The verdict is in and the ex-Microsoft employee who leaked early copies of Windows 8 is facing a three months sentence in jail and a $100 fine.
The cost of trading secrets is not cheap. A good example to prove this is the recent hearing of an ex-Microsoft employee who leaked confidential early copies of the Windows 8 operating system ahead of its big release in 2012. The U.S. District Court judge sentenced the accused to three months in prison and a $100 fine for the Win 8 leak.
The former Microsoft employee, Alex Kibkalo, pleaded guilty to the crime of sharing early copies of Windows 8, which included Windows 8 RT software updates and Activation Server software development kit (SDK), to a French blogger in July and August 2012. Kibkalo, who worked as a security and IT architecture specialist for more than 10 years, wrote in a letter to the judge describing his action as a "wrong decision" and that he had regrets.
"At some moment I was making a wrong decision to discuss certain company projects with external party," he wrote in his letter to the judge, published by Seattle Times. "As of now, I deeply regret that I have shared that [confidential] information," Kibkalo wrote in the letter to the judge. "Having done that I have lost a job, one can only dream about. Moreover, when I have found another interesting job a year after, the echo of my mistake took that from me, too. For sure I was given good lessons, which I deserved."
Microsoft also attracted a lot of attention for the measures it took to find out about Kibkalo. The Redmond software giant involved its Trustworthy Computing division to search the contents of the French blogger's Hotmail accounts in order to track the source of the leak. The snooping activity was not appreciated and so Microsoft changed its policy about email communications, with its terms of service now stating that "exceptional circumstances" can warrant a search on its own servers, the report added.
The updated Service Agreement will take effect July 31, and any user choosing to continue to use Microsoft's service automatically abides by the new terms. If the new terms are not satisfactory, users must stop using Redmond's services.
According to a copy of the judgment posted online, Kibalko is not entitled to pay the $100 fine after his three months sentence, as the court found him financially incapable. Kibalko will be released from prison next week, after completing almost three months in custody that will be adjusted against the sentence term.
