Did you know that anyone can commit as you on GitHub? If you don't believe me, just browse through this repository's forged commits or use our tool to forge a commit for yourself.
Try it for yourself: spoof.krypt.co
How does it work?
Open your ~/.gitconfig
[user]
name = Ben Bitdiddle
email = bbitdiddle@mit.edu
Change name and email to any value you want.
If email matches the email of another GitHub user, that user's picture will show up next to the commit, and
when you click on it will take you to their real GitHub profile.
Next time you see a commit on GitHub from Ben -- don't trust that Ben actually authored it.
How can do prove that my commits are really mine?
Anyone can set the “author” of a Git commit to any value.
To prove that you authored a commit you must attach a digital signature to it.
The only way someone knows it was really your commit is to verify the commit's signature.
GitHub supports verifying & signing Git commits
Check out this signed commit: kryptco/kr@0cca333.
If a commit doesn’t have a green “Verified” badge, then it could have been authored by anyone!
GitHub verifies signed commits, and Krypton makes signing commits easy.
Get your green verified badge, https://krypt.co.
Let's see some well known forgeries...
"I love windows and subversion!" -- @torvalds on #1eb0d8
"You should really use gitlab.com, it's way better." -- @schacon on #730c7e
Anonymously Forged Commits
Browse all of the forged commits from the community here! https://github.com/git-forge/fraudulent/commits/master
Top comments (13)
[full disclosure - I work for an identity intelligence company!]
Thanks for the head up Alex, although I would question the use of Github accounts as a source of trusted identity (suggested by other comments below via Github's help pages). These are likely to be trivially forge-able too.
Git's support for GPG keys to strengthen the trust in a commit is based on the assumption that the committer already owns a trusted GPG identity (where the trust is obtained through other parties attesting to their identity / key signing, in the usual GPG way).
Where this isn't possible, it may be better to look at federation with trusted identity providers, such as those who assure IDs for banks, governments, etc. Depends what the value of that commit is I guess!
Several months back, I was setting up a new project on GitHub. As I was configuring my protected branches, I noticed a checkbox for "Require signed commits". I'm one of those obsessive box-checker freaks. So, when I noticed this new box, I clicked on the link to see what it was about and how to make it so I could check the box. Been signing commits ever since then (and Slack-shaming teammates whose commits don't have the green Verified box).
Why is the repository disabled? github.com/git-forge/fraudulent
It's unfortunate -- I guess GitHub decided it was against their ToS. I don't agree personally, and we made it very clear that spoof.krypt.co was a demonstration, but we must respect their decision (and ability) to do this :/
itsafeature 😁
I work for a major open source project and commit patches from other developers. It is their code they get credit. Committing to your repos should generally be restricted anyway. Some places use signed commits as a form of CLA bit over all this is a necessary thing.
This works on bitbucket too, had a coworker commiting as myself for a while because my name and email was somehow configured inside a docker container
Can you use this method to spoof a user with more permissions than you normally have, such as someone with PR merge permission?
(Asking for a friend. ;))
Thanks for spreading the word on signing git commits.
Know all of it, but still enjoyed reading.
Didn't know! Thanks!
Is this the solution? help.github.com/articles/signing-c...
Yep!
Here is how to setup GPG for Github-
gist.github.com/ankurk91/c4f0e23d7...
Awesome, didn't realize this!