Correct. My suggestion for a solution is for github to add a "reject-unsigned" feature. Only allow commits signed by <my gpg key> and <my email> to be pushed to github, under any projects/org.
1. What happens when someone needs to resolve a merge conflict involving your commit? Let's say I maintain a fork of an open source repo to add some feature, and I periodically merge back in upstream changes... that necessarily involves resolving conflicts. By default, git retains author ownership, and now the commit is unsigned, but it's really your work. What do we do? Do I have to use a custom merge flow that also rewrites authorship from "Alice <alice@gmail.com>" to "Alice <alice@gmail.com.fake.unsigned.suffix>"?
2. What happens if your gpg key is compromised or expires? Are all your previous repos now invalid? I can't fork it because it contains a commit authored by you, but with a revoked or expired gpg key?
3. What happens to previous commits if I enable this feature? Can all my unsigned commits no longer be pushed to github? I made a commit in a project at work 5 years ago with my email, but didn't sign it.. if that company wants to open source that project on github, do they now have to rewrite history to change the author on my unsigned commits?
4. What does the "squash merge" button on github PRs do for your PRs?
IMO I don't see how this is desirable enough to be worth it.
Wider adoption of GPG signatures would be much more impactful.
It could make sense to use a blockchain for key distribution/key discovery/revocation, effectively as a replacement of PKI, though.
The check is that commits at the point of merge have a valid signature. Historical commits are part of the history and as such cannot be changed without an additional commit (with a valid signature). Previous unsigned commits are deemed trusted at the point you begin signing and checking.
Squash merge breaks stuff and shouldn't be used. To complete things, the restricted set of operations exposed through the GUI should sign using gitlab's or github's key (or some accepted bot key we've set), with the check happening on the input commits, but AFAICT that's not supported yet.
While that still allows pushing unsigned commits, it will flag them with a warning batch.
I had this on for a while, but unfortunately as some open source projects tend to rebase commits before pushing them, this was causing warnings to be shown (as the rebase breaks my signature), so I turned it off again as to not scare people when looking at the commit history of a project and seeing warnings after my contributions were merged in.
I'm not sure if it's a me issue or a PGP issue or a GitHub issue, but it's a pretty broken system.
Also does not help that enough percentage of repo owners would accept then signed PRs to their projects.
The fake accounts can be created with gpg signed fake commits too.
You're just adding an extra step that's hardly going to stop someone.
These repos were not taken over but cloned and made to look like another repo via similar naming.
I think what you're looking for is more "all accounts must be verified via payment/identity" then you really know who is making "random clones" and "look-a-likes" w/ malware.
But you've got a whole host of other problems in the process.