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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."
Not really. The early build is probably a lot like the release build that came after. You might see some bugs that were later fixed, but I wouldn't think it comprises any company secret. The code on the other hand is secret. And the early code will also be a lot like later code, so you could now roll your own Windows 8 from this code (if you did your own bug fixing as well).
Maybe
It's not pedantic there's a huge difference... take your ignorance and leave.
Yeah, blah, blah, corporations are evil and holding down the poor hard working honest guy. Nonsense. If I start a small corner store business making widgets, then hire you to help. I instruct you have to make my widgets, give you the tools and material to do it, pay you as we agreed, then you steal my inventory and give/sell it to someone then you are a THIEF. Just because it is software doesn't make it belong to you, and just because it is a corporation doesn't give you moral superiority.
It matters if you're reporting A happened and actually it was B. Yes, in both cases something happened, and we can agree perhaps that they both fall into the "bad" category. But..so what? How does that make the story more accurate?
Oh, and "period".
No I am not. Patents and copyright were BOTH set up for the purpose of encouraging people to release their work.
No, the intention of copyright law is to encourage people to make their works available to the public by motivating the creator with the power of monetization. It's the ARTS in the constitutional clause "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts".
Of course not. But if you want a monopoly on a body of work, you are supposed to actually release that work, not sit on it.
The developer stole nothing, one element necessary for theft is intentionally depriving the owner of their property and the owner was never deprived of their property. This is conversion
In an interesting sense, you are technically correct because the owner is not being deprived of anything. The owner, Microsoft, still has the code and is thus deprived of nothing. This fits better under industrial espionage law. Unfortunately, case law precedent makes it possible to prosecute the actor under theft statutes.
Theft of secrets. Yes, the original blueprints, code, whatever, remains with the original owner. What has been stolen, however, was the exclusivity of the trade secrets. And trade secrets are only protected as long as they are secret.
This being Windows, 8, probably the most applicable route to prosecution is Illegal Disposal of Toxic Waste, but nevertheless...