We have not received any response to the support case that we opened, but we assume that it was a false positive of some automatic algorithm.
As a consequence of this we're going to set up a mirror outside Github so that the work didn't stop if something like that happens again.
UPD: We received the official response explaining that this was a mistake. I must admit the whole situation was resolved really quickly, good job.
ssh user@rsync.net git clone mirror git://github.com/blah/blah
I would argue filter rules count as source code as much as anything else. It doesn't matter if the thing reading the filter rules is not open source.
Aside from that, github intentionally hosts all kinds of content that isn't literally code. gists, pages, wiki, discussions, issues.
People also host books on github where the text is the code and git is the update system and github is the distribution system, all exactly the same as with a c program. It's not abusing the system like using the CI compute to do random other work, it's using the facilities for exactly what they are each intended for. github wants everyone to use and grow to depend on github for things like that.
If they're going to change the policy, at least announce it first...
> Github was struggling with "malware" comment spam lately and we added several filter rules that block this stuff. Maybe this is what triggered disabling the repo?
The comments so far immediately jumping to conspiracy speculation is depressing.
It's already back up.
I'm actually shocked that Github didn't have Adguard white-listed to prevent this from being picked up by malware scanning tools already. And it's a shame, because the whole point of scanning for malware is to protect people from falling victim to new attacks, and killing the filter repository is entirely counter to that goal.
PS: could not check the link, as my country blocked twitter.
* I often put malware samples in my repositories on github (I prepare malware analysis trainings, and I develop my trainings on github). Never got banned.
* There are a ton of leaked malware sources (and/or binaries) stored on github. They are not banned
* Github is full of blatantly obvious malware (at best "pentesting tools", at worst "educational projects"). Sadly, not banned too.
As you once elegantly said: “It's like natural selection except our society has not selected them.” We now have the tools to remove them from the gene pool and it’s a good thing.