Windows 10 Source Code Leaked To Web…. Or Not

The Register posted on Friday that up to 32TB of “official and non-public (Windows 10) installation images” were uploaded to BetaArchive.com. Now that sounds like a big deal. And frankly it is because at a very basic level, anytime source code for an OS like Windows 10 is available in the public domain, it opens the doors for epic hacks because hackers suddenly have access to resources that they wouldn’t normally have access to. Plus short of rewriting the entire OS, there’s not a whole lot that Microsoft in this case can do to stop them. So Windows 10 users should get ready for an onslaught of epic pwnage. Right?

Well…. Maybe not.

It turns out that the stuff that hit the streets is part of Microsoft’s Shared Source Initiative. In short, this is a program that Microsoft has that serves up source code for various products to certain “qualified” customers, governments and partners for debugging and reference purposes. The source code is only relevant to whatever the organization is working on and isn’t the whole OS. I’ve seen stuff that Microsoft serves up via this program and it’s not much. Thus, there’s very little chance of epic pwnage. That’s made The Register modify its original story to lessen what the perceived impact could be.

In short, nothing to see here. Move along.

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