{"slug": "whoever-takes-your-old-github-name-gets-your-mcp-namespace", "title": "Whoever takes your old GitHub name gets your MCP namespace", "summary": "A security researcher found that at least 111 GitHub usernames tied to published MCP servers in the official registry have since been renamed or deleted, leaving those io.github namespaces unclaimed and open to takeover. Because the registry derives io.github.<login>/* permissions from the current GitHub login rather than an immutable account ID, anyone who registers a freed username can publish new versions of the affected servers, including high-download packages like aiterm-mcp, agents-fleet, and Shodan and VirusTotal integrations that run with users' API keys. The researcher advises re-registering old names and pinning MCP packages by version rather than trusting registry names.", "body_md": "Rename your GitHub account and your MCP servers stay in the official registry under your old name. Whoever registers that name next can publish new versions of them, and the registry can't tell it isn't you.\n\nOn 2 November I checked every `io.github` name in the registry against GitHub. At least 111 names that published servers have since been renamed or deleted, and don't belong to any account now. Between them:\n\nThey're not toys, either. Here are the busiest:\n\n**Weekly downloads of the busiest servers under unclaimed names** ([the data](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NotAFlightRisk/blog/main/posts/whoever-takes-your-github-name/busiest.json))\n\n*These are npm and PyPI downloads over the last week, as of 2 November. Each one is listed in the registry under a GitHub name that nobody holds now.*\n\n`aiterm-mcp` lets your coding agent drive terminals, `agents-fleet` reaches every machine you've got over SSH, the Shodan and VirusTotal ones run with your API keys for those services, and `azure-board-mcp` wants a personal access token. Further down the list, four more handle crypto wallets, payments or transactions.\n\nThe registry hands out `io.github.<login>/*` based on your GitHub login, not your account's ID, which is the bit that never changes ([`github_at.go`](https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/registry/blob/main/internal/api/handlers/v0/auth/github_at.go)):\n\n```\npermissions := h.buildPermissions(user.Login, orgs)\n```\n\nWhen you rename, GitHub's docs say your old name [becomes available for anyone else to claim](https://docs.github.com/en/account-and-profile/concepts/username-changes). Whoever claims it gets your namespace, and from there:\n\n`latest`\nA local MCP server runs as you, with whatever keys you put in its config. A remote one sees every tool call your agent makes to it, and gets to write the answers.\n\nIf you installed the npm or PyPI package directly, a new registry version doesn't touch you. It's the clients and galleries that pick servers from the registry by name that would follow it, and the registry tells [aggregators](https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/registry/blob/main/docs/modelcontextprotocol-io/registry-aggregators.mdx) to copy it and keep their own copy.\n\n22 namespaces in the registry now belong to a GitHub account that was created after they were published. `io.github.facebook` is one, since Meta became `meta` on 28 October. So far most of them look like owners holding on to their old name, and none has published anything.\n\nThe other half has bitten for real. About twenty publishers have filed tickets since April because they're locked out of their own old entries, like [PaidSync](https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/registry/issues/1662), whose old listing kept advertising an address they'd switched off until a maintainer stepped in.\n\nRegister your old name again today. An empty org costs nothing. Once you hold the name, nobody else can publish there, and you can deprecate the old entries yourself.\n\nIf you install MCP servers, pin the package and version rather than trusting the registry name, and treat a change of package or URL between versions like a new server.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/whoever-takes-your-old-github-name-gets-your-mcp-namespace", "canonical_source": "https://dev.to/notaflightrisk/whoever-takes-your-old-github-name-gets-your-mcp-namespace-50ea", "published_at": "2026-11-02 18:48:35+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-11-02 18:53:53.226785+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-agents", "ai-tools", "agent-protocols", "ai-safety", "developer-tools"], "entities": ["GitHub", "MCP Registry", "Meta", "Shodan", "VirusTotal", "PaidSync", "aiterm-mcp", "agents-fleet"], "also_reported_by": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/whoever-takes-your-old-github-name-gets-your-mcp-namespace", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/whoever-takes-your-old-github-name-gets-your-mcp-namespace.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/whoever-takes-your-old-github-name-gets-your-mcp-namespace.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/whoever-takes-your-old-github-name-gets-your-mcp-namespace.jsonld"}}