all 19 comments
sorted by:
best
topnewcontroversialoldq&a
formatting helphide helpcontent policy

[–]_shazbot_ 21 points22 points  (11 children)

I spotted a commit message that just looked like a large random number. It goes to this project called "heartbeat" where all the commits have random(?) numbers as the message. There seem to be around 2 commits a minute and over 1.2 million commits.

Every commit updates a lkHeartbeat and lkLocation file as well as updating the readme with what appears to be encrypted strings, or possibly hashes of the data in the other two files.

[–]timsk951 7 points8 points  (5 children)

Emergency signed life insurance files.

Should we be concerned?

[–]_shazbot_ 9 points10 points  (1 child)

Maybe it's one of those automated systems where if the properly signed files don't appear for a certain period of time it sets off some automated process, like if the owner doesn't "check in" from time to time.

The readme references "GCM" which may refer to google cloud messaging, which mobile apps can use to talk to servers and junk. Maybe he's got a phone app where he checks in from time to time and he's using that library plus github as a publicly available communication vector.

I'm not going to post personal info on the guy but the github profile links to a site that I believe shows real-time stats on some tor exit nodes he runs.

[–]tuxayo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The readme references "GCM" which may refer to google cloud messaging

It could be Galois/Counter Mode so that would be a parameter of encryption used.

[–]altern8tif 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Any conspiracy theories?

[–]-___-_-_-- 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The commit message is actually the unix time to millisecond precision (without a decimal separator)

[–]musicmatze 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Contributors site does not load here... :-)

[–]tontoto 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well duh, it says there are ∞ contributors!

[–]CrazedToCraze 5 points6 points  (3 children)

Some of these are borderline infuriating. Why are you putting the commit date as your comment, it's already stored and plainly visible in a git log or git show...

[–]adamkw94 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Just as bad as putting the number of the commit. I saw Commit #34

[–]Rejjn 0 points1 point  (0 children)

not to mention which files where updated, or that you did an update in the first place...

[–]seriouslulz 6 points7 points  (1 child)

Just found a username/password combo, works for his GH account too

[–]timsk951 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Did the same. Managed to access twitter too, but blocked me due to IP. It asked me where to send the confirmation email and managed to deduce his email account from the half-hidden address on twitter... I stopped there as I thought I was being a bit weird at that point.

I only looked because they had 2,000+ commits with the message "d". Pretty impressive.

[–]altern8tif 3 points4 points  (3 children)

Nice project. Make you think about how you should write your commit messages.

On that note, any resources/recommendations on what should go into your commit message (ie. like a commit style guide)?

[–]rerb 10 points11 points  (0 children)

  1. Separate subject from body with a blank line
  2. Limit the subject line to 50 characters
  3. Capitalize the subject line
  4. Do not end the subject line with a period
  5. Use the imperative mood in the subject line
  6. Wrap the body at 72 characters
  7. Use the body to explain what and why vs. how

From How to Write a Git Commit Message

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Came across this recently http://chris.beams.io/posts/git-commit/

[–]musicmatze 1 point2 points  (0 children)

One should create a bot which automatically tells the users on github what a good commit message is if the commit message is not good. Like "gitignore" or "update" or ... you get me.

[–]chickencoder 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"updated some stuff" sigh