Deported Russian (Spy?) Worked At Microsoft

subtropolis writes "KOMO News in Seattle is reporting that a recently-deported 23-yr-old Russian man 'appears to have ties to the recently-exposed Russian counterintelligence' (according to unnamed Feds). The article states that he admitted to unspecified immigration violations and was promptly shown the door on Tuesday. It also says that 'Microsoft confirms Karetnikov worked as an entry-level software tester for less than a year.' So, I'm thinking that MS had better take a really good at their logs for that time. He may have got in at 'entry-level' but his abilities may have been a fair bit beyond that. ... Interestingly, his admission to mere 'violations' and swift departure would be right in line with how this swap has gone down. The four Russians who were flown to Britain and the US had to first sign a confession before President Medvedev granted them pardons." The same news is at CBS News, too.

Comments

why do the russians need to spy on microsoft?

[circletimessquare]

microsoft has freely given its source code to the kgb (rolls eyes):

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/07/09/0042238/Microsoft-Opens-Source-Code-To-KGBs-Successor-Agency

Re:why do the russians need to spy on microsoft?

[bsDaemon]

It's pretty easy to look at the public details of these ops from today's vantage point and go "that's stupid," but remember when these ops were first started the world was different. Dramatically different in the case of the spies which had been here 10 or 20 years, although not so much in this case. It's only been a year. But a year ago, the FSB didn't have a contract with Microsoft for the source code, and so access to that was worth a little more.

When some of the 10 spies that were deported recently were originally placed here, we didn't live with the constant flood of information that we do today. It wasn't as easy as going to washingtonpost.com or reading someone's blog to find out what was going on in the debate on certain issues. You had to wait, for news broadcasts or to get hold of a copy of a paper. Having someone get to know an individual who was an insider and to innocently ask some questions every now and then could actually pay dividends. And once an agency has already invested time and money training operatives, creating their legends and getting them into place, they're not going to just pull them out. They might be useful for something else later. This is type of work is like a marathon, not a sprint.

Re:why do the russians need to spy on microsoft?

[morgan_greywolf]

With the same kernel as 2008 Server R2.

Absolutely. But SQL Server, Exchange Server, ConnectPoint, IIS, etc., would all be considered not part of the Windows 7 source code, yes?

Re:why do the russians need to spy on microsoft?

[moosesocks]

Speaking of paying attention, has he actually been formally accused of anything beyond immigration violations?

The story seems awfully speculative. Good on the feds for doing their diligence, but as far as I can tell, there's no hard evidence linking him to anything.

Modern Spying

[painandgreed]

Welcome to the new world of modern espionage. In a world where countries are less worried about invading each other than preserving and succeeding in a stable international economic market, your spies are going to be mostly industrial in nature. Who doesn't think that the CIA is out there trying to figure out what other countries are stealing from our corporations or what we can steal from somebody else's? My real wonder is how we would introduce that knowledge into our side if we got it as it would be a large potential PR blow up. Countries spying on each others military secrets is almost expected, but countries spying on other countries corporate interests so they can turn such knowledge over to their own corporate interests might actually mean war.

Re:Modern Spying

[Blakey Rat]

i've seen news specials about this 20 years ago after the wall first fell. as soon as the warsaw pact fell apart the french and some of our allies started spying on us

Did they ever stop?

I've always assumed that every country spies on every other country, at least to some minimal extent.

Obviously, if you're the US, you don't commit a *lot* of resources to spying on, say, Canada. But there'd be at least a small team responsible. And in that Canadian Bacon movie, all the dirt they dug up on Canada came in handy.