A U.S. federal judge announced Friday that the software pirate known online as “illwill” will recieve two years in prison for selling the source code to Microsoft’s Windows 2000.

“illwill”, or William Genovese pleaded guilty one year ago to “one count of unlawful distribution of trade secrets” as a result of his attempt to sell the source code to Windows 2000, for only $40 USD, on his web site.

Genovese is well known to the U.S. court system, with over 12 prior convictions, three of which were computer-related crimes. He also has one sexual abuse conviction.

“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,” said a U.S. district judge.

The man will recieve 2 years in federal prison as well as 3 years under a “supervised release” plan, with a range of conditions prohibiting him from, amongst other things, computer access. The judge ordered Genovese to register as a sex offender, and have spyware installed on his computers to monitor his activity.

Genovese was caught selling Microsoft’s source code in February of 2004, when he sold a copy of the Windows 2000 source code to “undercover” Microsoft investigators for $40. He will enter the federal prison system on March 14th.

Microsoft says they are confident Genovese did not recieve the source code directly from their own internal computer networks.