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Ex Microsoft staffer arrested for allegedly stealing Win 8 trade secrets
- cheez 13y ago> Kibkalo "uploaded proprietary software including prerelease software updates for Windows 8 RT and ARM devices, as well as the Microsoft Activation Server Software Development Kit (SDK) to a computer in Redmond, Washington, and subsequently to his personal Windows Live SkyDrive account." Wow.
- thejosh 13y agoI know, how did they force him to use SkyDrive?
- shitlord 13y agoI think they call it OneDrive now.
- nivla 13y agoDin't realize there was a running joke about SkyDrive but just to play along: Umm maybe because Skydrive offers 100GB (200 bing points) compared to dropbox at 2gb and google drive at 15gb. You know you need space for all these heavy uploads.
- bandushrew 13y agowhat are 'bing points'?
- Crito 13y agoThey sound like they are Chuck E Cheese tokens or something.
- kbenson 13y agoCrosby currency.
- hexasquid 13y agoWhen you hire a car, before taking it you should walk around the car and note all the scratches and bing points left on it by previous hirers.
- aceperry 13y agoThey're the latest bitcoin clone. :-)
- curiousDog 13y agoIt's okay, he's a web developer
- blueskin_ 13y agoIt's probably just a Microsoft internal tool. Oh, and I think it's called One Drive or something now, due to a naming dispute and possibly xbone inspiration for the replacement.
- userbinator 13y agoUsing Microsoft's own cloud services to distribute its leaked software. Such audacity.
- nivla 13y agoWell to be fair it will look more suspicious if he were to upload 10s of GBs in data to Google's or Dropbox's servers.
- swasheck 13y agoMASSDK ("Mass Decay") Microsoft ASSDK ... I'm tired.
- gesman 13y agoThe bigger question is: can you get someone arrested for copying your startup software to some non-startup servers? We read lots about federal agencies involvement in corporate troubles. Where is the threshold of involvement? What makes corporation eligible for such a care?
- tptacek 13y agoWhat's the threshold of involvement if someone walks into my unlocked house while I'm out and steals my TV?
- WildUtah 13y agoWell, the police might send someone over to collect your statement and give you papers for the insurance company if your teevee is stolen. Or they might make you come in and do it. But they certainly aren't going to open an investigation and pursue the thieves. Likewise with your startup's trade secrets. But Microsoft or Goldman Sachs will get the attention of the FBI right quick when they complain. You would get some attention if you showed up dead with a gunshot wound instead of just missing a teevee -- if you're white, anyway. But if you show up dead in a car crash, the cops won't care once they scrape you up so traffic can flow. Police have a complicated set of social criteria they use to decide what to care about. Mostly they correspond to social priorities.
- tptacek 13y agoYou're surprised that a criminal act that can incur tens of millions of dollars gets the attention of the authorities? Not for nothing, but a significantly less serious crime than a B&E got an undercover police officer stationed in an apartment behind my house. I'm sure you're right that the average TV theft isn't going to make a federal case, but part of the reason for that is that most people don't make that much of a fuss over having their TV stolen.
- WildUtah 13y agoWhat does it mean to "incur" tens of millions of dollars? Microsoft isn't putting any trade secrets into Windows that are worth millions of dollars; they publish the object code to 500 million PCs, each one of which can decompile it all. A few hardware manufacturers may have contracts demanding M'soft protect their trade secrets -- the secret usually being all the patents they infringe -- by keeping driver BLOBs obscure, but I doubt that's at issue here. I don't think there will be tens of millions in fines, either. Maybe thousands and a few months in jail. Tens of millions (billions, really) may be all the salaries of employees that make M'soft a big name company that can call up the FBI and USA to get attention. But that's what I said before. It's a matter of social priorities. Also, congrats that your local police cared and had the resources to look out for your neighbor. Most departments don't have that level of resources. We had to work for months to get ours to pay that much attention to a convenience store that had some armed robberies in a residential neighborhood. Incidentally, I tried to make a fuss over a stolen teevee and nice camera once. Didn't help.
- lauradhamilton 13y agoWell fortunately for the staffer, if you steal something worth less than $750 it's just a misdemeanor.
- LearnAndBurn 13y agoOh my, please take all of my upvotes.
- ntakasaki 13y agoPlease go back to Reddit with your silly jokes.
- Tohhou 13y agoHacker News is seriously business only. No fun allowed, because a sense of humor is problematic.
- derefr 13y agoActually, joking around is accepted just fine on HN--as long as you say something thoughtful in the same post. It's fluff that gets downvoted.
- jgh 13y agoJoking around is something that almost never happens on HN because this site tends to be full of tight-wad pedants who take themselves too seriously.
- MichaelGG 13y ago"Microsoft Activation Server Software Development Kit"? I don't get any hits on Google for this before today.
- fname 13y ago"...also alleged to have stolen Microsoft’s “Activation Server Software Development Kit,” a propriety system used to prevent the unauthorized copying of Microsoft programs."[1] And another expansion on what the leak could allow: "According to the reports, not only was Windows 8 leaked, but he also leaked Windows 7 files and the Microsoft Activation Server Software Development Kit which when reverse engineered, could allow hackers to crack the Activation process within Windows, meaning that pirated copies of Windows 7 could continue to function without the nagging presence of popup messages warning users about their copy of Windows."[2] [1]: http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Ex-Microsoft-employee-charged-with-passing-5331715.php http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Ex-Microsoft-employee... [2]: http://www.ubergizmo.com/2014/03/microsoft-employee-responsible-for-windows-8-leaks-arrested/ http://www.ubergizmo.com/2014/03/microsoft-employee-responsi...
- anon4 13y ago> could allow hackers to crack the Activation process within Windows They already have. Well, maybe not exactly cracked, but there are workarounds. I'm pretty sure I don't need to list them here, because they're just a google search away.
- MichaelGG 13y agoOh so it is an internal SDK, like something MS shares between Windows and Office or something? I'd expect it to rely on something other than a global secret. Or maybe they mean that with the source, it's easier to see how the activation checks are implemented and help reverse engineer them out? Either way, pretty sure all MS products are widely available pirated.
- gregimba 13y agoWhat trade secrets?
- yarrel 13y agoOr "MacOS X" as it's known.
- amaks 13y agoLooks like this is the guy: https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=64303478 https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=64303478.
- briantakita 13y agoIt's disturbing that leaking trade secrets is a criminal offense. I though it was a civil matter. Does this mean journalists will now go to jail for exposing "trade secrets"? What if these "trade secrets" are against the common good? I see such a law as a conflict to a free society. Not that we really live in one. At this point, we might as well throw the Constitution into the garbage :-( And since corporations are considered people, why aren't corporations arrested and thrown in jail for stealing from the public?
- tmikaeld 13y agoBecause money.
- deeths 13y agoIt's not the leaking of trade secrets that's criminal, its the theft of the associated intellectual property. If you assume (as US law does) that intellectual property has a value and its theft is equivalent to theft of physical property, then it makes sense that it's a criminal offense in the same way as a physical theft (and probably also a civil matter). Not all intellectual property is legally protected against theft this way though (otherwise any disclosure of IP could be theft). The bar for intellectual property to be legally considered a trade secret is high. If the IP isn't sufficiently secret, it's legally less clear whether you can really steal it. Just stamping it "secret" isn't enough. To be a trade secret the company needs to prove that it's a secret, that the secrecy of the IP is highly valuable (for instance loss of the IP's secrecy hurts a competitive advantage), and that they've made significant attempts to keep it secret by limiting access to "need-to-know" people and protecting the IP though appropriate security and secrecy. In this case, it sounds like the defendant may have gained physical access to a building he didn't legally have access to (ie company made an attempt to limit access with some security) and copied data off a server. MS is arguing that this hurt them financially. A defense against this might be to claim that even if the data might have been valuable and releasing it harmed the company, they didn't treat it with enough secrecy/security for it to be considered a trade secret. If that's what the court decides, then there could still be a civil suit (breaking employment NDA contract, etc), but it wouldn't be a criminal matter.
- busterarm 13y agoAnyone else disturbed that this was written in a way that associates stolen trade secrets with his current employer, even though based on the article one has nothing to do with the other? Also, the purpose of writing that he's a Russian national is what? Guilty or not, it's almost as if the intent of this article is to defame. This is a low PR point for Microsoft as far as I'm concerned. The only companies that pull this shit are already circling the drain.
- marshray 13y agoSomehow I suspect Mary Jo Foley would be a little amused by the idea that she was a Microsoft PR outlet. :-) (Disclosure: I am a developer at the company)
- WildUtah 13y agoThe only companies that pull this shit are already circling the drain. No. Goldman Sachs is doing quite well, thanks. [0] [0] http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/03/aleynikov-sentencing/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/03/aleynikov-sentencin...
- busterarm 13y agoActually no they're not. Goldman Sachs has never been competitive in HFT. Him leaving was a big loss to them and a big part of why they prosecuted him. Goldman is successful because of corporate banking, investment banking, mutual funds and prime brokerage. HFT is just one strategy and one that is persistently a flusher at Goldman. Edit: Goldman lost its culture and with it the only thing that made them great. They still have name recognition with people outside of finance but to most people with industry experience it's not the first-choice place to go work anymore (like for almost 10 years now). In fact, their reputation is growing increasingly negative with insiders. They will still be a darling for pensions and corporate bank customers for quite a while because longevity and name recognition are everything in that business. (Full disclosure: used to work with HFT infrastructure for a NY hedge fund)
- blueskin_ 13y agoMaybe MS should give them to Apple and Google to sabotage their products. I'm not sure who would want to steal secrets on how to ruin an OS, but there you go...
- stefan_kendall3 13y agoThe things he leaked don't really looked like "Trade Secrets", but more things you wouldn't ever release if you worked at a company and had any semblance of sense at all. "Trade Secrets" is a little extreme, except for maybe the windows activation source code. That certainly makes windows activation easier to crack.