New court filings show that excerpts of Twitter’s source code, the base programming that powers the social media site, have been leaked online.
Twitter claimed copyright infringement and requested that the code be taken down from Github, a collaborative programming network.
While the code was removed, it is unclear how long it was available online, or how many people downloaded it.
In addition to the takedown request, Twitter asked the US District Court for the Northern District of California to order Github to reveal the identity of the user who posted the code and those who accessed and downloaded it.
Sources within Twitter believe that the leak was the work of a disgruntled former employee who left within the last year.
CNBC, however, mentioned the culprit was identified as “FreeSpeechEnthusiast” on the software collaboration platform.
According to earlier statements by CEO Elon Musk, “Twitter will open source all code used to recommend tweets on March 31st.” In the tweet, Musk predicted that people will discover minor problems that he considers “silly,” and that the initial transparency of the code will be “incredibly embarrassing.”
GitHub removed “proprietary source code for Twitter’s platform and internal tools” as stated in the DMCA request. However, it remains unclear whether the code responsible for recommending tweets was included in the leak.
The leak creates more challenges for billionaire Elon Musk who purchased Twitter last October for $44 billion.
The CEO has since laid off 80% of the company’s staff. Twitter executives are concerned that the stolen code could be used to empower future hacking efforts, potentially revealing new exploits or allowing bad actors to access Twitter user data.
This threat, combined with the site’s recent issues with page functionality and the resurgence of scammers and white nationalists, could be a final straw for advertisers and users alike.
