Re: Git Privacy

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Jul 14, 2023, 16:45 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqbkgeqw6n.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <CU1SAE4WGP3X.3R7TTIWFSHGDI@anonymous>

"nick" <nick@nicholasjohnson.ch> writes:

Show 17 quoted lines

>> "nick" <nick@nicholasjohnson.ch> writes:
>>
>> > hooks. Perhaps a config option to automatically set the date to a time
>> > before Git was invented?
>>
>> [...] I am not yet convinced that it is worth the engineering effort
>> for this project to review, accept and maintain changes to implement
>> it.
>
> Upon further thought, given that it's already pretty easy to accomplish
> timestamp obfuscation, albeit clumsy, I concede that it may not be worth
> the engineering effort to implement my original suggestion. So I'll drop
> it.
>
> However, I think it is worth the effort for the time zones. Is there any
> reason Git doesn't automatically convert local time to UTC in timestamps
> to prevent leaking the developer's time zone?

Actually it is the other way around, if I understand correctly.

Git could have been designed to discard that information like previous version control systems, but it is another piece of interesting information and made a conscious design decision to keep it. In other words, "is there any reason why we do not discard the information?" is a wrong question to ask in the context of VCS.

I earlier said I am not yet convinced it is worth our time, and so far I haven't heard anything new that may help me convince myself yet.

Thanks.