FacebookSecrets Shut Down
Posted by Nick O'Neill on August 16th, 2007 6:57 AMI guessed it was going to take 48 hours but it ended up taking 4 days. The blog FacebookSecrets which decided to leak Facebook’s source code to the world has been shut down by Google. While I’m not sure if the perpetrator will republish the source code elsewhere, Google has decided to take down the blog which was hosted by Blogger. I’m sure Google had received a number of letters from Facebook’s legal team once the individual who leaked the source code failed to shut down the site. Sunday, I guessed that it would take 48 hours.
Apparently Google received a DMCA take down notice and was forced to take down the blog. All of this is summarized on the new Facebook Secrets Again blog. Apparently the offender could post a counter notification and the blog will be reinstated. If any damage was done by the leaking of the Facebook source code, it has already been done. Anyone that is attempting to perform malicious activities with the code has already analyzed the code. It appears that the code didn’t reveal enough to cause harm to Facebook aside from the negative P.R. that they received. It’s nice to see that the DMCA actually works.
August 16th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
It’s not nice to see the DMCA works. That law is a piece of shit. I could claim your site violates it, have your webhost shut down AllFacebook, and the onus would be on you to prove the claim was mistaken. Guilty until proven innocent. Not exactly a just law.
August 16th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
That’s a good point Joe. It’s good when it works but the fact that people can just have sites shut down is kind of nuts. Although, it was Google that decided to have the site shut down not some hosting provider. I’m not quite sure how they act on these items but if they have some sort of verification model in place I think it has the potential to work.
If you are the person who’s stuff is being stolen though I think this law is great. Conversely, if you aren’t breaking the law it would seriously suck to have it just shut down. Apparently this guy was given ample time to resolve the issue. Had he set it up on his own server maybe he would have been in a better position.