one of the co-founders of microsoft, paul allen, has sold this year, shares of microsoft for about 6 billion us dollars. for him the party is over.

gigi

: The recent story below from motleyfool is interestingly
: similar to: MS Windows source code hacked
: Which was posted here on Friday, 27 October 2000, 3:03 p.m.

: A powerful question here is why is MSFT close to 70 after
: all this bad press? I have yet to see mainstream press ask
: that question.

: --
: Source link:

: http://biz.yahoo.com/mf/001101/news02_001101.html
: Wednesday November 1, 2:25 pm Eastern Time

: MotleyFool.com - Fool News
: What's Bad for Microsoft
: By Nico Detourn

: Five days after word broke that intruders had snuck into
: Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT - news) corporate computers, it's
: still unclear what actually happened.
: That's not surprising. At this point, probably no one knows
: for sure, and those who might know have
: reasons to not spill the beans. Still, the information that is
: out there doesn't entirely add up, especially
: the chronology of what Microsoft knew and when they knew it.

: According to early reports, intruders initially broke into
: company computers and then used hacked
: passwords to gain deeper access to the system and eventually
: to the source code for Microsoft
: applications. The intrusion lasted five to six weeks. Citing
: unnamed sources, The Wall Street Journal
: said the break-in was discovered when security people detected
: passwords being sent to a computer
: in St. Petersburg, Russia.

: The paper said network logs showed source code for Microsoft
: software -- including the
: bread-and-butter Windows operating system and Office
: applications -- had been transferred outside
: the company's Redmond campus.

: Microsoft on Friday called the incident "a deplorable act
: of industrial espionage." It also said the
: incident was "narrower than originally thought" and
: the source code for Windows and Office remained
: untouched by hacker hands. "That is very good news,"
: said Microsoft spokesperson Mark Murray.

: High-level access
: Over the weekend, certain details of the original story were
: updated, others were filled in, and new
: questions were raised.

: Microsoft now says intruders only saw source code for
: unidentified products that are still under
: development and years away from release. These files were
: neither changed nor damaged, Murray
: said. "We don't believe customers are going to be
: affected in any way."

: The period of the attack was similarly scaled down. Microsoft
: says that access to "high-level" areas
: and files was limited to a 12-day period between October 14
: and 25, although it acknowledges that
: the intruder could have entered the system before then.

: Microsoft says it initially thought the attack might be
: related to a virus from some weeks earlier and
: that it did not want to underestimate how long the intruder
: had been worming through its computers.
: They now believe the two events are unrelated.

: Real-time hacker tracking
: Microsoft also now says it was aware of the intrusion from the
: get-go. Rick Miller, another Microsoft
: spokesperson, says the company tracked the hacker's movement
: through its network in real time and
: "knew what the person was doing."

: Presumably by way of reassurance and to further minimize the
: significance of the situation, Miller said
: that if attempts had been made to transfer source code files,
: they do not show up in the network's
: logs. But this suggests that such activity may not always be
: recorded, so one wonders about
: Microsoft's ability to actually know what did or did not
: happen.

: In addition, Miller says the size of the source code files
: make it unlikely that they were surreptitiously
: snatched. The company's reputation for "bloatware"
: notwithstanding, however, 12 days is more than
: enough time to mess with Microsoft's family jewels, according
: to security experts and, frankly,
: common sense.

: The company says it originally planned to deal with the attack
: on its own but called in federal
: investigators last Thursday. "We realized the intrusion
: had grown to the level that warranted bringing in
: the FBI," according to Miller.

: Microsoft's front-door access
: Getting hacked places Microsoft in an embarrassing, tricky
: position. While acknowledging its
: vulnerability to such attacks, it must also reassure customers
: and partners that what's bad for
: Microsoft is not bad for them. The situation requires skillful
: damage control and has something in
: common with cases of product tampering.

: It's interesting that Microsoft has said "there is no
: evidence" that the source code for Office and
: Windows products has been compromised or that its online
: services have been or will be affected by
: the incident. Instead, the company has shifted the focus to
: future products.

: This makes some sense. It gives them time to assess any damage
: to the code before compromised
: products can work their way into the pipeline. But even taking
: the company's statements at face value,
: how reassuring is that?

: The main risk in the high-level hacking of Microsoft is that
: bad guys can sabotage the company's code
: and add "backdoor" access to the computers that run
: the finished software. To state the obvious,
: though, the main reason this matters is because Microsoft has
: already gained front-door access to
: those same computers.

: A company spokesperson said Friday that consumer, business,
: and government computers running
: Microsoft software should be safe. That's virtually all of the
: computers in service today -- an
: impressive number. And a sobering one, for while Microsoft can
: be reasonably counted on to reduce
: its vulnerability to the world's bad guys, the world's
: vulnerability to the good guys at Microsoft is an
: altogether different story.
: --