This ability to (1) forge commits from other people and (2) reference commit hashes from different forks, making them appear to belong to a GitHub repository that they were never actually pushed to, has been posted about on HN before, though I'm having trouble finding the most relevant link.
Edit: For instance, someone pulled a similar trick a year back by making a commit in a fork of the GitHub DMCA repository containing youtube-dl: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24882921
NAME = Trick or Treat
NAME = Opossums on Parade
NAME = Frozen Wasteland
NAME = Valentine's Day Edition
NAME = Kleptomaniac Octopus
NAME = Nesting Opossum
NAME = Bobtail Squid
NAME = Golden Lions
NAME = Shy Crocodile
NAME = "People's Front"
NAME = Merciless Moray
NAME = Fearless Coyote
NAME = Anniversary Edition
NAME = Roaring Lionus
NAME = Psychotic Stoned Sheep
NAME = Charred Weasel
NAME = Blurry Fish Butt
NAME = Hurr durr I'ma sheep
NAME = Diseased Newt
NAME = Shuffling Zombie Juror
NAME = One Giant Leap for Frogkind
NAME = Suicidal Squirrel
NAME = Linux for Workgroups
NAME = Unicycling Gorilla
NAME = Terrified Chipmunk
NAME = Saber-toothed Squirrel
NAME = "Divemaster Edition"
NAME = Wet Seal
NAME = Sneaky Weasel
NAME = Flesh-Eating Bats with Fangs
NAME = Sheep on Meth
NAME = Man-Eating Seals of Antiquity
NAME = Vindictive Armadillo
NAME = Temporary Tasmanian Devil
NAME = Erotic Pickled Herring
NAME = Killer Bat of Doom
NAME = Rotary Wombat
NAME = Funky Weasel is Jiggy wit it
NAME = Arr Matey! A Hairy Bilge Rat!
NAME = Pink Farting Weasel
NAME = Holy Dancing Manatees, Batman!
NAME = Jeff Thinks I Should Change This, But To What?
NAME = Nocturnal Monster Puppy
NAME = Homicidal Dwarf Hamster
NAME=Avast! A bilge rat!
NAME=Crazed Snow-Weasel
NAME=Lordi Rules
NAME=Sliding Snow Leopard
NAME=Affluent Albatross
NAME=Woozy Numbat
For anyone who is confused by the lack of context: the poster is showing us an issue with the GitHub UI which was circulated on Twitter today.
This issue makes it look like a commit in a fork is actually on the upstream repository - and you can also make a commit with any email address you like, for instance with Torvald's.
He didn't. GitHub didn't verify the author here, and they store forks of the same repo together, so you can sorta spoof whose repo a given commit hash is under.
I don't think there is any real evidence or logic in thinking he is. If he had come up with the idea he is smart enough to have also thought up some of the negative consequences as well. Whoever did the work either didn't consider them or didn't care. And Linus doesn't strike me as that kind of person.
So Either
1) Linus Torvalds is asserting he is Satoshi Nakamoto, inventor of Bitcoin.
2) Someone hacked Linus’ GitHub account.
3) Someone used a technique on git to change the author and claim they are Satoshi.
2b) Someone is using GitHub trickery to display a commit in another repo as belonging to that repo (see other comments), without actually compromising any accounts.
Neither; this is some random text in a fork's branch, not the main repo, that Github allows to show up as part of the main repo somehow. Terrible UX from Github's side that leads to people thinking this is part of the main repo. (So it's not 3rd because they didn't "change the author" on master, it's just not on master).
> This commit does not belong to any branch on this repository, and may belong to a fork outside of the repository.
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/ac632c504d0b881d7cf...
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commits?author=torvalds
This ability to (1) forge commits from other people and (2) reference commit hashes from different forks, making them appear to belong to a GitHub repository that they were never actually pushed to, has been posted about on HN before, though I'm having trouble finding the most relevant link.
Why does GitHub let me commit as other people? (2014) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7792026
Edit: For instance, someone pulled a similar trick a year back by making a commit in a fork of the GitHub DMCA repository containing youtube-dl: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24882921