back to article Hotmail-gate: Windows 8 code leaker pleads guilty to theft of trade secrets

A former Microsoft employee accused of leaking prerelease Windows 8 software has pleaded guilty to stealing the company's trade secrets. Alex Kibkalo, a Russian national who spent seven years as a Microsoft employee in Russia and Lebanon, was arrested in Seattle, US, in March on charges that he shared proprietary Microsoft …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Theft of windows 8 code

    Doesn't "theft" imply he took something of value?

    1. tirk

      Re: Theft of windows 8 code

      "And nothing of value was lost."

    2. Mark 85

      Re: Theft of windows 8 code

      Per the article, he has to pay US $22,500 "restitution". So is that the value of the code or paying back MS's effort to catch him? Based on that, not much value there.

  2. Pete Spicer

    Doesn't theft also imply depriving the rightful owner of something? Copyright infringement != theft

    1. Longtemps, je me suis couche de bonne heure

      I seem to remember Microsoft doing something similar with

      Seattle Computer Products QDOS which Microsoft sold on without permission to IBM as "MSDOS".

      Peter, was that theft also?

      Microsoft coughed up $1,000,000 for that when the law caught up with them 2 years later...but they poached the employee from SCP who had actually written QDOS so that makes it OK, doesn't it?

      1. Turtle

        @ Longtemps

        "Seattle Computer Products QDOS which Microsoft sold on without permission to IBM as 'MSDOS'."

        "In July 1981, a month before the PC's release, Microsoft purchased all rights to 86-DOS from SCP for $50,000. It met IBM's main criteria: it looked like CP/M, and it was easy to adapt existing 8-bit CP/M programs to run under it, notably thanks to the TRANS command which would translate source files from 8080 to 8086 machine instructions. Microsoft licensed 86-DOS to IBM, and it became PC DOS 1.0. This license also permitted Microsoft to sell DOS to other companies, which it did. The deal was spectacularly successful, and SCP later claimed in court that Microsoft had concealed its relationship with IBM in order to purchase the operating system cheaply. SCP ultimately received a 1 million dollar settlement payment."

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Computer_Products_QDOS

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Hotmail-gate"

    I think you'll find it is now called Live.com sorry outlook.com

    1. Big-nosed Pengie

      Re: "Hotmail-gate"

      A turd by any other name...

      1. busycoder99

        Re: "Hotmail-gate"

        A turd by another name all right. They haven't even bother changing the DNS yet.

        http://postimg.org/image/gwv0ax1bh/

    2. Not That Andrew

      Re: "Hotmail-gate"

      It still redirects to live.com from both, though. I predict it will be renamed something like Skype Mail within 4 years and still redirect to live.com

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    10 years and $250K is way too little

    This crim should get much stiffer punishment, IMO.

    1. Paul Crawford Silver badge

      Re: 10 years and $250K is way too little

      I quite agree, he should be dancing the Tyburn jig for such appalling crime against humanity - that of promoting Windows 8 to the press!!![1]

      [1] A single exclamation mark is hardly enough to convey my indignity, but 4 is just getting stupid.

  5. Winkypop Silver badge
    Trollface

    How dare he make Microsoft look silly!

    I'm sure they have a well-paid, specialist team for that.

  6. McHack

    Russian national?

    He should immediately get himself back to Mother Russia.

    The US will demand extradition, with no small amount of MS prodding.

    Putin shall laugh. Repeatedly. While criticizing the quick willingness of the US to punish a hero of the Russian Federation who bravely revealed the arcane misdoings of the NSA's chief lapdog, which has granted unrestricted backdoor access to nearly every PC on the planet to America's domestic and international spymasters.

    Then a few months later, Putin shall announce RUSS, the Russian Underlying Secure System, a cheaper-than-MS drop-in Windows replacement. Which will look amazingly like Win 8.1 but without the suck.

    But far different from MS, the system will be uncrackable, the security unbreachable. Since half the programming staff will be those professional Russian hackers who have been exploiting every possible byte of Windows for many years, so they know how NOT to write an OS.

    1. Don Dumb
      Facepalm

      Re: Russian national?

      @McHack - "He should immediately get himself back to Mother Russia"

      I'm sure he would love to do that. Just a bit difficult when he is in custody without bail.

      1. McHack

        @Don Dumb - Re: Russian national?

        I'm sure he would love to do that. Just a bit difficult when he is in custody without bail.

        WHAT?! The US is treating a Russian national like a mass murderer or violent terrorist, for the victimless crime of offending an uber-rich US multinational soulless corporation by liberating their over-hyped over-priced crapware?

        You know what this means. To stop the unwarranted persecution of Russian nationals over minor offenses, now Putin will have to annex the state of Washington!

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: @Don Dumb - Russian national?

          --------------------------------------------------

          You know what this means. To stop the unwarranted persecution of Russian nationals over minor offenses, now Putin will have to annex the state of Washington!

          --------------------------------------------------

          The British did that in 1812. Got bored. Left.

          1. McHack

            @AC: Re: @Don Dumb - Russian national?

            "The British did that in 1812. Got bored. Left."

            Um, that would be Washington D.C. (District of Columbia), not the State of Washington which the British ceded to the US as part of the Oregon Treaty in 1846.

            Washington DC, East Coast. State of Washington, Left Coast. Okay?

    2. hplasm
      Devil

      Re: Russian national?

      " Which will look amazingly like Win 8.1 but without the suck."

      The look is a major part of the suck. It is tightly integrated...

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