Twitter takes legal action after source code leaked online

theguardian.com:

Twitter has revealed some of its source code has been released online and the social media platform owned by Elon Musk is taking legal action to identify the leaker.

According to a court filing made on Friday, Twitter is demanding that GitHub, a code-sharing service, identifies who released on the platform parts of its source code – the underlying software on which the service operates.

GitHub has taken down the leaked code but Twitter has asked a US court to order the Microsoft-owned business to “identify the alleged infringer or infringers who posted Twitter’s source code on systems operated by GitHub without Twitter’s authorisation”.

The code was posted online by a GitHub user who used the name FreeSpeechEnthusiast, in an apparent nod to Musk, referring to himself as a “free speech absolutist.”

Musk is obsessed with the threat of Twitter being sabotaged by current and former staff, according to the tech newsletter Platformer, after a takeover that led to the immediate firing of half of Twitter’s 7,500 staff and the reinstatement of formerly suspended rightwing accounts including that of Donald Trump. Twitter’s workforce now numbers fewer than 2,000 people.

In the court filing, Twitter’s assistant general counsel, Julian Moore, said the request to identify the leaker was being made under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which came into force in 1998.

Leaking source code could allow security vulnerabilities, according to one expert.

“Leaks of source code like this can allow security vulnerabilities to be identified and may disclose sensitive commercial information,” Steven Murdoch, a professor of security engineering at University College London, said. “However, Twitter’s most valuable resources are its brand, customer