Facebook Source Code Leaked
We just received a tip that the source code for the Facebook main index page has been leaked and published on a blog called Facebook Secrets. There are at least two possible ways that the source code got out - the first is that a Facebook developer has sent it out …
Context & Ripple Effects
The leak lands at a delicate moment for Facebook: the company has just confirmed it will stay independent rather than sell despite whispered multi-billion-dollar offers, it is preparing for an initial public offering, and a long-running lawsuit over the site's origins heads to US Federal Court this month. Two days before the code appeared, an employee published the preliminary Data Store API in closed beta on the developer wiki — the platform push that makes any exposure of internal engineering more sensitive.
The story travelled fast across the blogosphere on the same day: New Web Order framed it as a lesson in preventing PHP leakage, Deep Jive Interests argued 'the door was left unlocked' rather than a hack, and Valleywag asked why Facebook wants to hide its source code at all. With no prior coverage in the corpus, this is the opening entry in what looks like a recurring pattern for the company.
First-order effects
- Facebook's main index page source is now publicly readable on the Facebook Secrets blog, exposing internal PHP implementation details while the company is courting IPO investors who will scrutinize engineering discipline.
- Facebook faces an immediate internal question — whether a developer sent the code out or a server misconfiguration exposed it — with no confirmed answer as of August 12, 2007.
Second-order effects
- Rivals and would-be acquirers get a free look at how Facebook's front page is built during its steepest growth phase, sharpening competitive analysis just as News Feed optimization becomes a marketing battleground.
- The timing compounds legal exposure: with the origin-of-Facebook lawsuit reaching Federal Court this month, any narrative of loose handling of company IP gives litigants and press additional material.
Third-order effects
- If leaks like this recur, closed-source web services will face mounting pressure over operational security as a governance issue — the same class of problem that later surfaced in Facebook's accidental data exposures to third parties.
- Valleywag's framing points at a longer tension: whether a consumer web company's source code is a trade secret worth litigation-grade protection or an artifact whose secrecy matters less than the data behind it.
The trend: Web companies scaling toward public markets are discovering that their source code, like their user data, is an asset whose containment depends on process discipline they have not yet built.