Lately, Twitter, the company of Elon Musk, has declared that parts of the source code of the app itself have ended up on the net. Indeed, according to a legal document, parts of the source code of Twitter, the computer code underlying the functioning of the social network, have been leaked on GitHub. Basically, the latter consists of an online collaboration platform for software developers. New troubles therefore for the blue bird, after the recent acquisition by the CEO Tesla and the consequent devaluation that resulted.
The news of the Twitter code leak on the net
The news only reached the top San Francisco house this March, but apparently, the code had been leaked for longer. In fact, we are talking about a few months and the manager is thought to be someone who left the San Francisco firm last year. Suspicions confirmed by an ongoing investigation by Twitter itselfas stated by two people familiar with the internal investigation.
In short, a more than probable move, given what has happened in recent months following the handover to the top of the company. In fact, since Musk bought Twitter in October for $44 billion, about 75% of the company’s employees have experienced layoffs. Or at least many of these have instead decided to voluntarily resign.
On the user side of course, one concern is that the code includes security vulnerabilities; which could give hackers or other motivated parties the means to extract their data or bring down the site. In any case, Twitter moved on Friday to have the leaked code removed by sending a copyright infringement notice to GitHub. GitHub responded and pulled the code the same day. It’s unclear how long the leaked code has been online, but as noted above, it appears to have been public for at least several months.
Musk did not respond to a request for comment about the leaked Twitter code. GitHub declined to comment on the decision to remove the code, but posted Twitter’s takedown request on its website.
The request on GitHub and the “Tutorial” Twitter
The infringement notice with request removal is still available on the online developer collaboration platform. In fact, on GitHub, on the dedicated page it is possible to read the following:
Please retain and provide copies of any related upload/download/access history (and any contact information, IP address or other session information related thereto) and any associated logs relating to this repository or any forks thereof, before to remove all content violations from Github.
Extract from Twitter’s takedown request on GitHub
Twitter’s requests are therefore explicit and regulated, but on the matter many see several coincidences with what Musk had recently decided as internal policy. In fact, the new CEO had promised to make part of the Twitter code public. This month, the billionaire said so about the code Twitter uses to recommend tweets.
By the end of March, that way everyone would have seen and analyzed the source for flaws. All in the name of making Twitter more secure, as people have identified and reported problems with it. Musk also added though the possibility of leaks and thefts by disgruntled ex-employees during his mass layoffs.
In November, he closed Twitter’s offices and asked employees not to come in during the cuts. In recent months, Twitter has also blocked engineers from making changes to the site’s code ahead of layoffs. This was precisely out of fear that someone might sabotage the platform on their way out the door.
The culprits so far
The person who leaked the Twitter source code appears to go by the name of “FreeSpeechEnthusiast” on GitHub, according to Twitter’s legal filings. The user’s pseudonym appears to be a reference to Mr. Musk, who has described himself as a “free speech absolutist.”
The anonymous user’s GitHub profile shows a single contribution to the platform in early January. And the account for now seems to still be active and online.
