10 ms·
GitHub's 2014 Transparency Report
- baldfat 12y ago> Total Request from Subpoenas, Court Orders, and Search Warrants = 10 > Percentage where information was disclosed 70% > Percentage where users were informed of the request 43% EDIT: I am not smart. I didn't think of that percentage that received information on the disclosure of information and was thinking in terms of total subpoenas. How is it not 40% or 4 users and we get 43%? One person only got 1/3 of the information?
- nothrabannosir 12y ago0.43 ~= 3/7 => 3 people were informed.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- jamesfe 12y ago7/10 in which info was disclosed of which: 4/7 users were not informed = 57% 3/7 users were informed = 43% But left over: 3/10 in which info was not disclosed I agree, the infographic was not 100% clear (no pun intended)
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- Igglyboo 12y agoIt's 43% of the 7 disclosures, so 3 of the 7 disclosures were made apparent to the users.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- balls2you 12y agoNational Security letters for open source code ? Or is it for just the private repositories ? Or is it to be able to "subtly add code" to existing repositories without being seen ? What would it be for ? I am stumped.
- shin_lao 12y agoYou could use git to exchange information securely via SSH or also gist.
- diminoten 12y ago> Or is it for just the private repositories ? That. Relax. > Or is it to be able to "subtly add code" to existing repositories without being seen ? Come on now, this is not productive to speculate on. This is "the CIA is controlling the population by putting chemicals in your water supply!" level stuff.
- celsoazevedo 12y agoSome people said the same about NSA, but now we know that they do "hard to believe" stuff.
- diminoten 12y agoThat's some specious logic, at best.
- celsoazevedo 12y agoSo, according to you, they (agencies from US, China, Russia, etc) never cross lines that you and me would never cross? They never tried to broke security, sabotage, ..., or hack someone? I'm not talking about moon or UFO's conspiracies. I'm talking about things that, according to leaks and official documents, they already did in the past and keep doing today.
- diminoten 12y ago> I'm talking about things that, according to leaks and official documents, they already did in the past and keep doing today. Please cite an official document that shows the US government forcing GitHub to secretly modify the source code of a project in one of its repos. As far as I'm aware, they've literally never done that, and to suggest they have means you have to show evidence that such a thing has taken place. This is some Fox News level bullshit. "How do we know the FBI hasn't raped and murdered a girl in 1990? They've never come out and specifically stated they haven't!"
- bitdestroyer 12y ago> 0-249 National Security Orders Received > 0-249 Affected Accounts So, I would assume it's fairly safe to say they got 249 NSLs or am I missing something about how people are using ranges to go about skirting this ridiculous law? Obviously it could be within that range, but that's an oddly specific number.
- vladharbuz 12y agoRead the linked PDF (http://www.justice.gov/iso/opa/resources/422201412716042240387.pdf http://www.justice.gov/iso/opa/resources/4222014127160422403...). They are only allowed to report the number in bands of 250.
- bitdestroyer 12y agoFigures, the one link I didn't click... Thanks!
- lojack 12y agoIs this something added specifically to prevent warrant canaries?
- iLoch 12y agoYou wanna be the guy that gets to try that out in court? If it even goes to court?
- Igglyboo 12y agoGithub doesn't get to choose the ranges, that was the range they were allowed to disclose.
- gus_massa 12y agoI read that as: "We can't disclose the exact number. The possible bins are: 0-249, 250-499, 500-749, 750-999, ... This year, the number is in the bin 0-249." (not an actual quote)
- 12y ago
- parennoob 12y agoGood report. One thing it doesn't cover that I would have very much wanted it to is -- How many repos they took down that weren't malicious in any way, but simply didn't gel with their ideology / attitudes? e.g. https://github.com/FeministSoftwareFoundation/C-plus-Equality https://github.com/FeministSoftwareFoundation/C-plus-Equalit... [This is deeper than just that repo, which may be a bit of a heavy-handed parody. But taking down repos without giving a clear indication why they were taken down is fairly chilling. Today it is this, tomorrow it might be a github pages account critical of feminism that is taken down.]
- picks_at_nits 12y agoDo you carry that axe and a grindstone everywhere? (A more neutral way to share your concern might be “I would also like to see some transparency around TOS takedowns, and not just takedowns instigated by third parties.”)
- parennoob 12y agoI would request you to refrain from personal attacks. I don't know if it was a ToS takedown at all. Look at what the page[1] says -- "Access to this repository has been disabled by GitHub staff. Contact support to restore access to this repository." Geek Feminism's wiki [2] says "Misogynist C Plus Equality satire project announced and repositories were created on GitHub and BitBucket, with commits impersonating various geek feminists. GitHub removed it quickly." without mentioning a reason. [1] https://github.com/FeministSoftwareFoundation/C-plus-Equality https://github.com/FeministSoftwareFoundation/C-plus-Equalit...
- tschuy 12y agoPerhaps github has something against impersonation?
- parennoob 12y agoThe only reference I can find from them "impersonating" a feminist is this https://github.com/search?q=FeministSoftwareFoundation&ref=searchresults&type=Issues&utf8=%E2%9C%93 https://github.com/search?q=FeministSoftwareFoundation&ref=s..., which references the user https://github.com/AndreaDworkin https://github.com/AndreaDworkin Since Andrea Dworkin died in 2005, I'm not sure how she could have a github account today, so the "impersonation" claim might be a little thin. I think it would be akin to creating a github user called "ErwinRommel" or something -- referencing a well known person who isn't around any more.
- infinity0 12y agoThe warrant canary is probably the existence of the sentence "Until such time, we are not even allowed to say if we've received zero of these reports". Watch that space.
- jrochkind1 12y agoNo. The "time" it's "until" is after "The courts are currently reviewing the constitutionality of these prior restraints on free speech, and GitHub supports the efforts to increase transparency in this area.". Until the courts change the law and say they can say if they've received zero of these reports or not, they are not allowed to. There is no 'warrant canary'. It would be illegal, and Github is not telling you they are going to break the law, they are telling you they are supporting efforts to change the law, but until such time, they will have to comply, and they can't tell you if they received any. Until they receive 250, and then they can say they received somewhere in the range of 250-499.
- fastball 12y agoUntil such time, we are not even allowed to say if we've received zero of these reports What could possibly be the reasoning behind this?
- mcintyre1994 12y agoMy guess is that it's to hide how widespread the program is. If loads of companies were saying 1-249 instead of 0-249 we'd be able to see how many companies they're hitting. As it is we can't see that and presumably that lack of accountability makes abusing processes simpler for them.
- robwilliams 12y agoPresumably to prevent warrant canaries. Once a company stops saying they've received 0, the public knows they had been served a secret order.
- steamy 12y agoFISC takes no prisoners! These Stasi guys don't take anything that may jeopardize the reign of their paymasters lightly
- chx 12y agoWhen people compare to the Stasi... do you even know what you are talking about? Yes surveillance is bad but encouraging people to tattle on each other is worse and encouraging children to report on their parents is horrific. Read http://competentcommunicator.blogspot.ca/2010/10/sentence-about-tyranny-illes-gyula.html http://competentcommunicator.blogspot.ca/2010/10/sentence-ab... much is lost in translation but perhaps some comes across.
- MCRed 12y agoThese "secret orders" are an abuse of power, and we already have many indications that they are being abused (eg: more used for going after drug dealers than terrorists, which was the "justification" for them originally.) That we admit this, that our government is acting in a criminal fashion, in conflict with the constitution, and we have accepted it as "normal" is just proof that we are frogs who think the water is just fine. We should be outraged and demanding prosecutions and investigations. But of course, who owns the prosecutors and the investigators? The government. And we've been taught by government schools to be "good germans" (Eg: to give the benefit of the doubt and wide latitude to government.)
- vectorpush 12y ago> we are frogs who think the water is just fine. And just like actual frogs that are slowly heated, we will almost certainly jump out of the water if the pot approaches a boil. The apathy stems from the fact that the water is just fine for most citizens; the frogs who are subject to this abuse reside in a completely different pot than the one that most citizens enjoy. I'm not saying I condone surveillance abuse or drug war policies, but the reality is that while your average citizen may be alarmed by the presence of a hot stove, they just can't be bothered to revolt for the sake of an adjacent pot full of drug dealers.
- Estragon 12y agoDo you think a typical person from 1995 would be happy to hear what the state of civil liberties would be in 2015? I would have been shocked.
- vectorpush 12y agoI feel like it's tough to transpose the mindset of 1995 into the zeitgeist of 2015. The average citizen of 1995 was a lot less sensitive to the every day minutia of disparate civil rights flashpoints that culminate to create the picture we have of civil rights today. There is also a lot more deliberately controversial political content produced by today's media which sets up an environment where there's something of an implicit expectation that everyone will or should have a "stance" on every political issue. The world of 2015 is one where every average citizen has their own set of pet grievances that are wont to implicate the government in a violation of civil rights. Can you imagine how the citizens of 1995 would have reacted to a Snowden of the time? It'd be a complete non-event.
- lifeisstillgood 12y agoThe first set of numbers confuses me 10 requests for information, 7 responded to, and then 43% of those seven requests has the user informed. How do we get 43% of seven? Edit - ok next paragraph tells me 10 requests for 40 accounts. To me this seems pretty low - given that GitHub has millions of accounts, that only 40 got suspected of being involved in crimes seems amazingly low. Or that not even criminals store their secret bank robbery plans in free online hosting services :-)
- dboyd 12y ago3/7 == 0.42857
- lifeisstillgood 12y agoThat's embarrassing - I was still mentally usin ten as the denominator. Back to school
- Ezhik 12y agoThe Roskomnadzor requests, though. So ridiculous. It's not even code they wanted removed, but instances of a non-serious copypasta.
- phy6 12y agoIn the spirit of getting a more exact estimate, would it be possible to hire a registered-agent type service (a commercial 3rd party) that posts the image of every manila envelope it forwards on to the company HQ?
- dogma1138 12y agoThe most interesting take down seemed to be the one from the "The Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology, and Mass Media of the Russian Federation". Now you first thing it would be some anonymity tool or something like that, nope it's an empty repo with a 32 ways of how to commit suicide in the repo notes including what you need and how long it will take you to die. Not sure why GitHub only blocked access to that content from Russian IP addresses rather than removing the repo completely like they did with cases in which the repo was actually used for legitimate purposes...
- Grue3 12y agoSo basically the only government they bent over backwards for was the Russian government. Wish they actually showed some spine like they did with China.