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Microsoft Employee Allegedly Hacked AltaVista

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the stolen-code-writes-itself dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Seattle PI has a story about Microsoft employee who worked on the MSN Search initiative having allegedly broken into AltaVista computers and stolen prorietary technology. However, the illegal break-in happened before he was hired by Microsoft. The question is, did Microsoft know anything about it? How much code was being written into MSN Search?"

22 of 293 comments (clear)

  1. Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by rd4tech · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Microsoft acknowledged yesterday that Chavet is a Microsoft employee but declined to name the team on which he works.
    Too Obvious

    However, three other people with knowledge of Chavet's Microsoft employment confirmed that he has been working on the MSN Search effort
    Too unconfirmed

    But, if the guy is such an expert inthe search field, isn't it posible that source code was his? How would that impact everything from a legal point?

    1. Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by rd4tech · · Score: 3, Interesting

      So what if you do sign that, you do go to the next job, and you do the same type of job for a more popular company. and the previous suckers decide to sue the heck out of you just to extarct a huge settlement from the bigger company? Even if you didn't remember one single line, how'll you prove it?

    2. Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by arieswind · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Prove what? If you worked for AltaVista, wrote their search engine, quit, joined Microsoft, and wrote the same exact thing, then yes, you can and probably will be sued

    3. Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by JAgostoni · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I agree. But I had alwasy wondered if (a) there are ways around this and (b) you are bound to at least use some of the same concepts (we'll say an authentication piece or something) that you will certinaly use your lessons learned from your previous company. Of course, if you are working on closed source for both companies, you could probably get away with it as long as you don't make it blaringly obvious.

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    4. Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by wideBlueSkies · · Score: 4, Interesting

      My company gets around this by forcing you to forfeit your options and other vested financial incentives if you quit and move to a company that they label as a competitor.

      More corporate bullying. So since we're a banking firm, folks are forced to leave for mostly insurance, and other financial (like mutual fund houses), and even shipping companies like UPS. But nobody ever leaves our bank for another bank.

      Unless the other bank wants you so badly that they compensate for the lost incentives. And they'd probably only do this for someone who's an expert at what they do. This brings us back to the original question..once you're there, how do you (or ou new employer) avoid getting sued because you're writing the same or similiar stuff?

      wbs.

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      Huh?
    5. Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by LostCluster · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If you can replicate code you wrote before from memory alone, then you have written the same code twice and are not copying anything.

    6. Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by MsGeek · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Also, there is the matter of Gates and Allen dumpster diving at Dartmouth to get the guts of their Microsoft Altair Basic, and Gates, Allen and Ballmer paying the author of QDOS a pittance to get the source and "innovate" their MS-DOS from it. This is SOP for Microsoft. I'm not surprised. The surprising thing about this whole affair is the fact that this guy GOT CAUGHT.

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    7. Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by slittle · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yeah, umm... got some linkage on that whole DEC suing Microsoft and Intel "stealing" Alpha's secrets bit?

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      Opportunity knocks. Karma hunts you down.
    8. Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by man_of_mr_e · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Oh, and Tim Patterson, the author of QDOS was indeed paid a "pittance" initially, but as soon as MS got the IBM contract, they hired Patterson and he became one of the first "Microsoft Millionaires".

      Have you even made a cursury examination of the events you seem so certain about?

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  2. Better to be pre-emptive by orionware · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I always make sure that I have copies of the source code of applications I have worked on so in case something happens with my employer I WON'T have to use nefarious means to retrieve what is mine.

    I know many might say that employers own the intellectual property that you generate while working for them, but I don't agree. If I develop something innovative whiile working there, it's mine. If I come up with a solution for a problem am I supposted to forget the solution and never use it again if I go elsewhere?

    Let them sue me. Hard to get water from a stone.

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    Karma means nothing to me, so suck it...
  3. MSN's new search will be HUGE... by jerkface · · Score: 5, Interesting
    and this Altavista thing probably has nothing to do with it. As others have pointed out, Altavista doesn't have anything to offer anyway.

    A certain site I help run has shown what many other people are seeing: MSN's search robot is absolutely going crazy lately. It purposely retrieves files of all kinds - it's done about 4.5GB of traffic on my site because it's downloading large videos! What's a search engine going to do with all these videos?

    Besides that, it visits the forums as often as many of the regulars do. It's FAR more aggressive than googlebot.

    It's rather obvious that MSN's new search engine is going to be both more complete and more up-to-date than anything else that's out there. I love google right now, but I wonder how they're going to stand up to MS.

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    1. Re:MSN's new search will be HUGE... by lurking · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Oh great! So you are gonna use up all your allotted bandwidth because of Micro$ofts search engine? Yeah that's what I really want!

    2. Re:MSN's new search will be HUGE... by kmmatthews · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Besides that, it visits the forums as often as many of the regulars do. It's FAR more aggressive than googlebot.

      And that would be why it got itself banned from my hosts. I had a similar situation - large images. About 5 gb worth before I noticed. Not a big deal, and I wouldn't mind if a PERSON downloaded all my images, but.. There's only 1 freaking gb of images there. FIVE TIMES?!?!

      *swears off into the distance*

      [OTOH... googlebot has sometimes eaten me alive.. but at least it only eats me once, unlike this one, which eats me, shits me out, eats the shitted-out-me again, ... ad infinium].

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      feh. stuff.
  4. Already convicted by csirac · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Microsoft is already appealing a $0.5 million fine for pircay of other people's code in France.

    To cut a long story short, IIRC, MS bought a company X. Company X had a license to USE some code from Company Z. MS effectively began to assume they owned it, so Company Z had to court to stop MS pirating their software.

  5. Do unto others... by segfault_0 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Now if Linux really had some code in it that was unknowingly copied in by someone, is this how you would want it and its creators treated, because of the acts of one morally deprived individual?? No, most would say it wasnt their fault.

    Id have to side with Microsoft on this one, They obviously knew he had Altavista knowldege but i wouldnt hold their feet to the fire because i dont think they knew the extent of what this mans "experience" was.

    Microsoft is in a real tough spot with keeping their secrets secret while ensuring that Altavista is treated fairly. People who steal software source code suck.

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    I was crazy back when being crazy really meant something. (Charles Manson)
  6. Re:what really happened by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting
    If the company in question here (MS) didn't have a track record of stealing ideas and, in some cases, code outright, then perhaps your comments might seem pretty level headed. As it is, you need to consider all this in context. MS steals ideas, intellectual property and code. We all know it. It's been proven in court more than once. Ask Sun or Apple about that. They've been sued successfully before on this issue many times and accused of it many more. The pattern exists whether it "digusts" you or not.

    I'm gonna be fucking sick.

    Maybe now you know how some folks feel when MS steps in and steals their property or hard work.

  7. Shame on AltaVista Admins & HR Department by HighOrbit · · Score: 3, Interesting
    he worked on the AltaVista source code while at the company and logged into the AltaVista system after leaving
    I doubt he "hacked" or cracked his way in. It sounds like the logged on with his old account, in which case *shame shame shame* on the lazy AltaVista admins for not deleting old accounts of ex-employees.

    Shame on the AltaVista legal and personnel departments for not making their employees sign non-compete clauses to prevent employees from working on the exact same type of technology for competitors.
  8. Re:Why steal? by dafoomie · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Whats kind of freaky is that guy's website still exists... Its as if its frozen in time. http://www.subterrane.com/~dfeussner/

  9. Re:Similarity by thebatlab · · Score: 2, Interesting

    No, it's not just the employees fault. I'm sure Microsoft knew full well what he worked on before and what he might do with that knowledge. And as far as what he did, he did not "hack" into the servers. He used an old account to get in. The company has to be accountable too. Just like google

  10. he is an undercover linux-terrorist by SilveRo_kun · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Searching "Laurent Chavet" on google, I found some of his posts to the Linux-Kernel mailing list.
    http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0104 .2/0589.html

    His e-mail address is @av.com, that is altavista, so it must be him.

  11. Smells Like a PR Stunt by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Smells like a Yahoo! PR stunt to me too. Since the code "stolen" was "used to perform the function of scouring the World Wide Web", if this code was being used at Microsoft in actuality, it seems like that fact would be outwardly visible to people in their httpd logs, in the behavior of the spiders, in what they grab and how they grab it. In other words, a source code compare probably wouldn't be needed - you could tell just by the behavior of the spider that this was the same. Since it's only being alleged that he took it, and not that it was used, I'd bet that it's not being used.

  12. Oh good.. by Deal-a-Neil · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ..that means the meta-keyword 7X trick should get me to the top of the search results on MSN Search as it did back in the late 90s. Anyone want to bid on the first 10 positions of any English search term? I'm your daddy.