Posted on 05/04/2015 12:18:16 PM PDT by Brad from Tennessee
The legal journey of Sergey Aleynikov, the former Goldman Sachs computer programmer, has been almost Kafkaesque. The latest — but certainly not last — step came in a verdict last week in New York State court that hit all three possible outcomes: guilty of one charge of unlawful use of secret scientific material based on computer code he took from Goldman, a hung jury on a nearly identical charge, and an acquittal for unlawful duplication of computer-related material.
The case began with Mr. Aleynikov’s arrest by federal agents nearly six years ago at the Newark Liberty International Airport. Since then, it has had just about every possible twist and turn, with a federal criminal prosecution that resulted in a one-year stint in prison before the conviction was overturned, and civil litigation that has pitted Mr. Aleynikov against Goldman and the F.B.I. agents who arrested him.
Like most white-collar crime cases, the facts are not in dispute. Mr. Aleynikov downloaded computer code used in Goldman’s high-frequency trading platform, which he helped design. He planned to use the code in a new job to create a competing platform. He does not deny taking the code but has argued that his actions did not break the law but only violated an internal corporate confidentiality policy. . .
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Did it round the half cent off of every floating point transaction and funnel it to an account?
Why is the F.B.I. even involved? Oh, wait. I see. It’s Goldman Sachs. They own the U.S. Government.
Ah, the old “Superman 3” gimmick.
I don’t know about Superman 3, I was thinking about Peter, Michael, and Samir.
He stole computer code from his employer. This is a rather straight forward criminal case. It involves the FBI because GS and its computer code conduct business in multiple states, across state lines.
Once the crime is proven and he’s convicted GS can go after him for damages.
Lots of Russian coders are like this. Unscrupulous.
Yeah, they got the idea from Richard Pryor’s character in “Superman 3”:
Peter Gibbons: Listen, that virus you’re always talking about. Like the one that could uh, rip off the company for a bunch of money.
Michael Bolton: Yeah? What about it?
Peter Gibbons: Well, how does it work?
Michael Bolton: It’s pretty brilliant. What it does is every time there’s a bank transaction where interest is computed, you know, thousands a day, the computer ends up with these fractions of a cent, which it usually rounds off. What this does is it takes those remainders and puts it into an account.
Peter Gibbons: This sounds familiar.
Michael Bolton: Yeah. They did it in Superman III.
He’s going to Federal “Pound me in the a$$” Prison.
Ah, unknown trivia.
The programmer didn't dream this up. Someone, some business unit, had to request the software be written.
“He stole computer code from his employer.”
Well, technically he just copied it. Stealing implies that the employer no longer has it, which isn’t true, and that is part of his defense. They charged him under laws that have to do with “tangible” theft, while code is not tangible.
Big thieves chasing little thieves is what you get when you have the best justice system money can buy.
Goldman Sachs program that manipulates the market. Others doing so too. They collide and the market tanks the world over.
I read somewhere that 80% of the trades are automated. Bound to be some bad code in there somewhere. Imagine the code like the Boeing 787 has that would cause it to lose all electrical power every 248 days. Market crash.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.