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Ex-Microsoft Employee Arrested For Leaking Windows 8
SmartAboutThings (1951032) writes "Alex Kibkalo, a former Microsoft employee has been arrested yesterday for stealing and leaking company secrets. The former software architecture engineer is accused of leaking early Windows 8 builds to a French tech blogger with whom he was communicating inside a forum. The ex-Microsoft employee also stands accused of leaking some Windows 7 program files and also an internal system meant to protect against software piracy. Kibkalo is said to have leaked the Windows 8 code in the middle of 2012 because he was angry over a poor performance review."
Stop being pedantic. He took something which wasn't his and gave it to someone who shouldn't have had access to it. It doesn't matter if the terms are interchanged or not, the underlying principle is still the same.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
It wasn't his information to give. It doesn't matter if it's raw code, a build, a beta or anything else, the underlying and overriding principle is it wasn't his to do anything with.
Period.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
No, there is not huge difference. As I said a bit further up, it wasn't his to take. It doesn't matter what it was, it wasn't his. Period.
Call it what you will, the software, in whatever form, was Microsoft's. Not his. He had absolutely no right to it any way, shape or form other than to work on it.
The only ignorance is people like you who think they have a right to something from someone else and do whatever they feel like, just because they can.
How about this. You work on a piece of software, I'll take the code in whatever form I feel and give it to a big company who will make billions off it, leaving you with squat.
That would be fine with you, right?
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
And since Windows 8 is available to the public - I fail to see how your claim that the system is broken has any merit. You want to buy a copy of Windows 8, head down the store and Microsoft will happily monetize their work by selling you a copy. You want to see what the patents cover, head over to the USPTO databases and download a copy. Patents have never required the holder to release the details of how he implements the patent in the process of creating the final work. (In this case, the executeable.) Copyright has never required the creator to release the work products used in the creation, only the final work. (And, as the grandparent points out, in the case of the actual code nothing about copyright requires that you release it until it enters the public domain.)
Further, that internal work products (like interim builds and unfinished releases) can be treated as confidential and trade secrets is a well established principle. (That's the legal basis for NDA's, which were in use long before the computer and software industries were established.)
Your belief that the system is broken is based on a fundamental cluelessness about how the system works.