(Some) Windows code escapes into the wild

According to a BBC report, some of the source code for Windows 2000 and NT has been leaked onto the Net. Wonder how it happened — and whether it’s a byproduct of Microsoft’s “shared-source” initiative.

More…From CNET: “The 203MB file contains code from Microsoft’s enterprise operating system, but the code was clearly incomplete, said Dragos Ruiu, a security consultant and the organizer of the CanSecWest security conference, who has examined the file listing.

“It was on the peer-to-peer networks and IRC (Internet relay chat) today,” Ruiu said. “Everybody has got it; it’s widespread now.”

The 203MB file expands to just under 660MB, he said, noting that the final code size almost perfectly matches the capacity of a typical CD-ROM. The entire source code, he said, is believed to be about 40GB, meaning that the file circulating Thursday is only a fraction of the full code base.

“It looks real,” he said. “You can’t build Windows, however. It’s just a bunch of chunks of the operating system.”