"illwill" gets 2 year sentence

Some of you may have heard of illwill from Full Disclosure or GSO.

From CNN:

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NEW YORK (Reuters) -- A federal judge Friday sentenced a convicted hacker known as "illwill" to two years in prison for selling the code, or software blueprint, for Microsoft Corp.'s closely guarded Windows programs.

William Genovese, Jr., 29, pleaded guilty last year to one count of unlawful distribution of trade secrets for putting Microsoft's source code for its Windows 4.0 and Windows 2000 programs on his Web site and selling it.

The plea agreement called for a sentence ranging from 10 months to 30 months in federal prison.

"I screwed up," Genovese said in court.

Genovese has 12 prior criminal convictions, including three computer-related crimes and a sexual abuse conviction, a government attorney told the hearing in federal court in Manhattan.

U.S. District Judge William Pauley said Genovese's criminal background was the most disturbing he has encountered during his seven years as a judge.

"Mr. Genovese is a predator who has morphed through various phases of criminal activity and in the last few years has descended into the world of the Internet and is well on his way to being a cyber predator," Judge Pauley said.

The Meriden, Connecticut, resident also received 3 years supervised release, with numerous conditions. Among them, the Judge Pauley ordered him to register as sex offender and agree to have programs installed on his computers that monitor his activity.

Source code is the intellectual property and lifeblood of any software company since it is the basic language used to create software programs.

Microsoft learned February 12, 2004 that portions of the code were released on the Internet. That same day, Genovese offered the source code for sale on his Web site. He received a total of $40 for selling the code to Microsoft investigators.

Genovese will surrender himself to federal prison authorities on March 14.

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He received a total of $40 for selling the code

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:rolleyes:

I hate to say it, but this guy deserved it... I am no fan of MS... but this guy is a thief, and a sexual predator. Why they let him back on the street after the sex crimes, and how he managed to go this long without registering as a sex offender is beyond me. I also hate how they refer to anyone that commits a crime with a computer as a 'hacker'.

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Genovese ran a popular hacking-oriented community website called IllMob.org in February 2004 when two 200-MB files containing incomplete portions of the source code for the Windows 2000 and Windows NT operating systems hit the internet, flooding dodgy websites and peer-to-peer networks like some hard-core geek version of the Paris Hilton video.

Like many others, Genovese downloaded a copy. Unlike others, he posted a note to his website offering it for sale.

According to court records, an investigator hired by Microsoft took Genovese up on his offer and dropped two Hamiltons on the secret source code. The investigator then returned and arranged a second $20 transaction for an FBI agent, which led to Genovese's indictment under the U.S. Economic Espionage Act, which makes it a felony to sell a company's stolen trade secrets. After consulting with his public defender, Genovese pleaded guilty last August.

Genovese would have had a viable defense had he gone to trial, because the documents were widely available on peer-to-peer networks at the time of the sale, said Mark Rasch, a former Justice Department cybercrime prosecutor.

"This guy didn't participate in the misappropriation, and probably didn't conspire with anybody to misappropriate it," said Rasch, a vice president at security company Solutionary. "Once it's posted online, it's just not secret anymore. At some point it becomes public information."

But Genovese's public posting, coupled with his long rap sheet, made him an obvious target for prosecution.

Soure

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he doesn't fit my definition of a "nice guy" but ms is definitly putting it to him....i once heard of a 'family' with that name in the same area....i wonder!

He got what he deserved...I thank the police for getting rid of such a pest off the roads. He could've stuffed up my own software (ie if I ever release one )

Yeah, but two years???

Man, that creep should be locked away for longer than that.

'Course, in prison he may not last long.

We can always hope.

;)

Microsoft were to blame for crap security and/or HR policies. This was an inside job IIRC.

All this bozo did was to attempt to "profit" ($40 :eek:) from the supply of fragments of two obsolete operating systems, which were all over the net anyway. It was a very minor fraud at best.

;)

i dont have a problem with illwill being locked up forever for being illwill but this 2 year sentence for trying to sell these software fragments is bull ****. even the way the prosecuters discribed him leads me to believe its trumped up. if in the heat of a argument with an ex you use abusive language of a sexual nature you will be charged with sexual assualt if she decided to be a bitch about it, which is probably why he doesn't have to register as a sex offender. the judge was reffering to his willingness to exploit peoples ignorance and the distribution of keyloggers as "predatory", not to be confused with a "sexual" predator. illwill wanted people to think he's bad...well he got his wish!

I guess I am the only person that finds this to be total BS. First what bearing does him being a sexual offender have to do with him placing MS's code on his site? If anything maybe criminal patterns. But, in this case it is completely un-related. He is doing a different pattern of crime. You don't take a bank robber and in his case say... Oh by the way he has 300 dollars in un-paid parking tickets. It doesn't fit.

His lawyer is an idiot for even letting that come into the case. The is no relevence to this case. Second, ripping MS off isn't the biggest thing in the world. PLenty of people do it daily. So to half the people that are saying he deserves to be locked away. Look at all the music on your computer that you didn't pay for. Care to join him?

We all willingly break the law on things. Just depends what... Jay-walking, downloading music or just plain stealing. Everyone has the things that they do that is against the law. The difference with this situation he was an idiot and sold the code from his own site.

I feel the two year sentence is too much, but he deserves it for being stupid. MS can't really say anything simply because this guy did nothing any person hasn't. MS is acting like their source is so secret. I can think of 2 different places I can grab parts of the windows source from.