little in the way of actual rights in the sense that if a Constable asks us to move or go home or to search our bags, we have to let them. Employment rights however are slightly better. The employee interviewed in the OA would have recourse to an employment tribunal for what used to be called 'constructive dismissal' - the terminology may have changed recently. The monetary compensation would be quite basic by Valley standards, but the public exposure of the employers, subject to cross-examination, would be most satisfying I imagine.
- gaius 13y agoYou do have certain rights for stop and search: https://www.gov.uk/police-powers-to-stop-and-search-your-rights https://www.gov.uk/police-powers-to-stop-and-search-your-rig... Get all their details, and complain if you think you were treated unfairly.
- Intermernet 13y agoAnd the right to win in court: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BCA_v._Singh http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BCA_v._Singh Unfortunately, this doesn't invalidate the fact that you're correct in a way. If Simon Singh hadn't been able to afford the time and money to defend this case, the libel suit would probably have stood. Still, it's a step in the right direction, and an important legal precedent.
- officemonkey 13y agoIt seems to me she has made a pretty good case for sex discrimination, harassment, and hostile work environment. If this happened in my company, lawyers would be crafting a settlement right now.
- icco 13y agoI am not a Lawyer, but I'm pretty sure in the US, she could sue as well.
- agapos 13y agoOne could sue for pretty much anything in the US.
- mendicantB 13y agoSo spot on. Considering recent privacy issues, Github needs to be careful to respond on this. It has potential to explode into an entirely separate shitstorm.
- cwilson 13y agoIt's as easy as the wife grabbing the husbands laptop and scanning the Hipchat logs.
- skyebook 13y agoGitHub uses campfire, but HipChat does not give any way for a account owners/admins to read personal 1-1 chat logs.
- toomuchtodo 13y agoHipchat user/admin; agreed. I don't have access to 1 on 1 chat logs and I prefer it that way.
- skyebook 13y agoSame exact situation for me, definitely don't want to be reading anyone else's chats or for there to be any concern that someone might be listening in.
- rmc 13y agoThe article claims GitHub said that the wife would "work from home". Why would a company say that a non-employee would "work from home". Why would a company allow a non-employee to get into the office that much? This sounds a lot worse and blatant than just shoulder surfing at home.
- glibgil 13y agoI love github, but toxic cultures can happen anywhere. Github employees have been involved in commit abuse since the beginning https://web.archive.org/web/20130117043748/http://sheddingbikes.com/posts/1306816425.html https://web.archive.org/web/20130117043748/http://sheddingbi...
- quotemstr 13y agoYet people wonder, mouth agape, why I prefer staying up in Seattle.
- aspleenic 13y agoLocation really has little to do with. While SF is a bit of a hipster enclave, so are a lot of places with plenty of tech companies.
- Bahamut 13y agoWow...I hope that toxic github employee was fired for that.
- rrouse 13y agoI believe it was just a user of Github and not an employee that did that nonsense.
- Bahamut 13y agoThis quote suggests more than one GitHub employee was in on it at the least: 'They purposefully allow this glaringly obvious mechanism for insulting and annoying their members and are actually involved in the joke. Until I broke their server they were all laughing at my "testing", then they were pissed when they had to fix the bug I found. If you don't believe me, look at the HackerNewsTips twitter account, which I know is astroturfed by a github employee.' In one of the first few paragraphs, there's this block: "The other piece of information you need to understand is that there's a sort of running hidden gag among the Ruby Iluminati (aka Rubynati) within San Francisco. Employees from Engine Yard, PowerSet, and ... github love this joke where they create code that generates ASCII art penis pictures and then force other people onto their project without permission. Here's another one called dicks by Martin Emde." It's a shame that companies doing some useful things have to encourage a culture of brutish behavior.
- SideburnsOfDoom 13y ago> the question should be asked very loud and clear... "Who can access private company data, why, and for what reason?" I am against using private github repos simply because: it's safe to assume that the NSA can access them via hardware backdoors on github's premises (as per many US ISPs), or by compromising crypto keys that github holds (as per lavabit). It's also safe to assume that github will be legally compelled to either remain silent on this topic or lie and deny it.
- couchand 13y agoDoesn't that apply equally to any shared hosting?
- SideburnsOfDoom 13y agoIt applies to any shared hosting with servers in in the US that operates above a certain scale; yes. What that certain scale is who knows, but github the most visible hosting service so is certain to be above it. Github is great for my open source work. Everyone's allowed to see that code, even the NSA. However you can find source to LOIC on github. I'm sure that who put that there and who worked on it when would be of interest to them and form a suitable pretext for a dragnet.
- danielweber 13y agoYeah, because the NSA can't do anything about the service run by 2 guys in Germany. </s>
- ef4 13y agoIt's not a question of "can't", it's a question of economics. People keep confusing targeted attacks with bulk data collection. Nobody doubts the NSA can successfully launch a targeted attack against nearly any organization. But that's not economical to do against everyone all the time. Whereas bulk collection of unencrypted or poorly-encrypted data from the handful of biggest cloud providers and network operators is cheap and easy. So yes -- leaving the big providers in favor of competently-managed small-scale, lesser-known providers is probably a step up in privacy.
- api 13y ago"Who can access private company data, why, and for what reason?". But the cloud. The cloud!
- pekk 13y ago> This is the point that stands out for me. That the wife is not an employee of Github but claims to be able to access private company chat records, and also is able to "work" from within the office and interact with the staff. Completely ridiculous and unprofessional. But, not sexist. Just terrible.
- yarrel 13y agoAgreed. There's some (alleged) sexism in the full story though.
- PhasmaFelis 13y agoHowever, the guy who declared his love for her despite knowing that she had a boyfriend, and then started sabotaging all her code when she shot him down, is very much sexist bullshit.
- MarkTee 13y agoThat's not sexism; he was acting maliciously because she turned down his advances, not because she was a woman.
- sizzle 13y agoI've worked with brilliant engineers that lack a lot of real world social skills and this doesn't surprise me one bit. A pretty girl really can mess with the logical types of people that have little experience with the opposite sex.
- djKianoosh 13y agoyour comment is also dripping with stereotypes unfortunately
- sizzle 13y agowell I've witnessed this phenomenon in the real world, so I can't discount the existence of this, stereotype label aside. I've met the opposite as well, charming, well dressed, and physically fit engineer types who can hold a conversation with the opposite sex without any awkward vibes at all. The awkward types seem to lack some dating experience and thus cannot discern positive/negative social cues or read body language as well.
- maxcan 13y ago> The wife, and the husband (founder), have displayed an incredible lack of professionalism here. That assumes that the story, as told in the accusation, is completely accurate. One could envision a scenario where the founder felt his wife may be able to relate to the situation better and could actually assist the accuser. However, in spite of best intentions, its possible that the wife's actions were misinterpreted by the accuser. Until Github or the wife gives their side of the story, perhaps withholding judgement is the optimal strategy.
- sizzle 13y agofrom reading the article, I got the vibe that the wife may have felt innately (territorially?) threatened by the thought of a (pretty) female in the company getting close with her founder husband in a more intimate, rather than professional, type of way. Thoughts?
- maxcan 13y agoThat raising "threatened wife" motif is actually quite sexist. Its entirely possible that the founder may have felt that his wife could relate better to the accuser but that their meeting may not have went well and the wife felt that the accuser was behaving as inappropriately as the accuser felt about the wife. Furthermore, accusing someone of "sitting near me to intimidate me" is quite vague and bizarre.
- grifpete 13y agoI don't pretend to have any info on what truly happened. But the story doesn't have to be 'completely accurate' for it to be disturbing. A company can't have family members browse around company offices and imposing themselves on employees with whom they have no professional or personal relationship. I find it very hard to understand how the wife's repeated presence can be favorably interpreted if it did indeed upset Horvath.
- maxcan 13y agoit could have been well intentioned. bringing in an pseudo-outsider may not be the smartest move but its also not necessarily evil at all. the founder may have felt that his wife could relate in some way. until more evidence is given, we should withhold judgement.