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Man sent to prison for selling Windows source code


A man who admitted selling portions of the source code for the Windows 2000 and Windows NT 4.0 operating systems after the Microsoft code was illegally leaked onto the internet has been sentenced to two years in prison, according to reports.

William Genovese Jr, from Connecticut, offered to sell a copy of the stolen code on his website shortly after it was released onto the internet in February 2004. He instructed buyers, including an investigator from Microsoft and an undercover FBI agent, to pay $20 into a PayPal account in order to gain access to the code.

Genovese, 29, who used the handle 'illwill' online, was arrested in November 2004 and charged with the unlawful distribution of a trade secret. He was not charged with the initial theft of the code, which is still under investigation.

According to reports, Genovese, who has 12 prior convictions, three relating to computer crime, has now been sentenced to prison for two years. He then faces three years of supervised release.

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