02/13/2004

Windows Source code leaked out

Post @ 22:16 in Software/Tools

Part of Microsoft Windows NT and Windows 2000 source code leaked out and published on the internet since last Friday. The leaked code with a mix of assembler, C and C++ programming languages, the leaked code of windows 2000 contained 30915 files and 13.5 million lines of code. And Windows NT breach had 95103 files and 28 million lines. Holy cow, that's a lot!

Microsoft had a announcement on Feb 13 and said:

Subsequent investigation has shown this was not the result of any breach of Microsoft's corporate network or internal security, nor is it related to Microsoft's Shared Source Initiative or its Government Security Program, which enable our customers, partners and governments to legally access Microsoft source code

Is it means Windows 2000 becomes to an "open source" operating system? NO, like Microsoft announced that all source code are Shared Source initiative which Microsoft lunched last year in part to combat competition from Linux. We can't expect Microsoft to be an Open source developer but more concern about source code will bring us a lot of security problem since hackers and virus writers begin to find out leaks from these source code packages.

Relative reading:
Profanity, partner's name hidden in leaked Microsoft code - CNN
Microsoft probes Windows code leak - ZDNet