Man Arrested For Stealing Microsoft Source Code

A 23-year old Connecticut man was charged with stealing source code for Windows NT and Windows 2000 back in February. The man, William Genovese, claims he was just trying to sell a copy for $20 that he downloaded off a peer-to-peer network from his website, and that he was not involved in the theft. Evidence when the code was stolen pointed to Mainsoft, a developer of MS tools for Unix. Genovese explains that all he did was offer, as a joke to counter the Bit Torrent links he was on other sites, the code to anyone who offered a PayPal donation. Genovese never realized the offer was coming from a Microsoft-hired security firm. Ouch. Now he faces a charge that he violated the 1996 Economic Espionage Act. It certainly won't help Genovese that his online profile says his profession is a "hacking bum" and his interests include "getting arrested".