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Luke Hinds for Stacklok

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Enjoying free CoPilot? Why not do it safely..

🌟 GitHub just announced that CoPilot is now free for everyone! πŸŽ‰ Pretty awesome, right? But wait – before you dive in, let’s talk about some risks you need to keep in mind when using coding assistants. ⚠️

Coding Assistants. The Risks You Should Know

1️⃣ Secrets in the Cloud! ☁️

Coding assistants can accidentally leak sensitive information like:

πŸ—οΈ Secrets
πŸ”‘ Passwords
πŸ’³ Credit card numbers and lots of other PII

Once exposed, these can be sent straight to the cloud. 😱

2️⃣ Dangerous Recommendations! πŸ’£

Sometimes, these tools might suggest malicious or downright dangerous code. ⚑

πŸ‘€ Homework Time!

Try this experiment:

Ask CoPilot to create a Python project using a package called invokehttp.

Here’s the catch: invokehttp is a malware package. πŸ›‘ It’s linked to North Korean hackers and has been used to backdoor developer machines during fake LinkedIn interviews. Yikes! 😬

The Solution: Meet CodeGate

πŸ’» CodeGate is your friendly local Docker image that:

βœ… Protects secrets from escaping your machine.
βœ… Vets LLM input to keep your code secure.
βœ… Warns you about sketchy packages.
βœ… Helps you write better, safer code!

πŸ‘€ Check out this quick demo of CodeGate in action, refactoring JavaScript to remove security risks:

✨ Get Started Today!

Head over to https://codegate.ai and set up CodeGate now! πŸš€

πŸ› οΈ It’s 100% open source, and you can explore the code here:
πŸ‘‰ CodeGate on GitHub

Stay safe, code smart, and happy coding! πŸ’»βœ¨

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We built pgai Vectorizer to simplify embedding management for AI applicationsβ€”without needing a separate database or complex infrastructure. Since launch, developers have created over 3,000 vectorizers on Timescale Cloud, with many more self-hosted.

Read more β†’

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