Ex-Microsoft Employee Arrested For Leaking Windows 8 197
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."
That makes sense (Score:5, Funny)
That makes sense. I mean, if you were driving down the road leaking botulism toxin or liposuction reclamation material, you'd get arrested...
Re:That makes sense (Score:4, Funny)
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I'm surprised why Ballmer didn't report him and get him arrested; maybe this is the new Satya guy putting his stamp on company affairs?
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If you were leaking Botulism Toxin, they'd never know it when you were driving down the road. [...] That being said, if I caught you driving down the road dripping liposuction reclamation material, I'd beat you senseless...
Hyperbole: Now packaged in small, bite-sized pieces, for those who have trouble chewing.
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or liposuction reclamation material
Mmmm...it's lunchtime - can I get some fries with that?
Which is it? (Score:4, Interesting)
Summary says he released early builds, then it says he leaked "Windows 8 code". Code and builds aren't the same thing. So which was it?
Re:Which is it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Which is it? (Score:5, Insightful)
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".
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I'm not sure how people can willingly mix up the differences between software and actual physical goods.
The guy took something he wasn't supposed to, gave it to someone he wasn't supposed to.
Stop being pedantic and trying to proclaim that nothing was lost because it was just software. It's these asinine comments and willful ignorance that leads to things like the current state of software patents.
Apple vs Tree? (Score:5, Insightful)
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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?
Depends if you took a line of code, or the whole thing. Or if you just took an exe. Now you see the difference? No, of course not.
Do you think it would be the same if I took $100 from you, or emptied out your entire life savings? There are scales of bad. Littering is bad. But not as bad as dumping chemicals in a river. Or do you really think we should have the same punishment for littering and mega-corps dumping waste? "It doesn't matter what it was, it wasn't to be dumped in that place", right?
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Well put. I actually have a copy of the entire source right here. Here's a piece:
e
All that's left is to fill in the blanks around it. Doesn't really pack the same wallop as seeing the entire source in context though, does it?
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Exactly, the whole thing is about punishing someone that dared to challenge a rich corporation.
If the Law was about being fair and just, he would be fined for 120% of what he gained from it, and court costs (Court, NOT overpaid lawyers)
but the law in the USA has nothing at all about being right and just. It's all about punishment and ruining peoples lives.
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So, if the story had been ex-Sears employee leaks Windows NT builds in 2016... well... close enough, right?
The underlying principle is the same even if the facts ... well... aren't.
Disgruntled Current/Former Employee Leaker (Score:2)
Many prefer to keep these leaks in house, lest current disgruntled employees get the -itis.
In the form of a question, Alex, "Which former Microsoft employee is not up for a Snowden award?"
Re:Disgruntled Current/Former Employee Leaker (Score:5, Funny)
Many prefer to keep these leaks in house, lest current disgruntled employees get the -itis.
Microsoft publicized this to demonstrate to the world that there is someone that actually wanted Windows 8.
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Most people who leak things are smart enough to keep their mouth shut and NOT tell anyone who they are. This idiot was trying for glory and "street cred".
If you want to leak something you cover your ass and leak it in a way that is as untraceable as you can get. MSFT employee leaking windows 10.1? you go to a starbucks in a different town that you never visit and upload it to a dead drop. I suggest using a secure CD or thumb drive based OS like linux to do it as well so you can change the mac address e
Should arrest that guy that *designed* Windows 8 (Score:5, Funny)
Another Microsoft injustice.
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"...he was angry over a poor performance review." (Score:5, Funny)
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They told him he performed like Windows 8?
The words they used were worse than Windows 8. That's what really stung! :D
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He really didn't like having to wear the Window 8.1 "Start Menu" flair!
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Nothing this guy did.... (Score:3)
could possibly be as bad as what Microsoft's own management is doing to Microsoft every day.
This is not theft, it's conversion. (Score:4, Interesting)
This is ridiculous. He did not deprive the owner of their property, the elements of theft have not been met. This should have been handled as a conversion claim in civil court. What I think is criminal is the corporation using their power to influence the criminal justice system.
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The bigger issue in the story is the suggestion that Microsoft simply opened up his Hotmail account and read his email. That is a much bigger issue, to me.
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So your defense is because he didn't steal literally every copy of the code/build ever produced ever, he can get off scot-free?
Or do you just have a woefully poor understanding of the term "work for hire"?
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This is ridiculous. He did not deprive the owner of their property
No, he deprived them of their right to control copying. And that's why he's been charged with violations of 18 USC Â 1832 [netdna-cdn.com], "Theft of trade secrets [cornell.edu]" which basically applies to any unauthorized duplication (or theft) of any proprietary information.
But don't bother to look up the complaint, and the law, or anything. That would be too much effort.
The name of the crime is "Theft of trade secrets." (Score:3)
If you want to get technical, in the classic torts, you are correct that this is theft and not conversion. However, he's not being charged in a tort case. He's being charged for a violation of the Economic Espionage Act, and the relevant section is called "theft of trade secrets." (18 USC 1832)
So, you can either go informal, in which case "theft" is a reasonable, common word for taking someone else's stuff without their permission. Or you can go legalistic, in which case, the charge being applied to him
Copyright or Trade Secret? Pick One (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't get me wrong - I'm not suggesting that every software development company should be forced to release its code, but I do think they should have to choose between receiving copyright protection by releasing the code or receive no copyright protection and keep the code guarded by trade secret. I can't think of any other industry that gets protection from both copyright and trade secret and I haven't heard anyone suggest why software should be made an exception.
Re:Copyright or Trade Secret? Pick One (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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An "haute-cuisine" cook can make business by keeping their recipes secret. That falls under trade secret.
The same principle holds for source code.
And for other industries, too. Cars, aircraft, hardware... The blueprints, or the sets of steps necessary to build those things, can be trade secrets.
Nobody suggests they can't sell the resulting products while keeping those processes secret. The only reason it doesn't make sense to copyright a dish (I mean the edible dish, not the recipe) is because those thing
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You're only proving my point. Copyright works currently do NOT need to be released despite the fact that the original intention of copyright law was to make sure the work WAS released.
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No, that's patents. It's what the word means, as in patently obvious.
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Copyright works currently do NOT need to be released despite the fact that the original intention of copyright law was to make sure the work WAS released.
No, that's patents. It's what the word means, as in patently obvious.
Too bad it's not patently obvious to you that the idea behind copyright was to encourage the dissemination of works. Before copyright, if someone copied your book and sold it, your only recourse was tears. So if you didn't want others to profit from your work, you'd limit the distribution. Copyright meant that publishing could flourish because you didn't have to go to the trouble of proofreading and editing and then get squashed by someone who could print books more cheaply.
Both patent law and copyright law
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You are correct, but for a long time it was required that you register the copyrighted work with the government. When the copyright expired on that work, the government could then release that work since it would fall under public domain.
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I have always heard different. What has been told to me is that once the trade secret has been revealed, the cat is out of the bag and your legal options are extremely limited (beyond suing the shit out of the party that leaked the secret). This would be the perfect time for an IP lawyer to jump in and set us straight.
It depends on whether the receiver was guilty in any way. If I bribe a Microsoft employee to give me some source code, then I'm not allowed to pass it on, it is still protected. If that Microsoft employee leaves a printout in a cafe by mistake, it's out of the bag.
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So in this case, a copy of the Windows source taken from a cafe printer would be useless (in the U.S.) while the recipe to Coca-Cola on a cafe printer could be a goldmine. Again, I'm not an IP lawyer - these are simply
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At least that provides some option. And if someone did that for code that entered the public domain, they would be free to disseminate it to anyone who wished to host it online.
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The compiled binaries are released to the public and they are covered under copyright law. The source code used to build those compiled binaries is also covered under copyright law (yet the source isn't usually released) AND it is simultaneously covered by trade secret.
But in thi
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Since you have failed to grasp the difference between work products and releases, it's unsurprising you think this is unusual.
Trust me, knowing more than you is a bar so low as to be non existent
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And technically, you aren't correct either. The patent is published to provide legal protection and remedy for the inventor. People cannot necessarily improve on it without violating the law. They can obtain licenses to use and improve on the original product but the patent holder gets compensated.
Others can improve on the invention and patent the improved invention - quite possible that someone using it would need two patent licenses. And others can take the invention as inspiration to create a totally different invention. You might never have considered that solving problem X was possible, but once you saw the patent solving it using method A, you come up with unrelated method B.
So who made the arrest? (Score:2)
H-1B? (Score:3, Interesting)
Alex Kibkalo, a former Microsoft employee has been arrested yesterday for stealing and leaking company secrets..... Kibkalo is a Russian national and has worked for Microsoft for seven years; he has joined 5nine Software in August 2013 as Director of Product Management for Security and Management products after quiting his job at Microsoft.
I wonder how he worked for MS for 7 years as H1-B Visas are supposed to be limited to 6 years. [wikipedia.org]
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You must be new to the workplace.
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Maybe he worked abroad at some point?
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Must have been the Microsoft, New Jersey or Washington, DC office.
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I wonder how he worked for MS for 7 years as H1-B Visas are supposed to be limited to 6 years. [wikipedia.org]
Because you don't understand immigration law? He could have a greencard, making him a permanent resident but Russian national, or he could have applied for one, in which case he can continue to extend his visa until a determination is made on his application.
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I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have been 7 years continuously, MS policies require breaks in employment at certain intervals for non-blue badges to create discontinuities. They got sued several years ago by multiple-year contractors wanting full FTE benefits, and the Washington state employment commission agreed that the contractors should be treated like full time employees. Now after working x-amount of time contractors are required to take off y-amount of time before starting a new contract.
H-1B? (Score:2)
Nothing in the linked article says that all seven years were in the US. In fact, the second linked article specifically points out that that for some portion of the period he worked from Lebanon.
Even so, he could be a Microsoft employee for seven years without ever stepping foot in the US - Microsoft is an international company with branches and subsidiaries all over the world.
Whistle-blower? (Score:5, Funny)
Was he trying to warn the world how bad Windows 8 was?
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Come on, mods. This is either Insightful or Funny, not Interesting.
Moral of the Story is.... (Score:3)
Sounds familiar.. (Score:2)
So this guy took copies of classified ( proprietary ) code, then gave it to ( effectively ) the enemy ( the consumer ) and hes going to jail, not being given a Nobel prize?
How does that work, i thought we now supported this sort of act?
I just assumed that everyone who worked on Win8... (Score:3)
Re:Stealing? (Score:5, Funny)
A developer stole the code he was working on? How does that work?
Because his work is not really his. It belongs to the corporation. Everything belongs to the corporation. Space, time, all matter and all energy belong to the corporation according to the corporation. They got the lawyers to make it happen. He doesn't.
Re:Stealing? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Everything you say is true when we're talking about general production of physical widgets -- the raw material and production equipment belong to you and your employee performs simple repetitive, non-creative actions to build the widget for you. But
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The employer then essentially provides a spec (which is often just a extremely vague set of requirements) and a monthly salary. We can therefore say that most of the software is created by the creative talent and skill (the raw material and machines in your analogy) of the developers. Does the work created by the software dev still completely belong to the employer for a few thousand dollars because of a few words written in the employment contract? I think not! Most of software is written by developers with little contribution from the employer and therefore should be licensed to the employer the same way a song is licensed by the musicians to record labels, how writers license their books to publishers etc.
That sounds great, except that's not the contract that was agreed upon. If the agreement states that the developer is licensing the code to the employer, then great. But if a developer chooses to enter into what is currently the standard contract, then no, it doesn't work that way. If the developer enters into this type of agreement, then they can't simply decide it's going to work the other way. They can renegotiate with the employer for a different contract or leave the company.
And there is a considerab
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Don't forget support staff, project managers, meeting rooms, collaboration software, networks, servers, version control software, backups, accountants, HR staff, janitors, and security guards.
Re:Stealing? (Score:4, Informative)
I've been in all the different stages. Started out as a developer for companies, went to independent contractor, started my own business and hiring programmers who work under me. I am paying them for their time and their skills and their creative talent, and the result of their work. Why is a programmer more entitled to something than a welder? Because one is using creativity in their brain? Then how about an engineer designing bridges or planes or cars? Should they have everything they do be licensed also?
A company that wants to keep the best and most creative people offer good benefits, the right tools and appropriate salaries. Some may get stock or profit sharing. These are the rewards, payment, for the services rendered. Now, the one point I will make is that things you do on your own time (at home, after hours, on vacation) should most certainly belong to you. I remember a case where some big company said something the engineer did on their own time belonged to them, and I find that rather repugnant.
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But does that analogy also apply to intellectual property, like software?
Yes.
I could go into all of the reasons why its "yes", but it seems a lot simpler to link you to the definition for a "work for hire":
http://www.keytlaw.com/Copyrig... [keytlaw.com]
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The employer then essentially provides a spec (which is often just a extremely vague set of requirements) and a monthly salary. We can therefore say that most of the software is created by the creative talent and skill (the raw material and machines in your analogy) of the developers. Does the work created by the software dev still completely belong to the employer for a few thousand dollars because of a few words written in the employment contract? I think not! Most of software is written by developers with little contribution from the employer and therefore should be licensed to the employer the same way a song is licensed by the musicians to record labels, how writers license their books to publishers etc.
Isn't the developer in this case more like the builder/engineer who takes an architect's vision and merely implements it?
In most large organisations the developers are not the UI designers and although their code may well be creative, they are not the ones behind the creative work as a whole.
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In most large organisations the developers are not the UI designers and although their code may well be creative, they are not the ones behind the creative work as a whole.
That's a strange way of putting it. UI design is a full time job. Many software developers would be quite capable of creating good UI designs (and from what I see at times, an awful lot better than paid UI designers), but not in their spare time when they have a full time job writing code. Many UI designers just don't have the mental capacity to imagine how users will use or want to use their software and get from one step to another. They live in a dream world where users do exactly what the designer wants
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Close, but no cigar. While I'm no civil engineer, most buildings are not all that different, other than the appearance (UI). So if you have tens of thousands of homes/buildings in a city, the engineer/architect solve roughly the same set of problems in designing all those buildings. Those tens of thousands of buildings can be reduced to a few dozen types of buildings (here, a type is s
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Does the work created by the software dev still completely belong to the employer for a few thousand dollars because of a few words written in the employment contract?
No. It belongs to the employer due to a variety of laws, including the ones that this programmer is accused of breaking. If he doesn't want to write code for Microsoft, he shouldn't take their paycheck and then write code they specifically asked him to do, which in the modern world results in the employer owning the code (absent any other agreements.)
Most of software is written by developers with little contribution from the employer and therefore should be licensed to the employer the same way a song is licensed by the musicians to record labels
If programmers were treated as poorly as recording artists then we wouldn't have software. Well, not commercial software. Too bad you know nothing of the recor
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But what id did is not really stealing. The original code was there ( unless he also erased all copies that Microsoft had, then we *might* be able to call it theft ). He engaged in infringement and fraud. Both illegal acts, but different things.
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The following is my opinion.
Greed is when you place making money above all else and don't care about the harm you do to others to achieve that. Problem is, publically traded corporations have a legal obligation to increase profits every legal way possible.
Problem is, you are totally wrong in a corporation's legal obligation. I've read the lawsuit someone used to bullshit you with. It actually says the exact opposite of your claim. Corporations have the obligation to pay dividends to shareholders based on profits, but have no government-enforced mandate to make those profits larger.
The corporation, or the majority shareholder in the case of Dodge v. Ford Motor Co., can't squander profits just because they want to. Especially in the Ford case, where Henry Ford
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Corporations have the obligation to pay dividends to shareholders based on profits, but have no government-enforced mandate to make those profits larger.
They don't have an obligation to make them larger. They have an obligation to *try* to make them as large as possible. Executives don't go to jail for failing to make a larger profit. Executives will get sued and lose a civil trial if a shareholder can convince a judge that the executives did not *try* to make the company more profitable. This is because the executives in a company are the employees of the shareholders, and presumably the shareholders hired the executives under under a contract that man
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They don't have an obligation to make them larger. They have an obligation to *try* to make them as large as possible.
Actually, no. They have an obligation to do what the corporation was intended to do. Which may not involve making money at all. Now being successful and making money usually helps you doing all kinds of things, so is probably a good way to achieve whatever you want to achieve, but nothing says that making profits has to be the purpose of any corporation.
And then there's the example of Apple, who became the most profitable company outside the oil industry without ever having the goal of making profits. Wh
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> They have an obligation to do what the corporation was intended to do.
And when a corporation is founded as a commercial entity, its express purpose is profit. The corporate charter may espouse numerous other principles, but a commercial business is legally a profit-generating endeavor---everything else is window dressing.
Henry Ford wanted to lower the price of automobiles and employ more workers in order to bring the benefits of industrialization to all people in exchange for lower profits---and the co
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> And when a corporation is founded as a commercial entity, its express purpose is profit.
You are DEAD WRONG.
Go to your state's archives and look up the number of corporations which are created each month (you will be amazed at how many!), with many of them being for example music and movie label companies which are intended to actually LOSE money, acting as tax shelters for the shareholding companies and/or individuals. There are also many corporations set up solely as protective entities (holding com
RELEASING WINDOWS 8 IS A CRIME! (Score:4, Insightful)
Prosecute Microsoft. ;-)
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So true. On the Windows (8.1) side of my laptop, I can spend 10+ minutes doing attempted (failed) boots, forcing shutdowns when it stops responding during boot, and repeating the whole process before the OS finally decides to actually boot. Maybe if I'm unlucky I'll even get a "sorry, Windows has failed to boot" message, requiring--yep--another reboot. And that nightmare speaks nothing of the stupid Metro crap including Start Screen.
Not fun when I only need to reboot from the Linux side to get into Windo
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Theft is in nearly every jurisdiction that I could think of defined as taking something movable from the possession of someone else with the intent to keep and the intent to deprive the original possessor of its use.
So, no. The only part that might be fulfilled is the "intent to keep", but that's not enough (if that would stick, buying something would constitute theft, because people usually buy stuff with the intent to keep).
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In that case you just stole my comment right there. If I had lawyers I could make you go to prison. Right? Of course I know the code wasn't his. But is this theft?
Tell that to all those who lost their bitcoins at Mt. Gox. It wasn't real currency, it was simply 1's and 0's right?
Re:Stealing? (Score:5, Informative)
Work for hire. It isn't his to begin with. Plus he probably had code he did not write there too.
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Right. "work for hire" is the efficient way of sating that.
Re: Stealing? (Score:2, Insightful)
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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 [wikipedia.org]
There was not loss... at all... (Score:2)
Indeed, by physical standards he stole nothing as the owner (licensor) of the software still has it.
Normally software theft can be counted in lost sales due to leakage...
.... and let's face it. Microsoft lost nothing from the leak itself.
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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 [wikipedia.org]
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.
Re:Stealing? (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [wikipedia.org]
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...
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The exclusivity of the trade secrets was not stolen, neither party has exclusivity anymore...
The exclusivity was destroyed, since no noone has exclusivity.
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the difference is minor and trivial.
lets say i stole your laptop then jumped on a motorcycle and sped off later i hit something and pancake on the street your (former) laptop stays with the bike and gets blown up with the bike. Im not going to get arrested for destroying your laptop im going to get arrested for STEALING your laptop (assuming i do not spend the next couple days bleeding out).
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The exclusivity was not stolen - it was destroyed. For the exclusivity to be stolen somebody else would now have to have the exclusivity on that code, but they cannot, because the owner still has a copy.
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"Theft of trade secret" is a thing.
It's kind of an odd concept. When you accept that exclusive ownership of something is a intellectual property thing, then someone who shares it while under a contract to not do so is depriving you of that exclusion. Your trade secret is no longer secret and your advantage is taken away from you.
This stuff stems from guild laws, like the secrets of making good parmigiano-reggiano or whatever that were supposed to be kept within the organization and were only shared with y
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A developer stole the code he was working on? How does that work?
The same way it works if a mechanic that works on your car doesn't own your car, and the carpenter that builds my house doesn't own my house.*
*This analogy applies to everyone except Mark Zuckerberg.
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You're confusing him with the guy who designed it.
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While i agree it was terrible, no one at Microsoft forced you to use it. So people should be shot just for making something you personally dont approve of?
Ya. Gotcha.
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