Last week we introduced the "Microsoft Invasion" plot twist, in which cunning malfeasants unknown (COUGHstevejobsCOUGH) reportedly gained access to the Redmond Giant's corporate network for up to three months and managed to slink away with the ultimate booty: Microsoft's source code to Windows and Office. Since then, Microsoft spokespersons have been backpedalling at a furious pace, downplaying the seriousness of the breach, revising the numbers previously reported, and spinning the whole snafu as a fully-monitored event in which Microsoft operatives were in total control at all times. (Well, what did you expect Microsoft to do, issue a press release that said "the government's splitting us up, some cyberthug's stolen our source code, and we're totally boned, so we're closing up shop-- screw you all"?)

So, courtesy of an Associated Press article kindly forwarded to us by faithful viewer Ryan Ritchey, here's Microsoft's revised take on the incident: first of all, the intruder (for convenience's sake, let's just call him "Steve") didn't have three months of access, as the Wall Street Journal had reported. Instead, he "only" had high-level access for twelve days. Moreover, Microsoft now claims that it knew about "Steve" the whole time, and monitored his actions to ensure that he didn't manage to do anything too nasty, while also collecting information that would let the company learn "Steve"'s real identity. (AtAT sources tell us that among the profiling data that Microsoft has collected is the fact that the intruder changed several high-ranking executives' passwords to "IAMABOZO," though investigators are at a loss as to what this fact implies.)

Now, if you're a little suspicious of Microsoft's all-too-rosy picture of the events that unfolded, The Register has an enjoyable little article that compares the company's current story with the story it reported last week-- and examines how each of those accounts compares to what the Wall Street Journal first reported. Personally, we find Microsoft's revised sunshine-and-lollipops "we knew it all along" version to be more than a bit shifty, but hey, what's a daring corporate break-in without a Rashomon-like series of conflicting reports to raise the tension? We just hope that "Steve" covered his tracks well enough to give us a nice, long chase scene.