Microsoft Employee Allegedly Hacked AltaVista

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?"

Comments

MSN's new search will be HUGE...

[jerkface]

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.

Do unto others...

[segfault_0]

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.