After Twitter’s source code was leaked on GitHub, the company was filled with rage and seeking revenge. The US District Court for the Northern District of California approved a subpoena that gives Twitter a powerful weapon. The subpoena requires GitHub to reveal the identity of the “FreeSpeechEnthusiast,” who uploaded pieces of the Twitter source code to the GitHub repository. GitHub must also disclose information on anyone who downloaded the code from the user’s posting.
The subpoena mandates that GitHub provide Twitter with personal information, including name, address, telephone number, email address, social media profile information, and IP address of all associated accounts. Although GitHub has until April 3 to comply with the subpoena, they have yet to make a statement about the matter.
After Twitter filed a DMCA takedown request, GitHub initially removed the code from its site. However, The New York Times reported that the code was online for several months before Twitter was alerted to it. Twitter believes that the source of the leak might be an engineer who left the San Francisco office last year.
Perhaps Twitter is angry that someone else is sharing their code before they can. Elon Musk recently tweeted that Twitter’s recommendation algorithm in its source code would be open-sourced from March 31. This first public release could be “incredibly embarrassing at first,” but Twitter and Musk hope it will build trust with users. Although there has been no indication that the entire source code will become open-access, it’s a start.
