Last week a man charged with stealing proprietary technology from AltaVista search engine two years was arrested. No big deal right, well this man also is an employee at Microsoft and has been working on Microsoft's new MSN Search technology. Lets see how long till AltaVista presses charges against the software giant Microsoft.
A Kirkland man arrested last week on allegations that he stole proprietary technology from the AltaVista search engine two years ago is a Microsoft Corp. employee who has been working on the Redmond company's MSN Search initiative. Federal authorities allege that Laurent Chavet, a former AltaVista employee, illegally accessed the California company's computer system in March 2002 and June 2002, after he left AltaVista and well before he went to work for Microsoft. Chavet, then living in California, copied to his home computer source code that was used by AltaVista "to perform the function of scouring the World Wide Web," according to an FBI affidavit.
Chavet's arrest was announced by the U.S. attorney in northern California last week without reference to his current employment. Microsoft acknowledged yesterday that Chavet is a Microsoft employee but declined to name the team on which he works. However, three other people with knowledge of Chavet's Microsoft employment confirmed that he has been working on the MSN Search effort. A brief biography attached to a paper Chavet co-wrote on text analytics described him as an expert "in all aspects of search technology." He worked at IBM's Almaden Research Center after leaving AltaVista and before joining Microsoft.
News source: seattlepi.com
A Kirkland man arrested last week on allegations that he stole proprietary technology from the AltaVista search engine two years ago is a Microsoft Corp. employee who has been working on the Redmond company's MSN Search initiative. Federal authorities allege that Laurent Chavet, a former AltaVista employee, illegally accessed the California company's computer system in March 2002 and June 2002, after he left AltaVista and well before he went to work for Microsoft. Chavet, then living in California, copied to his home computer source code that was used by AltaVista "to perform the function of scouring the World Wide Web," according to an FBI affidavit.
Chavet's arrest was announced by the U.S. attorney in northern California last week without reference to his current employment. Microsoft acknowledged yesterday that Chavet is a Microsoft employee but declined to name the team on which he works. However, three other people with knowledge of Chavet's Microsoft employment confirmed that he has been working on the MSN Search effort. A brief biography attached to a paper Chavet co-wrote on text analytics described him as an expert "in all aspects of search technology." He worked at IBM's Almaden Research Center after leaving AltaVista and before joining Microsoft.
News source: seattlepi.com
In other news, i'm off for a month! Bye Neowinians, i'll be back in August :)
I think that's a little unwarranted. I don't think any company, especially Microsoft, would seek to obtain stolen code. That's the last thing any company needs (the press from such an incident, anyway), and it's not as if Microsoft would be desperate for it anyway.
Don't interpret this as Microsoft fanboyism, just my 2 cents on that comment.
They have before. What has changed?
Why wouldn't they? They are way behind, have been "renting" other's search services, and they feel they "need" to be #1 in search although they have ZERO expertise in search. That sounds desperate to me.
http://www.around.com/microsoft.html
Most good leaders are smart enough to give their employees a good idea of what 'dirty deeds' he wants them to do without directly telling them to do it. Plausible Denyability is a great thing, isn't it?
Sure there desperate as a company, and individually as employees. However I don't feel that it would be fair to say Microsoft was desperate, but the employee was desperate - desperate to get his job done to get his paycheck.
oh and some old altavista code from the "suspect" will help make the search better? the blame should be on the employee, not microsoft. but it just so happens that this person works at microsoft, so naturally, people accuse them of those actions as well. its a very human thing to do.
STV
"Bill who ?"
Yeah they had to do that to avoid getting sued for liable. It's pretty obvious that NERV was a caricature of MSFT and Winston was a caricature for Bill Gates and he even had a bald guy as his second in command.
NERV had a monopoly on the desktop OS market and they were trying to corner the Media distribution market. They also had a number of strategic partnerships with various Media firms. (See Windows desktop monopoly, WMA and MSNBC in as real world counterparts).
The campus layout was reminiscent of the Redmond campus (both located in WA state). NERV was against Open Source (GPL).
Finally, NERV was under investigation for ANTI-TRUST for the same reasons MSFT was in court while the movie was being made.
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Second, 'No company even close to Microsoft's size would ever think they could get away with stealing code.' yeah... so what's Bill's reason for stealing STAC's code?
Altavista sucks major in the list of search engines.
Yet again the same event of STAC, Even though this still *was* a major issue, its gone and done. Things to change, and I believe and feel that MS has after that happening.
As well like I said above, it was the employee's thoughts and reasons for the theft, the rush not for the engine, but for his paycheck.
then you are either blind or MS fanboys.
Either way, you are wrong. No company gets to be that big without stepping on toes
or garnering information from outside sources and passing it off as their property.
1) Microsoft != NURV
2) Microsoft does not kill people for code (if they want code, they pay for through buying the company)
3) Microsoft exists in the film because bill gates still exists as "the richest man in the world", so by that, microsoft != NURV
4) the suspect in question happens to work for microsoft. i but that if it were any other company, someone would try to rationalize the hell out of it.
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note the title: "Suspect in AltaVista hacking case works at Microsoft"
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Not fun, but oh so funny.
Oh, and by the way, even if the theft occurred before he was hired, if he does put stolen code into an MS product, MS is certainly liable and involved in this.
Come on now...
maybe you can type english this time!
That is so damn funny!!!!
I remember when the url had something to do with digital (or DEC was it?).
This took me down search engine memory lane... and they are all still there: altavista, excite, hotbot, metacrawler...
Google must have given me selective amnesia.
Steals code - Sure, in the past. Things change though.
Warez - Even still it shouldn't exist. I should sue My Dealer for my car with a markup of $2000 of MSRP, or should I just steal the thing becuase it was "overcharged".
(PS:
This is in no way personal, just for the sake of debate. Please dun take this the wrong way lol I never really have done this tennis thing before lol)
STV
The guy obviously was using the code to help him with the msn project or at least to get the job at microsoft.
so MS will soon fire this guy i'm sure.
nice lame excuse to claim microsoft inocent.
it seems that you pop up whenever you have something bad to say about MS. it is so funny that you let them indirectly rule your existance.
STV
a) that source code is two years old, and wasn't effective enough back then to stop Google from making everyone practically forget AV existed. It's likely evolved even more since then, anyway. Remember, MS is trying to out-do Google, they probably wouldn't succeed with old AV code...and how much, if any, AV code used in MSN Search is not yet known. No corporate machines were seized.
b) some companies require departing employees to sign non-compete agreements. But there are time limits for those (people gotta eat), so even if he signed one with AV, it expired a long time ago. Working on similar tech doesn't necessarily mean he's actually working with stolen code.
c) it's odd that he was arrested two whole years later, and it's an amazing coincidence of the timing with all the hoopla of the MSN Search beta. Logon name/password was one of their current employees...I know my boss would have read me the riot act if I caused 5K in damage. And if so, wouldn't I squeal on my former co-worker two years ago? Or if that person used my name/password without my knowledge, and I insisted I didn't know what my boss was talking about, wouldn't he get corporate security to track down who it was and call the FBI the same day?
All of the people who are currently browsing the net thanks to ms's products, bitching and LOL!@!'ing should hang your head in shame.
Try reading the godamn article before *assuming* you're qualified to comment on it
*awaits ms-fanboy flashmob retard attacks*
try posting something that helps the topic.
In its place, please read
Truth hurts, eh?
Not only that, but they integrated it even more so you can't remove it at all.
Them hiring somebody with altavista source code is very plausible. IF they get into trouble they will just pay their way out of it.
and not a crappy insecure browser
STV
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