The skinny is this: I went to prison, all my personal items were stolen IRL and the same person changed a bunch of my passwords. Subsequently, I can't recover my GitHub account.
I have recovered most of my digital assets by proving I am me. Recovering my GitHub has proven to be more painful than Google's treatment regarding my Google Workspace.
I have the original phone number associated with my account, and can verify a bunch of private repos that are associated with my account—even the number of commits on one of them (almost 6900). I can't, however, provide any 2FA codes or backup codes because they are printed on paper that has, I assume, been destroyed.
I maintain two relatively popular Ruby packages that have gone stale since I've been gone, and there are projects my GitHub there that I was working on prior to my incarceration—including a SaaS I had hoped to launch post-prison and two books I was ready to publish. Having said, just opening another account isn't exactly the option I want to take.
I've opened a ticket, but I'm getting the "shit out of luck because we don't know you are you" treatment. I understand that security is important, but if one can prove they are them, what's the point?
Are there other avenues I have that I haven't explored yet?
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.
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.
edit: https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/other-site-policies/g...
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.
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.
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.
If you set up 2FA and then lose your 2FA, then that’s just life. Happens sometimes and you move on. GitHub absolutely doesn’t need to provide an in-person recovery service.
Maybe this would only work for new accounts as you'd probably need to provide identity information on before losing access.
- 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
"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?
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
It's not that hard, and you feel like a proper spy doing it ;)
Use an escrow or custodian (lawyer, bank, etc).
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.
No offense, OP, but it seems easier to recover the email if you can prove physical identity.
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.
- 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!
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).
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
So you have to work around the policy issue.
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.
Accusing somebody of theft? Perhaps the police would side with the non-felon..
Good luck getting your access back.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.