COMMENTARY: Late last week, a contact at Microsoft popped open an IM window and asked me if I had seen something he had discovered online. He then proceeded to show me the code for part of the Windows 2000 source code, called WINVER.C, which was dated 03/08/89.
Within minutes, I was examining this and other source code snippets, including one written by Windows NT architect David Cutler. Within hours, the word was out on the wire: Partial source code listings for Windows NT and Windows 2000 -- the crown jewels of software code that are used to assemble these operating systems into actual working software -- had been leaked to the net. The IT world was suddenly abuzz with the potential ramifications of the leak.
Finally, Microsoft acknowledged the leak. "On Thursday, Microsoft became aware that portions of the Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows NT 4.0 source code were illegally made available on the internet," the company wrote in a statement issued late Thursday. "It's illegal for third parties to post Microsoft source code, and we take such activity very seriously. We are currently investigating these postings and are working with the appropriate law-enforcement authorities. At this point it does not appear that this is the result of any breach of Microsoft's corporate network or internal security. At this time there is no known impact on customers. We will continue to monitor the situation."
The Windows 2000 portion of the source code is almost 700MB big and included over 30,000 files, but is reportedly just part of the code one would need to assemble the bits into a working operating system, assuming you could somehow conjure up the appropriate build procedure as well (Microsoft says it's about 15 percent of the full source code.)
And though the buzz on this leak will be huge for a few days, it should be obvious to just about anyone that this leak was inevitable: In recent years, Microsoft has opened up its source code to educators, IT professionals, and governments in a bid to remove any latent fears about the company hiding suspicious functionality in its proprietary systems.
Furthermore, experts who have already viewed the source code say that much of it appears to be for Microsoft Paint, the free imaging application that ships in various Windows versions.
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