Programmer Admits Stealing US Gov't Accounting Software Source Code

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from NetSecurity.org: "A Chinese computer programmer that was charged with stealing the source code of software developed by the U.S. Treasury Department pleaded guilty to the charge on Tuesday. The 33-year-old Bo Zhang, legally employed by a U.S. consulting firm contracted by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, admitted that he took advantage of the access he had to the Government-wide Accounting and Reporting Program (GWA) in order to copy the code onto an external hard disk and take it home." Just such things make me think that the default setting for software created with public money should be released with source code anyhow, barring context-specific reasons that it shouldn't be.

Comments

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just such things make me think that the default setting for software created with public money should be released with source code anyhow, barring context-specific reasons that it shouldn't be.

So that countries who have not spent money can use it for free?

Re:Why?

[rickb928]

Those of us who fit that description largely (!) got there the same way you've come up with your post. It makes you feel better, somehow, and satisfies some animal instinct you cannot otherwise neither satisfy nor tame.

Let me guess. You're not of the right-wing persuasion, eh? How's your country doing?