Ask HN: Went to prison for 18 months, lost access to my GitHub. What can I do?
97 points by joshmn 1 day ago | 86 comments
- abxyz 1 day ago> I can't, however, provide any 2FA codes or backup codes because they are printed on paper that has, I assume, been destroyed.
The situation you are in is very unfortunate and I am sympathetic but in GitHub's defence, this is exactly what I hope would happen when I enable 2FA. I would be very perturbed to find out that GitHub would grant access to my account given identity documents. There are some creative solutions (e.g: a countdown to the reset with progressively more aggressive email notifications to ensure the account holder is aware) but even they are problematic. So, this sucks, but it's the price we pay for security.
[-]- joshmn 1 day agoThat's the same stance I have and why I'm torn. The little quirk here—where it makes slightly more sense—is that they received a legal notice at one point (from the US Government) about my account, there are plenty of online articles to corroborate me as me, and I have a fancy prison release ID that can help me identify me. Unfortunately this context is probably lost on the individuals who work their Zendesk.
The policies are rather draconian as others have mentioned. Anyone could be the victim of theft; mine just has an awkward paper trail attached to it.
[-]- abxyz 1 day agoI think the disconnect between you and GitHub support is that you're positioning this as a problem of proving your identity whereas for GitHub support it is a policy. The GitHub policy is: you lose your 2FA, you lose your account. Verifying your identity is not relevant. GitHub provides extensive tooling to protect your account (multiple methods of 2FA, recovery codes etc.) and so from their perspective, while this is deeply unfortunate, the policy is very clear and allowing you access to the account would be a major security issue (not for your account specifically, but for GitHub as an organization).
edit: https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/other-site-policies/g...
[-]- ryandrake 1 day agoThese (for good reason) draconian policies are the reason I am still hesitant to embrace 2FA. I understand the significant improvement in your security posture, and I would not want someone not-me to be able to reset my credentials. But the failure mode is just too catastrophic. You lose one thing and you are shit out of luck.
We need something better. I don't know what it would be.
[-]- cxr 19 hours ago> We need something better. I don't know what it would be.
Choosing a long, very secure password for your account works really, really well. GitHub hates this, however, and nudges toward less secure practices that are more likely to result in the sorts of compromises described in this thread.
- alwa 1 day agoI for one would appreciate the option to put an ID on file ahead of time, at least for important stuff like this. I like digital-only accounts for play, but for work stuff with real-world consequence, I’d like to link it to a real-world identity system…
Not unlike the signature cards banks used long ago, I guess.
Sure, maybe somebody motivated could defraud the government into issuing them a replacement ID in my name. But that’s big boy crime, not a casual “bribe a retail employee to SIM swap” kind of undertaking.
Sure, there are issues of access to government ID systems, and I know anything touching government names / “show me your papers” raises hackers’ hackles—I’m not saying require it, just that I’d choose it if it were a MFA option of last resort.
[-]- eterm 1 day agoThat's how you turn 2fa into single factor authentication ( The ID ).
GitHub is such a large attack vector for the whole planet, that I understand their stance.
GitHub support a "recovery code" more secure than government ID. Print it out, store on USB, store on QR, etc, and stick it in at least one secure safe.
- nerdsniper 1 day agoThe issue is less about having an ID on file, and more about verifying ID. In a world of excellent real-time deepfakes, how would GitHub verify ID at scale?
A fake ID is pretty easy to create, along with a fake face for a video chat where you can hold up your fake ID.
[-]- alwa 13 hours agoI think that part is made easier by the fact that I uploaded the ID in the first place under fully trusted conditions.
If I have the same physical piece of ID—as I imagine OP might have, upon release from prison—then they can directly compare it to the copy that I supplied previously. Scuff marks and specific document numbers included. I think that probably even scales.
If I lose access to my main identity document, one advantage of government ID is that I’ll urgently have it reissued. In most of the places I’ve lived, that’s the kind of thing you can validate against either the underlying authority or a sleazy-but-reasonably-accurate data broker. But in either case it’s out-of-band from my relationship with the tech company, in a way they can validate by semi- or fully-automated means, and with reference to an independent authority.
If somebody wants to physically mug me to steal my ID for access to my GitHub, I figure I’m pretty much out of luck—to paraphrase James Mickens [0], Mossad’s gonna Mossad.
[0] https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf
- filearts 1 day agoAn idea might be to require a financially meaningful deposit to pursue an account recovery like this. The deposit would be forfeit if the identity verification failed.
Though now that I write this, it creates a perverse incentive for a company to collect deposits and deny account recovery.
- joshmn 1 day ago> I for one would appreciate the option to put an ID on file ahead of time, at least for important stuff like this.
I'm at that point of agreement. I don't want to say "national SSO ID" because that can get really Orwellian obviously. Being able to put an ID on file is a reasonable ask.
[-]- em-bee 1 day agoa passport is orwellian? i don't really get this fear of government issued IDs. if your government is so bad that it will abuse IDs for surveillance, then your government is the problem, and not having a national ID is not going to protect you.[-]
- xp84 23 hours agoSomeone explained this to me the other day in a way that helped me understand the concern better.
Not already having a ton of easy and effective choke points on the whole citizenry (which such a card would eventually grow into due to its usefulness) is a safeguard against wannabe tyrants being confident they can crush dissent easily and thus to them seizing power in the first place. Just like I wouldn’t steal a car with a manual transmission because I know I wouldn’t be able to drive it successfully, and certainly not well enough to outrun the consequences.
If I were a fascist I’d be a lot more brazen if I knew that I could switch off every dissenter’s ability to travel, work, or even buy food, in an instant.
[-]- shermantanktop 22 hours agoWhat if you were a fascist who exercised influence over Experian and TransUnion, the airlines, and of course the TSA? The horse has left the barn already.
- saint_yossarian 1 day agoYou can use a TOTP authenticator with backup support (I use Aegis on Android, and less critical ones in Bitwarden), and backup your recovery codes.
- michaelmior 1 day agoPart of the problem here is that there is no prior association of an identity with an account. So proving who you are is somewhat irrelevant since even if the account has your name, email, and photo, that's no guarantee that the account was created by you. If identity verification were required ahead of time, then perhaps verifying identity after loss of access could be reasonable recovery method. But of course there are many reasons why requiring such verification is problematic.
- amatecha 1 day agoSomeone high enough in the food chain at GitHub can override that policy at their whim. I have personally had my day saved by that very "loophole" in another "lost access to an online service" situation in the past.
- MrGilbert 1 day agoI'd assume that there is simply no "ok, this individual got released from prison and can proof everything" policy in place, and that might be the real issue here. Big organizations begin to tumble once you request something where there are no policies in place.
- werkwolk 14 hours agoWhy do I feel most of this is ai created text...whoever is posting will probably adjust their prompt, but who uses '-' mid text?[-]
- lkirkwood 9 hours agoI find this infuriating. I get absolutely no sense that this is AI, and this bizarre attitude towards em dashes is nonsense. Loads of people use them, especially in less formal writing. Get over it.
- hluska 1 day agoI’m not sure that blaming tech support for not understanding context is the best approach here. The other sides of that context, which are understandable from their point of view, is that you were charged with some serious crimes. There’s a large delta between the charges and the conviction, but you’ve got some scary words written about you online. Secondarily, GitHub has policy so whereas you’re coming at it from a position of being correct, they’re in a position where they have to break policy. That’s a big risk.
Your best bet would likely be legal. US Federal law imposes some strict rules on lawyers for identity verification to combat money laundering so attorneys have a legally recognized toolkit to verify identity. Having a third party who works for you in the mix could help. Though again, it would involve breaking their policy so this would be a decision made several layers above Zendesk access.
Otherwise, I think this is doing precisely what 2FA is meant to do. It’s not okay for you and you’ve clearly lost a lot because of this, but with the current threat environment, GitHub has to be very careful especially with 2FA. From their point of view, there likely isn’t that big of a gap between your interactions and interactions with people who are trying to take over accounts. A lawyer may not work, but it sure changes that equation.
- zerr 1 day agoThe person should be able to walk in the service provider's office and get an in-person help, restoration of access, by presenting ID docs.
- kramer2718 1 day agoI agree that simply emailing in copies of identity documents after the fact shouldn't be sufficient. However, there should be a verification process that includes verification of identity documents through legal means, including perhaps a processing fee. The fee would preclude many attackers from even trying to break this process.
Maybe this would only work for new accounts as you'd probably need to provide identity information on before losing access.
- Retr0id 1 day agoAs a matter of policy, sure. But at the same time, I bet there are some GitHub employees reading this that would be in a position to pull some strings and make an exception. For OP's sake, I hope I'm right![-]
- randunel 1 day agoSocial engineering attacks are a thing, you know...[-]
- DengistKhan 17 hours agoAlso could be a honeypot.
- Retr0id 20 hours agoI'm aware.
- the__alchemist 1 day agoI'm perpetually worried (and partially prepared) for this sort of scenario, as more of my accounts require 2FA. I dread the day I lose or break my phone, have my items stolen, there's a weather disaster etc. I try to make my hobby repos public and/or backed up in multiple places as a hedge.[-]
- commandersaki 23 hours agoAll my digital life is sorted with a password manager that sync's in a cloud (I know some consider this an anti-feature). I guess OP probably had to disclose information to someone (s)he trusts when going to prison and that trust was abused.
- zdragnar 1 day agoYubikey in a safe deposit box is about as good as we can get, at least for the services that allow it.[-]
- bruckie 4 hours agoI've always wondered how people manage this in practice. Is seems great if you never sign up for anything new, but I end up creating one account per week or something. How do you keep the key in your safe deposit box current?
- Arrowmaster 23 hours agoThe problem with this tactic is the need to go get the Yubikey every time you make a new account.[-]
- e40 8 hours agoStore only the backup key. It would be crazy to have a single key.
- 1attice 19 hours agoActually, this is now a solved problem. Root-of-trust pattern.
- Use Bitwarden or similar
- Set BW to recognize the Yubikey as one (of several, incl. TOTP ('Authenticator') code) second factor.
- On all other sites and services, generate passkeys (which are essentially virtual yubikeys) and save them in BW.
- In BW, save the password and TOTP. BW itself, on another device (or in a separate incarnation - e.g. the desktop app when authenticating the browser extension) is now your everyday means of authenticating to BW.
- BW-stored passkey is now your standard means of authentication for e.g. GitHub, Google, etc
- Put the yubikey in a safety deposit box
- Bravo, you have a very professional trust system
[-]- ferngreen 6 hours agoApologies for asking you to repeat yourself. I'm not following this step.
"In BW, save the password and TOTP. BW itself, on another device (or in a separate incarnation - e.g. the desktop app when authenticating the browser extension) is now your everyday means of authenticating to BW."
Can you rephrase it and be specific which passwords and TOTP you mean?
[-]- 1attice 3 hours agoSo Bitwarden can store _the password and TOTP for Bitwarden itself_. (!) I actually keep this in an entry entitled 'How meta!' because I'm cute and silly.
So, let's say you're sitting down in front of a fresh install of Bitwarden. You can go to your phone in your pocket and get the password and TOTP and then set Bitwarden to not require a password for 30 days.
Similarly, let's say you've installed the desktop app for Bitwarden but not yet the browser extension. You can look up the BW password and TOTP in the desktop app and use that to authenticate the browser extension. Or vice versa! T
- jopsen 1 day agoPrint out 2FA codes and bury them somewhere.
It's not that hard, and you feel like a proper spy doing it ;)
[-]- vorpalhex 1 day agoPlease don't depend on this. Paper does not like moisture and soil is full of it.
Use an escrow or custodian (lawyer, bank, etc).
[-]- DengistKhan 17 hours agolaminate?[-]
- vorpalhex 8 hours agoIs your laminate rated to be in constant soil contact for however many years you need to hold onto a backup code for?
- IlikeKitties 1 day agoJust do as I do and keep all the 2FA TOTP Codes in your keepass.
- manbash 1 day agoDon't you have a 2FA Recovery Code?[-]
- georgel 1 day agoFar too many of the critical services (banks) still only offer SMS 2FA.
- the__alchemist 1 day agoFor most of them. It's a tool, but not a silver bullet
- jackconsidine 1 day agoFWIW I had a similar conundrum with Slack. I had set-up my business Slack workspace in college; 4 years after graduation my university changed policies (they used to forward name@edu => name@alumni.edu).
I tried the normal means (support tickets etc) to no avail. The third or fourth time I got someone in account recovery. There was a very formal process for verifying my identity (I'm sure based on the process this happens all the time). Eventually I they helped me recover my account. It probably took a few months on the whole, but once I got the right support rep it was only a week or so.
So my advice would be to submit more tickets. Because they might have a process that not all support agents know about, and some are more helpful than others.
- qafy 1 day agounfortunately, the techniques you are trying in order to get access to a dormant Github account are EXACTLY the same ones that github gets spammed with every day by bad actors attempting supply chain attacks. You don't have anything that proves your identity any more than any rando on the internet in Github's eyes at least. Everything you have presented here may be convincing enough to me, but probably not to GitHub's opsec policies.[-]
- jopsen 1 day agoAlso suppose you Facebook account was compromised, that bad, sad for the person affected. May cause some media attention if the person was famous.
But if the right GitHub account is compromised, we could see massive supply chain issues. Or a big important web service with millions of users affected.
The downside of making a wrong call here is just really really big.
There are real businesses being deployed from GitHub.
- muzani 13 hours agoI'm not even convinced it's the real person. Lost your items, lost your email, changed passwords, criminal records. Sounds like a scam for sure.
No offense, OP, but it seems easier to recover the email if you can prove physical identity.
- trenchpilgrim 1 day agoGet a lawyer and contact GitHub through legal means.
- xwowsersx 1 day agoThoughts of the top of my head:
- If the most important thing is control of the Ruby gems, reach out to RubyGems.org support
- for your projects, if you have are past collaborators on those repos, they can sometimes open GH tickets referencing the project and vouch for you. Doesn't guarantee success, but adds weight
- GH (being part of MSFT) does have some channels for escalated identity verification. Lawyers or notarized ID may be needed...possibly expensive, but sometimes the only way
GH support is extremely strict on account recovery once 2FA/backup codes are gone. I wish you luck!
[-]- joshmn 1 day agoI was able to recover my Rubygems account :); unfortunately my projects were all private and solo :(; I am currently looking into lawyers—if anyone has any recommendations here my inbox is open.[-]
- matt_s 8 hours agoI have no experience with any of this but thinking thru the other side, if I'm an IT helpdesk person getting an account reset/unlock request, I have no means to validate any identity paperwork anyone sends in. My response would be a curt email accd to policy and move on to the next IT ticket.
I think the legal path is your best bet unless you know someone higher up. A legal path could bypass all the offshore IT helpdesk staff (making assumptions, MSFT is a giant mega-corp).
- pjjpo 20 hours agoI haven't used Rubygems before but doesn't it allow publishing from a new repo? pypi allows updating publishing configs.
A repo fork (and maybe more so the GitHub identify fork) is definitely not ideal but if your users can get updates to their packages, maybe it's best to move forward as well as possible.
[-]- pjjpo 20 hours agoI also imagine the identity proof for asking GH support to archive the old repo would be lighter than for recovering an account entirely.
- amanzi 1 day agoCoincidentally, this article was posted on HN yesterday and has been playing on my mind... https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2022/06/ive-locked-myself-out-of-my...
- devoutsalsa 1 day agoWhat you might consider doing is try contacting Ruby Central, or whoever it is that runs Ruby Gems. Even if they can't/won't give you access to the account, I'm wondering if they could/would freeze publishing updates to these gems until the account "owner" proves they are who they say they are. That way they don't risk giving control to someone who is hard to verify (you) and they prevent malware from being uploaded by the person who now controls your email until they verify the you are (which obviously they shouldn't be able to do).
- bogwog 1 day ago> all my personal items were stolen IRL and the same person changed a bunch of my passwords.
Have you filed a police report? Do you know who this person is? Getting your stuff back might be easier than dealing with github support.
- heldrida 1 day agoThere are alarming statistics about phone snatching in London. Plus, we are NOT OUR PHONES. Doesn't GitHub have a way for people to verify and prove somebody's identity? Given that's a fact, isn't it best to disable 2FA and stop recommending it to people?
Following this post, I have reviewed all my main accounts, created recovery codes, set up backups, and added alternative email addresses, among other tasks. Hope for the best.
- lesuorac 1 day agoI wonder if you can make a creative small claims court claim against them.
Denying access to some repo where you spent x hours on which can be resolved by them paying you y dollars * x hours. And then hoping a lawyer takes pitty on you and restores the account?
[-]- heldrida 1 day agoThat's a good idea!
I've been thinking about how they could solve this, since they accept payments; wouldn't it be possible to request a payment with a specific reference code to verify the identity? Paired with any other required identification process, documentation, etc.
[-]- lesuorac 1 day agoIIUC, the issue is not that they can't verify OP. It's that there is a policy decision not to restore access.
So you have to work around the policy issue.
- __alexander 1 day agoWhy not create a new account and fork your old repositories? You can restart with updating your old projects and overtime you’d build back up that reputation. I’d also add a note that you were the previous author and lost access to the repositories.[-]
- joshmn 1 day agoThey're private.
- clamprecht 1 day agoIs there a phone number associated with the account? How does GitHub want you to prove that you're you?[-]
- joshmn 1 day agoThere is, but it's not a phone number I have access to anymore. I changed it to the said person's phone number before I surrendered so that this exact scenario did not happen. I trusted the wrong person.[-]
- tasuki 1 day ago> I trusted the wrong person.
This hits me hard. So you went to prison, and the person you trusted the most... turned out not to be trustworthy. Please hang in there and hope you meet (or have met already?) people you can rely on!
I'm very grateful for the many people in my life I can absolutely rely on.
- anonymousiam 1 day agoSeems like you could present this evidence to the police for an identity theft charge against the "wrong person." Or you could threaten to do so, and perhaps regain your property.[-]
- clort 1 day agoExcept, read the comment again - Josh changed the account so that it referenced the other persons phone number. They did not steal his phone, and it could be framed that he gave them the account.
Accusing somebody of theft? Perhaps the police would side with the non-felon..
[-]- anonymousiam 17 hours agoThere's no dispute that he provided his telephone number, the dispute would be over the ownership of the GitHub account, which is a separate item, and perhaps still registered in his name. Without additional details, we're both guessing.
- ldargin 1 day agoYou might want a lawyer's help to get that person to assist. Perhaps through an agreement not to sue for past wrongs, and maybe with a payment.
- didgetmaster 21 hours agoIt sounds like you trusted someone you shouldn't have. This person wouldn't happen to be someone who also has spent some time in prison?
- johtso 1 day agoMaybe, depending on where you are in the world, you could make some kind of GDPR request to get access to your data, even if you don't recover your account?
- liquidise 1 day agoI haven't any help to offer, but want to say that this post along with reading your site the other day has shown a level of composure and resiliency that i aspire to.
Good luck getting your access back.
- 6stringmerc 1 day agoWELCOME TO TANGENTIAL INJUSTICE!
Lost access to my phone, then went to Tarrant County jail awaiting trail (innocent until proven guilty but $250,000 bond where no humans or property harmed), and only was able to get a few G-M-@-1-L related accounts reset following a plea bargain to get back my freedom. Lots of corpses in that system. IYKYK.
What can you do? Ask nicely. Hope to escalate. First off though, think of Jack Handey...
If you lost your keys in lava, man, let 'em go, they're gone.
- jefdiesel 8 hours agowhat's your gitname?
- bena 1 day agoDo you personally know the person who stole all of your items and accounts?
I understand if you can't get or won't get in contact with them, but I'm curious as to whether this was a random or someone taking advantage of you.
Edit: Nevermind, I saw your response to someone else.
- CPLX 1 day agoYou could initiate some kind of legal action to access your data. You'd need a lawyer.
I think it's likely that you wouldn't have legal grounds to force them to give you your data but it's an approach that would most certainly get their attention at a higher level than anything you're able to do from a customer service perspective.
You'd have to have some legal argument as to why they could be obligated to produce the records under subpoena but the standards for that could be quite low.
- apwell23 1 day agothief changed your github password? why? how did he get get access to your github account ?[-]
- lydiaharrison12 1 hour ago[dead]
- sicariomoon 9 hours ago[dead]
- logicallee 1 day ago[flagged][-]
- techbro92 1 day agoYou sound paranoid and schizophrenic you should honestly try explaining your situation to someone you know or a professional. I think you’ll realize that your thinking is a bit delusional. I can’t really understand what you’re saying here.[-]
- tptacek 1 day agoDon't do this. We don't diagnose people on HN. Just flag the comment and move on, or, if you're worried, mail hn@yc.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
(I'm not a mod, just someone who cares a lot about this particular rule.)
[-]- logicallee 1 day agoThe profile you responded to "techbro" was made 3 years ago, has 102 karma (i.e. 1 upvote every 10 days, on average), and has never submitted anything - zero submitted articles or profiles. My profile was made 12 years ago and has 3,118 karma (approximately averaging an upvote every 1.4 days) including lots of submissions of stuff I made, for example this Show HN that I was pleased to see make it to the front page with 36 points and lots of positive comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43141139 (the resource itself is currently offline as I've temporarily replaced my website with 50 reasons why it's wrong to disrupt communications between a husband and wife. I'll replace my website as soon as this issue is solved.)
Right up your alley, I've actually written a cryptographic case study of some of the dynamics of this, I've just sent you a copy of it (you and I were in touch before - it was very well reviewed by professional cryptographers.) In your reply to this, please acknowledge your receipt of my email, and if you can, print it out as well, as it can become inaccessible later.
Of course, there are a lot of NSA-affiliated people who could come out of the woodworks to support parent's slander that I "sound paranoid and schizophrenic".
The reason they don't? They're witnesses in the FBI case and don't want to go to prison themselves. The FBI has already handwritten over 10,000 affidavits in this case. (They are writing by hand to avoid electronic tampering with evidence.)
I am not making a media story about it yet, which would be the next step, so there are no articles about this yet.
My reason for not doing so is not to bring extra attention to the case, but simply to solve it in a straightforward and expedient manner.
- oldpersonintx2 1 day ago[flagged]