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Here's how to make this news interesting to the mainstream: "Chinese hackers cost US economy $100,000 / h" Well, replace random accusations and numbers by fac

by maebert 12y ago

Here's how to make this news interesting to the mainstream: "Chinese hackers cost US economy $100,000 / h" Well, replace random accusations and numbers by facts of course, but that's a valid question: How many employees can currently not to any meaningful work because they don't have access to what they're supposed to work on? This times salaries spent on them anyway is a good lower bound for the damage done to the economy (actual damage should be higher since employees should of course add more value to the economy than their salary).

Swizec 12y ago
I do all my work via Github and honestly haven't noticed a single burp in the service. Is anyone other than Github employees who have to deal with this even affected?
- jayrhynas 12y ago
  I've had troubles with the web interface and with pushing/pulling on and off since Friday
  - nindalf 12y ago
    I pushed around 5-6 times and it failed only once.
- elvispt 12y ago
  I had issues pushing with an application key that was not being recognized. Now I don't know if this was directly related, but the timing raises an eyebrow.
- qguv 12y ago
  Github pages is pretty sluggish right now. Github's actual Web interface is much slower than, say, pushing and pulling.
- nazgob 12y ago
  I could not work for a few hours yesterday. push/pull/rebase was not working for me.
- GrinningFool 12y ago
  Yes.
rcfox 12y ago
Due to git's distributed nature, there should be very few people who are not able to work on their code. Also, it's Sunday, so very few employees are expected to be working today.
- informatimago 12y ago
  That would be true if enterprises had their own local git repositories, and if employees pushed against those local git repositories. But this is not what happens, when enterprises use github, employees directly push to github. Continuous integration tools directly pull from github. When github is down, all exchange of patches between employes essentially halts, as does continuous integration and testing. Of course, this is not the fault of git. This is the fault of people keeping using centralized servers, instead of setting up and using their own local servers. The same goes for email (gmail anybody? Really???) The Internet is meant to be a decentralized, peer-to-peer, meshed network. Not a centralized, star network!!!
  - rcfox 12y ago
    In a pinch, you can always pull from a coworker's local repository.
  - dr4g0n 12y ago
    You can just pull from someone's local copy, a git checkout is just like a remote (bare) repository that happens to have a tree.
  - Maascamp 12y ago
    If you're an enterprise you're using github's on-premise appliance and aren't affected at all.
- nemoniac 12y ago
  > Due to git's distributed nature, there should be very few people who are not able to work on their code. Oh the irony! Actually I bet many developers are sitting on their hands when they can't access github. I don't want to dump on github. It has been a great driver of open-source software. But by making itself a single-point-of-... so much, it kind of defeats the purpose of git sometimes. Ideally we'd be able to download not just the repo but all the meta-info; issues, comments, pull requests, etc.
jasonwocky 12y ago
> Well, replace random accusations and numbers by facts of course What mainstream news do you read?
- yzzxy 12y ago
  New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, San Francisco Chronicle, and many others. I'm sick of this mentality that old-media news is all evil. Fox News and MSNBC are not the industry. Disclaimer: I do not work in journalism.
  - pbz 12y ago
    They're not evil, well some of them are, but more like lazy when it comes to fact gathering/checking.
    - yzzxy 12y ago
      I can almost guarantee that most of those outlets have more stringent policies regarding fact-checking and quotation than the "average" internet source.
      - dsacco 12y ago
        "Lazy" might not be the right word...all of the tech journalists I have personally interacted with seemed to be pretty good at their craft overall and actually cared about what they wrote. However, this doesn't change the fact that almost all media companies and their journalists are woefully inept at fact-checking or writing stories concerning information security, including DDoS attacks.
        yzzxy 12y ago
        That's one specific (and extremely counter-intuitive and complicated) area where reporters probably have weak domain knowledge. It's somewhat unfair to extend that criticism to every other part of human existence that journalists report on.
blamarvt 12y ago
I agree that monetary loss is a big motivator, however I am still curious (US citizen) as to the political implications of doing nothing as a nation when companies are quite obviously being attack by foreign governments. Normally these kind of attacks are much less obviously perpetrated by nation-states.
- moe 12y ago
  quite obviously being attack by foreign governments Nothing is "obvious". For all we know this could be a bored teenager sitting in his basement in New York, Paris, Tokyo or Moscow. It could also be a false flag operation by the NSA, to massage the western adolescent nerd's mindset into quietly accepting their next round of mass surveillance ("Must protect from the evil chinese!"). The Chinese openly attacking GitHub is the least plausible scenario, unless you think they are stupid.
  - siscia 12y ago
    At least they are keeping the attack going... At least as guilty, imho.
    - moe 12y ago
      How do you know what "they" do or not do? And who is "they"? Baidu? The Chinese Government? The great firewall administrator himself?
  - blamarvt 12y ago
    http://insight-labs.org/?p=1682 http://insight-labs.org/?p=1682 Sorry but how would a bored teenager somewhere have control over injecting attacks in traffic passing through the "Great Firewall of China". This really doesn't seem like a typical attack to me but you are right in that I should not be claiming this an obvious attack by a nation-state without the facts.
    - moe 12y ago
      how would a bored teenager somewhere have control over injecting attacks in traffic passing through the "Great Firewall of China The same way a 15yr old once took out Yahoo, CNN, eBay, Dell and Amazon: Dedication. Perhaps it's even a Chinese activist, looking to draw attention to the firewall or to spark a little diplomatic quarrel with the US?
fullwedgewhale 12y ago
Come Monday, here's what you'll get: "GitHub attack shows the dangers of relying on cloud." Or "Government software to protect children from Phil Robertson held hostage to attacks on a popular cloud service. This demonstrates the dangers of cloud. How can we be protected from the cyber criminals and pedophiles in their clouds? Here is are usual panel of people who didn't quite rate their own panel show. None of them know anything about computers, really and at least one uses their iPhone to prop up the short leg of their kitchen table. Panel, what do you think?" "It's Obama's fault." "It's the republicans." "I make pee pee."
- ossreality 12y ago
  <3

by maebert 12y ago

Swizec 12y ago

I do all my work via Github and honestly haven't noticed a single burp in the service. Is anyone other than Github employees who have to deal with this even affected?

jayrhynas 12y ago
I've had troubles with the web interface and with pushing/pulling on and off since Friday
- nindalf 12y ago
  I pushed around 5-6 times and it failed only once.
elvispt 12y ago
I had issues pushing with an application key that was not being recognized. Now I don't know if this was directly related, but the timing raises an eyebrow.
qguv 12y ago
Github pages is pretty sluggish right now. Github's actual Web interface is much slower than, say, pushing and pulling.
nazgob 12y ago
I could not work for a few hours yesterday. push/pull/rebase was not working for me.
GrinningFool 12y ago
Yes.

rcfox 12y ago

Due to git's distributed nature, there should be very few people who are not able to work on their code. Also, it's Sunday, so very few employees are expected to be working today.

informatimago 12y ago
That would be true if enterprises had their own local git repositories, and if employees pushed against those local git repositories. But this is not what happens, when enterprises use github, employees directly push to github. Continuous integration tools directly pull from github. When github is down, all exchange of patches between employes essentially halts, as does continuous integration and testing. Of course, this is not the fault of git. This is the fault of people keeping using centralized servers, instead of setting up and using their own local servers. The same goes for email (gmail anybody? Really???) The Internet is meant to be a decentralized, peer-to-peer, meshed network. Not a centralized, star network!!!
- rcfox 12y ago
  In a pinch, you can always pull from a coworker's local repository.
- dr4g0n 12y ago
  You can just pull from someone's local copy, a git checkout is just like a remote (bare) repository that happens to have a tree.
- Maascamp 12y ago
  If you're an enterprise you're using github's on-premise appliance and aren't affected at all.
nemoniac 12y ago
> Due to git's distributed nature, there should be very few people who are not able to work on their code. Oh the irony! Actually I bet many developers are sitting on their hands when they can't access github. I don't want to dump on github. It has been a great driver of open-source software. But by making itself a single-point-of-... so much, it kind of defeats the purpose of git sometimes. Ideally we'd be able to download not just the repo but all the meta-info; issues, comments, pull requests, etc.

jasonwocky 12y ago

> Well, replace random accusations and numbers by facts of course What mainstream news do you read?

yzzxy 12y ago
New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, San Francisco Chronicle, and many others. I'm sick of this mentality that old-media news is all evil. Fox News and MSNBC are not the industry. Disclaimer: I do not work in journalism.
- pbz 12y ago
  They're not evil, well some of them are, but more like lazy when it comes to fact gathering/checking.
  - yzzxy 12y ago
    I can almost guarantee that most of those outlets have more stringent policies regarding fact-checking and quotation than the "average" internet source.
    - dsacco 12y ago
      "Lazy" might not be the right word...all of the tech journalists I have personally interacted with seemed to be pretty good at their craft overall and actually cared about what they wrote. However, this doesn't change the fact that almost all media companies and their journalists are woefully inept at fact-checking or writing stories concerning information security, including DDoS attacks.
      - yzzxy 12y ago
        That's one specific (and extremely counter-intuitive and complicated) area where reporters probably have weak domain knowledge. It's somewhat unfair to extend that criticism to every other part of human existence that journalists report on.

blamarvt 12y ago

I agree that monetary loss is a big motivator, however I am still curious (US citizen) as to the political implications of doing nothing as a nation when companies are quite obviously being attack by foreign governments. Normally these kind of attacks are much less obviously perpetrated by nation-states.

moe 12y ago
quite obviously being attack by foreign governments Nothing is "obvious". For all we know this could be a bored teenager sitting in his basement in New York, Paris, Tokyo or Moscow. It could also be a false flag operation by the NSA, to massage the western adolescent nerd's mindset into quietly accepting their next round of mass surveillance ("Must protect from the evil chinese!"). The Chinese openly attacking GitHub is the least plausible scenario, unless you think they are stupid.
- siscia 12y ago
  At least they are keeping the attack going... At least as guilty, imho.
  - moe 12y ago
    How do you know what "they" do or not do? And who is "they"? Baidu? The Chinese Government? The great firewall administrator himself?
- blamarvt 12y ago
  http://insight-labs.org/?p=1682 http://insight-labs.org/?p=1682 Sorry but how would a bored teenager somewhere have control over injecting attacks in traffic passing through the "Great Firewall of China". This really doesn't seem like a typical attack to me but you are right in that I should not be claiming this an obvious attack by a nation-state without the facts.
  - moe 12y ago
    how would a bored teenager somewhere have control over injecting attacks in traffic passing through the "Great Firewall of China The same way a 15yr old once took out Yahoo, CNN, eBay, Dell and Amazon: Dedication. Perhaps it's even a Chinese activist, looking to draw attention to the firewall or to spark a little diplomatic quarrel with the US?

fullwedgewhale 12y ago

Come Monday, here's what you'll get: "GitHub attack shows the dangers of relying on cloud." Or "Government software to protect children from Phil Robertson held hostage to attacks on a popular cloud service. This demonstrates the dangers of cloud. How can we be protected from the cyber criminals and pedophiles in their clouds? Here is are usual panel of people who didn't quite rate their own panel show. None of them know anything about computers, really and at least one uses their iPhone to prop up the short leg of their kitchen table. Panel, what do you think?" "It's Obama's fault." "It's the republicans." "I make pee pee."

ossreality 12y ago
<3