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Comment by osense | Hacker News Reader

Cybersquatters...

It is curious to me why GCHQ didn't just contact GitHub to acquire github.com/gchq but instead decided to go with the long and cumbersome github.com/GovernmentCommunicationsHeadquarters. Perhaps it is a British thing [1].

[1] https://www.addedbytes.com/blog/if-php-were-british/

Maybe they tried but from my experience GitHub does not care one bit about cybersquatting. On the other hand I'm not James Bond so who knows ;)

GitHub explicitly has a Name Squatting Policy [1] that states:

> Account names may not be inactively held for future use. GitHub account name squatting is prohibited. Inactive accounts may be renamed or removed by GitHub staff at their discretion.

I have been able to acquire a couple of GitHub names that have been inactive for several years by contacting GitHub support, and they usually reply within a day or so.

[1] https://help.github.com/articles/name-squatting-policy/

They probably have the skills to acquire it without contacting GitHub as well. But that may be bad PR...

> They probably have the skills to acquire it without contacting GitHub as well.

I'd say they definitely have the skills to acquire it, if QUANTUM {INSERT|DNS}[1] are still operational. As you said, it's probably not worth it.

1. http://blog.fox-it.com/2015/04/20/deep-dive-into-quantum-ins...

I've heard rumor that dead accounts like that can be taken over by someone else by emailing GitHub. A friend of mine did it, but I don't remember all the details of the situation

I did this a couple of weeks ago, and it was extraordinarily efficient: https://help.github.com/articles/name-squatting-policy/

It took about two-hours from clicking the contact a human button to them releasing the name, they simply release it back and ask you to register quickly before someone else gets there first.

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