[Hellfighter]

dang they had this there too?

American arrested for sale of Windows source code
Nov 15 2004 18:35 | comments (2)

William Genovese, a 27 year old from Connecticut is facing charges of economic espionage for selling Windows source code over the Internet. He claims he is being used as a scapegoat. Genovese believes that the software giant is choosing to prosecute him simply because the company cannot find the person who actually stole the source code in the first place.

Windows 2000 and Windows NT source code first started circulating on the Internet in February 2004. The code was in two 200 MB files. Although it seems that these files came from Mainsoft, a Microsoft partner which develops UNIX tools for Windows, it is unknown who actually leaked the files.

When the code appeared, Genovese posted a short message on his site, saying that he had the code, and that anyone who wanted it should 'make a donation' via his site. He says that this was a joke, as the code was freely available from other sources. When he was contacted by someone asking for the code, he was surprised - but he accepted a donation of $20 made via the PayPal button on his site, and allowed the unknown contact to download a copy of the source code from his server.

In July, Genovese was contacted again by the same man, who said he had formatted his computer and wanted the source code again. Genovese had by this time removed the code from his server, but located it on a P2P network and sent it as requested.

However, this request for the source code was not from an inquisitive geek, but from a representative of a security firm. Microsoft hired the firm to track the source code over the Internet. Once the first transaction was complete, Microsoft reported it to the FBI. The FBI then asked the security firm to complete a second transaction.

Genovese was arrested on Tuesday, and is accused of violating the 1996 Economic Espionage Act. This piece of legislation is rarely used, and was designed to punish those who steal trade secrets for personal gain, or for the economic benefit of a third party. Violators face up to 10 years in prison. Both the benefit the violator accrued from the stolen information, and their criminal history, are taken into account when sentencing is carried out. Genovese has already received two years probation for penetrating personal computers and using key logging programs.

Whatever the outcome, the case raises some interesting legal issues. 'The real question is whether this information remains a trade secret after it is globally available to anyone with an Internet connection," comments Jennifer Granick, from the Stanford Centre for Internet and Society. "This is something that the courts have been grappling with, so it's pretty shocking that the government would pursue criminal charges for something that the civil courts can't even agree on."

source: http://www.viruslist.com/en/news?id=154863301

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