This hacking incident was reported at the time it was discovered, back
in
(I think) 2001.  Hackers for months had access to the Windows source
code,
I remember that aspect of it; Microsoft in the course of one week went
through
a series of denials, each one retracted and replaced by an admission of
more
damage.  News.com, and a number of magazines carried a list of the
various
denials of damage, each one contradicted the one before it.
For example, they initially said that hackers had breached their
network but not seen the source code; then they said they were certain
that
none of it had been changed or replaced, later to say they couldn't
prove that,
etc.  With 3 months of access, imagine what kind of back door someone
could
have inserted into that code base, which was definitely used as the
basis for XP, 2003
and now Longhorn...






On Feb 12, 2004, at 9:39 PM, Alan Shields wrote:

> On Thu, Feb 12, 2004 at 07:52:55PM -0600, Danny G Smith wrote:
>> Microsoft says it has referred the attack to the US Federal Bureau of
>> Investigation (FBI) and is working with the authorities to "protect
>> its
>> intellectual property".
>
> That's funny...I thought they were already working with the authorities
> to protect their intellectual property (see TCPTA [or whatever it's
> called now], DMCA, and recent smashings of bills encouraging open
> source
> use by government agencies....).
>
> Sorry, couldn't resist,
> Alan