this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2024
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Programming
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I think the author balloons gpg signing into a problem and overlooks the impersonation aspect the signatures try to mitigate. Out of the cons listed:
I don't see how proof of commit authorship would change the warranties a piece of software is supposed to deliver. Sure it'll make the untruthful claim of non-authorship harder (i.e. "I didn't write this" when they in fact did); on the flipside, the signature would also protect the author from an impersonation attempt of a malicious/deceiving piece of code. Either way, I wouldn't worry much about it.
This doesn't hold. Commit signature is a feature of git itself, even though the article chooses to focus on GitHub. And afaik github integration of signatures doesn't break code hosting elsewhere, GH merely allows you to register your GPG signature with them so they're able to validate the commits, but the author is still able to enroll the same GPG key to other hosts.
Not sure what they mean by this. If your infra is set up to require signature, they might have valid concerns about impersonation and/or operate in a regulated environment.
This is a temporary problem, not permanent. After the breach the genuine author can go to the settings and delete the compromised key. Commits signed with a deleted key fallback to an unverified status.
Same with SSH keys, security is often a trade-off with convenience.
Not only that, but GitHub rewrites signatures on rebase (and sometimes on fast forward merge) with their own private key. Using signatures on GitHub is basically pointless.
true, that happens to me all the time
edit: I think they just rewrite the commit without signing it, not with their private key. Either way, the first signature is lost on rebasing.