Science & technology | Price of fame

Stick a pin in it

Yahoo!'s indelicate leak flooded a tiny competitor

By G.F. | SEATTLE

WHEN a butterfly flutters its wings in Singapore, a hurricane bursts dams in Texas—or so goes the analogy to explain chaos theory. In Maciej Cegłowski's case, the butterfly's flutter was a set of inadvisable words uttered by Yahoo! executives in mid-December. The hurricane was internet traffic. The dams? His servers.

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