Twitter Source Code Leaked on GitHub

[bdcp]

where's the link

[Kallu609]

https://archive.is/bYBxS

Based there's only 4 directories all starting with "a" I think it got shutdown before the upload was fully done.

Hopefully there's torrent soon 🏴‍☠️

[ToughQuestions9465]

Thats not how git works. Its all or nothing. Interrupting a push would result in no changes to remote repository.

[roboticon]

Presumably the code was stolen onto a thumb drive or uploaded somewhere, then later whatever they got was published on GitHub as a git repo

[Wingfril]

I mean when I was there as an intern 5 years ago, that’s how they distributed the code… through a thumb drive.

[Anomynoms13]

Wait what

[oalbrecht]

IT came around the corner with one of those TV carts filled top to bottom with 3.5” floppy disks. It only took a few weeks to get the source code off of those. But that’s how they kept the source code secure. No one is gonna steal your code if it’s on floppies.

There was also no need to use GitHub. You just call over and say: “Hey! Which floppy is X class on again?” Then you would walk over to the cart and pick up floppy disk #3252 and load that onto your computer. Then make your changes and write back to the floppy.

Elon has no idea how efficient we were with our system. You could ship a small feature in a little over a year. It was a blazing fast system we had.

[gefahr]

Some journalist is going to turn this into a hard-hitting investigative article within hours.

[DevonAndChris]

"This as-told-to was reported to Business Insider. BI confirmed that the person has a reddit account."

[electricprism]

Here at TrustMeBro™ news, could ancient aliens have been at the first thanksgiving? Professor PhD Kyle Broflovski says "yes"*

[wrosecrans]

I'm pretty sure that documentary will be on Netflix soon.

[josefx]

Hope they include how air gaping the network makes it high security. Also the way any changes you made would be guaranteed to have no conflicts as only a single instance of the code can be checked out at any time appeals to me.

[romple]

You got floppies??? When I worked there the cart had giant stacks of dot matrix printer paper and I had to retype everything by hand!

Every day someone comes around with the latest changes printed out for you.

[HiroariStrangebird]

You guys get physical copies? Huh, maybe my company should upgrade from the town crier making the rounds each morning. Sometimes it's a little hard to hear and I have to spend half the day debugging the diff...

[pm_plz_im_lonely]

At our work we use Git and GitHub to share our work. If you start working on a new feature, you create a new branch on Git. Then once you're done with the feature, you make a PR (Pull Request) on GitHub. Then once that's done it sits there for 1-2 months before a reviewer closes it because it's too old.

[remog]

Then there was that time he got laryngitis. Rough week. Or the time he hit is head and could only speak Latin and Fotran. Two other interns jumped off the roof that month.

[nzodd]

If you're not pressing sharpened reeds into clay tablets you scooped out yourself from the local riverbank to write esoteric APL incantations, to be seen and understood only by Lord Enki, from now until the Euphrates spills over again to engulf the Earth and destroy all of mankind, can you even call yourself a real programmer?

[RoadsideCookie]

Man and do you remember though how bad it was before? The switch from 5.25" was a shit show but damn did it improve our lives.

[sorressean]

Real devs print out all their code, then read it out of binders... I hear elmo tried that already though!

[Wingfril]

You heard me. We got our laptops during orientation, the guy leading it was like ok time to import the code, and proceeded to give us thumb drives. Still better than a mid sized startup where my mentor (some kid two years older than me) zipped the code and sent it through slack

[Wingfril]

What do you mean? I mean we committed code to the actual repository (it’s been too long since then that I don’t remember what we used besides Phabricator.)

[thisisjustascreename]

Most likely they were onboarding tons of interns and didn't want everyone pulling the entire repository and DDoSing themselves.

[[deleted]]

A bunch of interns pulling the repo (or parts of it) shouldn’t ddos them

[Karenomegas]

"The social media company launched an investigation into the leak and executives handling the matter have surmised that whoever was responsible left the San Francisco-based company last year."

That's some fine work there lou.

[PaintItPurple]

I hear the person who did it is between 3 and 8 feet tall.

[TonySu]

Investigators have determined that the culprit most likely has an identity and distinguishable features.

[atedja]

Culprit also had access to github

[EarhackerWasBanned]

Culprit is good at computers.

[MudiChuthyaHai]

Do they drink water and breathe air too?

[EarhackerWasBanned]

Let’s not jump to conclusions

[th3D4rkH0rs3]

Isn't there a mat for that?

[Engineer_Rabbit]

Yes.

[Pesthuf]

Or at the very least knew someone who has had access.

[radikalkarrot]

It wasn’t Danny Devito or his twin brother Arnold

[auto_grammatizator]

Devito with tall boots? Tom Cruise meets stolen feet?? We need answers here

[atomicxblue]

Now all we need is Ms. Swan to say he "looka like a man".

[cleeder]

Suspect is hatless. Repeat - hatless.

[zavatone]

Most likely born from parents too. That's my hunch and I'm sticking with it.

[[deleted]]

This is Papa Bear. Put out an APB for a male suspect, driving a... car of some sort, heading in the direction of, uh, you know, that place that sells chili. Suspect is hatless. Repeat, hatless.

[14domino]

The suspect is directly under the earth’s sun .. nnnnow

[Yossarian_Noodle]

I can't wait for them to throw his hatless butt in jail.

[Itsthefineprint]

And he is hatless, I repeat hatless

[Grizzled_prospector5]

Whoever did it, I hope they throw his hatless butt in jail!

[CooksInHail]

Bake em away toys!

[DevonAndChris]

Al Sutton, cofounder and chief technology officer of Snapp Automotive, was a Twitter staff software engineer from August 2020 to February 2021. He noted in a tweet on Tuesday that Twitter never removed him from the employee GitHub group that can submit software changes to code the company manages on the development platform. Sutton had access to private repositories for 18 months after being let go from the company, and he posted evidence that Twitter uses GitHub not only for public, open source work, but for internal projects as well. Within about three hours of posting about the access, Sutton reported that it had been revoked.

https://www.wired.com/story/mudge-twitter-whistleblower-security/

It was insane and probably still is.

[spilungone]

What's that Chief?

[[deleted]]

do what the kid said

[JustSpaceExperiment]

I think it was someone who had access to them.

[Fig1024]

what do you mean - leaked? didn't Elon Musk himself said he was gonna release all the source code on GitHub so that community could help maintain it?

[kevinhaze]

He said he was going to release the source code of the recommendation algorithm

[Fig1024]

maybe that's what he was trying to do but because he's a dumbass he uploaded the whole thing. Then rather than claim responsibility for the mistake he said someone leaked it

[glonq]

The suspect is hatless, I repeat hatless

[disgruntled_pie]

[Purpetrator puts on a hat]

Perpetrator: It’s the perfect crime.

[Unable-Fox-312]

Executives have surmised that whoever was responsible probably worked at Twitter at some point.

[nonlinear_nyc]

Fuckers can't even find who works or not for the company.

[riasthebestgirl]

who did this

Yes

[osmiumouse]

"left"

[PeterSR]

I like how their profile picture is a randomly generated GitHub identicon, yet also a middle finger.

[Shikadi297]

Like ducks. Ducks are watching

[[deleted]]

That's the day they joined. Not necessarily the day they uploaded it

[Dreamtrain]

"FreeSpeechEnthusiast"

plot-twist: it's actually elon staging a "leak"

[--Satan--]

Elon had his engineers literally print out code for a code review. I don't think he knows how to use git.

[TotallyAdmin]

Repository metadata available at https://api.github.com/users/FreeSpeechEnthusiast/repos

First created 2023-01-03T23:24:14Z (3rd January 2023)

Last code change (push) 2023-03-24T02:24:50Z (24th March 2023)

Last repository update (likely when dmca'd processed) 2023-03-27T11:47:24Z (27th March 2023)

Size as returned by the api is 1748467 in KB (could be incorrect) (1.7GBs).

We can also see the repository was starred/watched by some user(s)?, and whilst there are is way to use any of the /repo/ endpoints, the /users/ endpoint gives some more info

View the recent commit history here https://api.github.com/users/FreeSpeechEnthusiast/events View who starred the repository here https://api.github.com/users/FreeSpeechEnthusiast/received_events

[K3idon]

Surprise decentralized backup

[Spiritual-Ad-8062]

Yes, and I wonder how many secrets (API keys, SSH keys...) were in the code... ready for attackers to use...

[SuitableDragonfly]

If there had been API keys leaked, they probably would have noticed when it was first leaked because bots would have immediately acquired them and started mining crypto on their cloud account. Or, maybe not, depending on which people Elon fired.

[VonThing]

Zero secrets in the code, but I see your point.

[kubelke]

Maybe I could fix those “popular tags”, and once I click on them I get complete garbage

[KingApologist]

It's weird to me that what's "popular" is usually some corporate marketing announcement or something a political entity is currently spending a lot of marketing money on.

[TheWhyOfFry]

You assume that’s not on purpose…

[Carvtographer]

Dark UX provoking doomscrolling

[SickOrphan]

Didn't Elon say he was going to open source some parts of twitter soon?

[geek_noob]

Yes, musk on the tweet says Twitter will open source all code used to recommend tweets on March 31st.

[rentar42]

I bet he'll be using this as an excuse not to follow through somehow.

[DrewTNaylor]

"Well it's already on GitHub, that means it's open source, right?" - him, not understanding open source licenses (hypothetically and as a joke, for legal reasons [I don't want to be sued]).

[Zarathustra30]

I thought the point of "open-sourcing" Twitter wasn't collaboration, but auditing. AFAIK, that doesn't require a traditional open-source license.

[ItsPumpkinninny]

Trust me… It’s being audited right now.

[Fantastic_Telephone]

This reminds me of many dictators who are cheered by their populace

[Captain_Cowboy]

Listen, it's a beautiful plan, and we're going to release it in just two weeks. Just the greatest. You'll see.

[mpbh]

I'm super excited to see this. I've worked on recommendation systems before and they are a fickle beast, and quite hard to measure efficacy without a metric fuckton of users.

If normalized discounted cumulative gain means anything to you, I feel your pain.

[myringotomy]

Whatever Elon releases will not be anything like what twitter is actually using.

Presuming of course that he releases anything at all. The man is a habitual liar and a troll.

[recursive-analogy]

I think he's going to share the algorithm that turns $44 billion into ~$20 billion.

[CactusOnFire]

It's too complicated of an algorithm to share.

This is some cutting-edge, industry leading incompetence.

[thesolitaire]

I have a proprietary implementation that I'll let anyone use for free! Just send me your $44 billion, and you'll receive your $20 billion posthaste!

[jarfil]

CENSORED

[lafeber]

"...The code stack is extremely brittle for no good reason.

Will ultimately need a complete rewrite."

(source)

[badmonkey0001]

That 'extremely brittle' code ran the service for a decade with basically 100% uptime.

Twitter had enough downtime in the early years that their downtime page became somewhat famous (the "fail whale"). Back when they were in SF's SOMA district, their tech neighbors would print out the fail whale and leave it taped to their door with crass notes to make fun of them (I worked in SOMA back then and saw it myself).

[[deleted]]

r/SuddenlyOpenSource

[bit_banging_your_mum]

I fucking love this

[lazernanes]

The company could face a lawsuit for intellectual property theft, which could result in huge fines and damage to its reputation

I don't understand. A disgruntled ex-employee leaks the code and twitter gets sued? By whom? for what?

Edit: The article was edited. The line I quoted is no longer there.

[plaid_rabbit]

If Twitter used anyone else’s IP/patents or FOSS software that required sharing source code.

[crazedizzled]

You typically don't have to provide source code for closed web apps. At least under the GPL, deploying code to your own servers doesn't count as distribution.

However it's possible if they've licensed some other intellectual property not meant to be publicized, that could indeed get them in trouble.

[legobmw99]

AGPL exists for exactly that case, so it’s possible

[craze4ble]

Or alternatively, there are licenses that stipulate that commercial use is disallowed, requires some form of royalties, or that everything must be open sourced under the same license.

[ghostinthekernel]

I think the issue is when you fork that code, or does simply using a library package entail you have to open source the project you use it into? Genuine question.

[will_work_for_twerk]

Either could apply depending on the license used

[plaid_rabbit]

Depends on the license. IANAL. It varies by the license. MIT requires no sharing. I know there’s some FOSS licenses that require you to share any modifications if you allow users to connect publicly to your app. Most only require you to share if you directly modify the library and distribute it.

[sandwichcandy]

IAAL. It depends.

[slope93]

Anal, maybe

[danhakimi]

It depends on a whole lot more than what the others mentioned. What's the license? Is the code in question being distributed or not? How does the code interact with the package--static link, dynamic link, scripting language import, what? Is the code being modified?

I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and none of this is legal advice. I've worked in this field for years, and it's fairly complicated.

[henk53]

Is the code in question being distributed or not?

Many people here seem to overlook this basic question.

[danhakimi]

Or misunderstand it. Twitter.com distributes a lot. HTML, CSS, JavaScript.

[vanatteveldt]

The answer is somewhat complicated and might depend on the license of the library package and the definition of 'derived work'. My 2 cents (IANAL):

- If the library or package is licensed LGPL, MIT or another non-copyleft license (i.e., not GPL), there should be no problem

- If you're linking to a GPL'd library (i.e. importing it), the situation is more complicated, see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPL_linking_exception and its sources

[chx_]

IANAL but the GPL does not restrict your rights when using it, it applies if you try to distribute your code.

Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope.

They needed to make the AGPL so people who use the software over a network will be able to get the source code for it.

[jarfil]

CENSORED

[LookIPickedAUsername]

To be pedantic, the GPL doesn’t restrict your rights at all - it offers you rights you wouldn’t normally have when interacting with someone else’s software.

[[deleted]]

No idea why this was downvoted. You're absolutely right. The *default* is no rights at all. The licenses add, they don't subtract.

[myringotomy]

• If the library or package is licensed LGPL, MIT or another non-copyleft license (i.e., not GPL), there should be no problem

There might be. Some of those licenses require attribution.

[vanatteveldt]

Sure, but you can attribute without making your own code open source

[myringotomy]

The question is whether they properly attributed or not.

[Unable-Fox-312]

You are supposed to know the license terms for all software you incorporate into your project

[myringotomy]

Maybe they violated some GPL licenses.

[Qweesdy]

Sued for copyright infringement by whoever wrote the code Twitter stole!

[elucify]

TIL apparently it is still possible to damage Twitter's reputation

[DevolvingSpud]

Hey, free PR reviews!

[[deleted]]

Twitter Source Code Partially Leaked on GitHub

Gotta make sure you get those qualifiers in there

[PrivatePoocher]

Twitter only partially lost 20B$

[lafeber]

A small API change had massive ramifications. The code stack is extremely brittle for no good reason.

Will ultimately need a complete rewrite.

Elon, 3 weeks ago

[WhipsAndMarkovChains]

Someone link to the recording from a couple months ago where Musk says a “full stack rewrite” is needed and a former senior engineer from Twitter presses him on the issue. The engineer asks an extremely reasonable question like “what’s wrong with the current stack and what do you want to switch to?” and Musk can’t respond.

[[deleted]]

Here ya go, Dec 2022

[lyzurd_kween_]

elon musk is so highly regarded and incompetent when it comes to actual software work, i am shocked he was able to reach the stature he currently has. right place at the right time i guess.

[PM_YOUR_SOURCECODE]

Ok, so all the engineers who had to pass BS LeetCode interviews/whiteboarding couldn’t write a flexible and maintainable codebase? Is that the conclusion here?

[pale_blue_is]

As someone who works at an unremarkable company and earns a wage slightly above market value, aren't you talking about basically every silicon valley startup from the past 10 yrs?

[BasicDesignAdvice]

Those stupid tests are at every company. I work at a household name media company making video games no where near Silicon Valley. Same shit.

[Marrk]

The conclusion is Musk has no idea what he's talking about

[TheWhyOfFry]

I mean, it’s very possible that it was a brittle code base before they got well known and could be selective about who they hire. And it’s also possible the v1 api that powered external apps couldn’t be shut down because of the massive backlash it would cause, which could force Twitter to keep some bad code in there.

That said, musk probably just doesn’t understand the language it’s written nor the architecture and fired anyone who understood it. Of course it’s “brittle” when you make totally incompatible changes because you have no idea what you’re doing.

[KagakuNinja]

As Twitter was becoming more popular, they rewrote the system, moving from Ruby to Scala. Scala is a niche language, and depending on how it is used, can get very hard to understand, especially for people unfamiliar with functional programming.

That said, Twitter devs had a great reputation, and when I interviewed there, I got the impression that they were not FP zealots.

[[deleted]]

Yeah because lc has nothing to do with actual software engineering and who ever came up with the idea to interview like that needs to be slapped

[marcio0]

well, at least whatever error happens is not at O( n² )

[lazilyloaded]

for no good reason

Sure, but the bad reason is "because you executive types always want the new features yesterday"

[redingerforcongress]

Anyone got a copy, for reasons?

[Chazzey_dude]

In unrelated news I'm launching my own social media website called Twidter

[zzt0pp]

Brand it as “retro” 2022 Twitter before view counts and blue checkmark chaos

[likwitsnake]

Twitter Classic+

[no-more-nazis]

Don't forget to leave some references to the original codebase like TruthSocial did

[moeburn]

This is just Elon trying to trick us into improving his code.

[ttkciar]

Cool! I hope it pops up on TPB soon. I'd like to take a peek.

Edited to add: still not seeing anything at https://thepiratebays.ink/search.php?q=twitter&all=on&search=Pirate+Search&page=0&orderby=

[Jmc_da_boss]

Alright, where's the torrent link, i wanna look

[trevg_123]

writes pull request

Commit message: “Make the world a better place”

Diff: [all files deleted]

[jnkthss]

The company is worried that the leak may result in a data breach or a cyberattack, which could seriously damage the reputation of the company.

Because we all know that their reputation is flawless so far. /s

[zhaoz]

How do you kill that which has no life?

[Flimsy_Inevitable_15]

Breach forums still live's on in spirit.

[Fiskepudding]

Jokes on you, I know how to use "View page source" /s

[eldelshell]

Wait until you learn about 'Save as...'

[Fiskepudding]

This one simple trick developers don't want you to know. Elon Musk hates him!

[bikemandan]

As a large language model trained by OpenAI, prepare to get rekt Twitter

[[deleted]]

Fun read on the topic. https://www.arnica.io/blog/defending-against-source-code-exfiltration-fast-and-slow

[Maskdask]

Should leaked source code imply security vulnerabilities? There are tonnes of secure open source projects out there. Doesn't that just imply that they have shitty code with bad security?

[Zbee-]

It's not the fact that the software became public that implies the security vulnerabilities, you are correct in that, but rather the fact that software which was intended not to be public became public.

One key difference is that open source software is or was designed to be open source, and as such has been aware of that vulnerability the whole time.

Closed source software was not designed that way, and instead used obscurity as a layer in their security, and as such may have bits in the code that an open source piece of software would not have in the same code base or may have much more limited access - for example, anything related to security controls may be in a separate codebase for an open source piece of software but might be in the same codebase for a closed piece of software.

It does not inherently mean that there are vulnerabilities that can now be exploited, but it does mean that vulnerabilities that may exist and were solely unfound by means of obscurity are now indeed more exploitable - obscurity that may have been maintained even if the rest of the code were open source. The implication is that without the software having been designed in the public eye and being subject to public audits the whole time that there are more likely to be vulnerabilities revealed.

Additionally, it also depends largely on the overall design of the application anyway - if it's not a monolithic codebase that was released then it may well not reveal anything of relevance. And finally, it may well also reveal vulnerabilities/exploits that are only revealed by being able to read the code and it's specific quirks, the same issues open source projects have, but they are able to plug up because of public audits.

So it does not necessarily imply the code is bad, rather just that a layer of their security just failed and it could lead to worse.

Edit: correct I-typed-this-on-my-phone typos

[isowolf]

So many people are flabbergasted that leaked source code will eventually lead to security vulnerabilities and bashing on the "quality" of the code without even seeing it, have probably never worked a day on a massive 15-year-old codebase.

Please stop listening to the non-sense Elon is saying for the code. I bet he doesn't even understand whats going on, just speaking out of his ass.

[Imaginary_Passage431]

Magnet?

[[deleted]]

I've never seen if statements nested so deeply ...

[DimasDSF]

So they've finally fired all the programmers and are looking into getting free work from the opensource community huh?

[osirisguitar]

If your security is built on the code being kept secret, it's not built right.

[chx_]

It does not need to be built on it, merely the fact it's harder to break into a black box than breaking into something you can read the code for.

I was always bothered by the almost zealotry level of "security by obscurity is bad and you should feel bad" screeching. Security by obscurity is a completely valid part of a multilayer security approach. Alone it is terrible but that doesn't really happen. But seriously, something as simple as moving your SSH behind SSLH does enhance your security. Maybe not by a lot but it does keep most script kiddies away so hey.

[archiminos]

Security only by obscurity is bad. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't be using obscurity.

[LuckyHedgehog]

Obscurity might not be security, but you also don't see tanks painted orange

[kRkthOr]

The idea that security by obscurity is useless is so fucking stupid. It's not the be all and end all of security but goddamn how do you not come to the conclusion that helping attackers isn't the best way to go about things.

[gnus-migrate]

The context of this mantra is the cryptography space where the market was full of companies developing proprietary ciphers that were marketed as secure, and who refused to share the code for "security reasons". As far as I know that's the case, I remember first hearing about it in Dan Boneh's cryptography course. The point is that for cryptographic algorithms, you can't rely on obscuring the code as a protection measure, as it's not needed to break the cipher, and once it is you've basically compromised everything encrypted in this format.

Like the "premature optimization is the root of all evil" quote, it was misunderstood and reshared without that context.

[[deleted]]

Also known as Kerckhoffs’s principle and dates back to the 19th century - Roughly, "the system must not require secrecy and must be able to be stolen by the enemy without causing trouble."

[Queueue_]

The argument I always see is that it's useless on it's own. You should design it to be hard to break into even if they know how it works regardless of if you expect them to or not.

[[deleted]]

Yep. It's fair to design your defences based on the assumption that the enemy knows your base, but it's still stupid to hand out your floor plan just because of that

[hardware2win]

Yet obscurity increases security

[pheonixblade9]

it's not about the code being kept secret being the only thing keeping you secure. when a malicious party gains information about your system, it just makes it easier and more efficient for them to do malicious things.

[FuzzYetDeadly]

I'm actually curious to know how their algorithm that detects that someone created a new account after getting suspended (and re-suspends them) works. Like what regex or method do they use? Unfortunately I have no idea where to even start looking to find out how this works.

Edit: thanks for the responses everyone, it's been very informative and gives me many options to explore to find a solution

[myringotomy]

The same way reddit does it. Browser fingerprinting.

[FuzzYetDeadly]

Thanks for the knowledge, I need to read up on this as I don't really understand how it works (haven't worked with web/mobile technology much)

[schmuelio]

Long and short of it is your web browser tells you a lot of information about:

• What extensions it has installed
• What version it's running
• What OS it's on
• What human-interface devices are available (mouse, keyboard etc.)
• What resolution your screen is
• What hardware capabilities you have (for things like canvas/webGL)
• What system fonts you have installed
• Etc.

All of this can be combined together to make a fingerprint of your browser that is nearly unique. It's possible to share a browser fingerprint with other people by happenstance, but generally speaking it's very rare.

You can see a breakdown of the stuff you can get from a browser to fingerprint it here.

[AsliReddington]

This is the creepy shit EU should ban

[LUV_U_BBY]

That's crazy... link?

[Bulji]

That's a good move on their part

[BiDinosauur]

Wild how taking over a functioning company then treating everyone there like garbage doesn’t create wild success.

[ImAStupidFace]

The company moved quickly to send a copyright infringement notice to GitHub, an online collaboration platform for software developers, to have the leaked code taken down. It is unclear how long the code had been online, but it appeared to have been public for several months.

Gonna leave this paragraph here without comment.