Twitter is one step closer to finding out who leaked its source code

By order of Elon Musk, Twitter launched a manhunt to find and identify whoever leaked part of the source code last week. And everything indicates that the social network is one step closer to finding out who led the commission of this act.

The company has sent a court order to GitHub to disclose all personal information associated with the FreeSpeechEnthusiast account that hosted the Twitter source code in its online repository. bloomberg says that the Microsoft-owned firm has until April 3, that is, by next Monday, to fulfill the requirement.

The white paper says that GitHub should provide names, phone numbers, email addresses, IP addresses and social media data all the people associated with the above profile that leaked the source code to Twitter. In addition, the provision of all relevant identifiable information is required for billing or administrative purposes.

But the scope of the injunction filed by Elon Musk’s company doesn’t end there. Twitter also wants the private data of “all users who have posted, uploaded, downloaded or modified data” from FreeSpeechEnthusiast’s public repository.

Elon Musk is looking for someone who leaked the Twitter source code

The leak of part of the source code of Twitter became known last Sunday thanks to a report from New York Times. However, there are still no details on when the extraction of the software in question could have occurred. What is a fact is that the code appeared on GitHub, causing the social network to move quickly to request its removal.

Last Friday the Microsoft platform FreeSpeechEnthusiast public repository blocked for copyright infringement. The main problem with Twitter is that the leaked code contains security vulnerabilities that allow the platform to be attacked. Or worse, they make it easier to extract users’ personal data.

Twitter already launched an internal investigation try to determine where the information came from. However, the company is working with only a small fraction of the employees it had a few months ago. Therefore, security experts consider it unlikely that they will be able to identify the perpetrator before GitHub sends the requested information.

Promises to release social network code

Curiously, the leak happened a few days before the date Twitter was supposed to release some of its code. In the middle of this month Elon Musk has announced that the code used to recommend tweets will be created open source March 31. “Enforcing code transparency will be incredibly inconvenient at first, but it should lead to a rapid improvement in the quality of recommendations. Most importantly, we hope to earn your trust.” Indian magnate.

However, there is considerable distrust of Elon Musk’s promises regarding dates. Twitter owner I already promised on February 21 that he will “release his algorithm before the end of the week”, what never was. It remains to be seen whether at least some of the “innards” of the platform will become open source this Friday, or we will have to keep waiting.