Ask HN: Went to prison for 18 months, lost access to my GitHub. What can I do?

1 month ago 2

Hi friends,

The skinny is this: I went to prison, all my personal items were stolen IRL and the same person changed a bunch of my passwords. Subsequently, I can't recover my GitHub account.

I have recovered most of my digital assets by proving I am me. Recovering my GitHub has proven to be more painful than Google's treatment regarding my Google Workspace.

I have the original phone number associated with my account, and can verify a bunch of private repos that are associated with my account—even the number of commits on one of them (almost 6900). I can't, however, provide any non-expired 2FA codes (I have old ones that aren't have expired!).

I maintain two relatively popular gems that have gone stale since I've been gone, and there are projects in there that, well, I need for my survival. Having said, just opening another account isn't exactly the option I want to take.

I've opened a ticket, but I'm getting the "shit out of luck because we don't know you are you" treatment. I understand that security is important, but if one can prove they are them, what's the point?

Are there other avenues I have that I haven't explored yet?

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