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Man Guilty Of Selling Microsoft Code
By David Utter
Expert Author
Article Date: 2005-08-30
A Connecticut man could get up to ten years in prison and a $250,000 USD fine for selling Windows code to an FBI agent.
28 year-old William Genovese Jr sold portions of the source code to Windows NT and 2000, operating systems developed by Microsoft, via his web site to an undercover federal agent and a third-party security company. That action led to his indictment in February of last year.
A Manhattan federal court accepted his guilty plea on a charge of one count of unlawfully distributing a trade secret, in violation of the Economic Espionage Act. According to AP, Mr. Genovese obtained the source code from other sources, then made it available for sale.
The ubiquitousness of the Windows operating system has made it a target for malevolent hackers and online criminals. Its wide acceptance and usage throughout branches of federal and state government make the security of the source code even more important than Microsoft's financial considerations.
In recent months, several stories of organized attacks and electronic espionage have emerged in the US, the UK, and other places. Those efforts have targeted government agencies and private businesses, all seeking to gain secret information. Portions of the source code that Mr. Genovese obtained have been floating around the Internet for some time, and they could be fueling those malicious efforts.
About the Author:
David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. Email him here.
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