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Github confirms random 401 responses on unauthenticated git clones are no mistake (eviltoast.org)
submitted 2 days ago by to c/programming@programming.dev
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Since yesterday a lot of users in Europe found their workflows failing due to Github seemingly randomly throwing HTTP/401 on git clone/git pull when interacting with public repos without authentication.

It was now confirmed by staff member that this indeed is intentional and no further steps are planned at this point.

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[–] 7 points 2 days ago (3 children)

AI bot problem is real and there is no good solution to it. Look, I very much dislike GitHub for various reasons BUT currently there is no good way to throttle AI bots that literally trash web. They are like that geeky classmate who can never hold his liquors: it's nice having them around for some answers, but they ramble a lot and shit/puke in random places of the house making it unlivable.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    BUT currently there is no good way to throttle AI bots that literally trash web.

    Sure is. There are plenty of protocols resilient to DDOS.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 day ago

    DDOS is most effective on expensive endpoints. A git clone isn't exactly cheap. Fetching is especially expensive if you vary the revisions you fetch.

    Does GitHub have an alternative here? A Git-compatible protocol with anonymous access that is DDoS-resilient?

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