Lululululululululu.......
Posted on 07/06/2009 12:35:12 PM PDT by Lazamataz
Goldman Sachs has not seen its business or clients harmed by the activities of a computer programmer being held in custody for allegedly stealing secret trading codes from the firm, a source familiar with the situation said.
Sergey Aleynikov, 39, was being held in federal custody on Monday, pending the posting of $750,000 bail.
Aleynikov was ordered by U.S. Magistrate Kevin Nathaniel Fox in Manhattan on Saturday to post a personal recognizance bond to be secured by three financially responsible people, according to court documents.
The bond also was to include $75,000 in cash, and Aleynikov was ordered to surrender his passport and not to access the computer data at issue in the case.
A preliminary hearing in his case was scheduled for Aug.3.
Aleynikov, a Russian immigrant living in New Jersey, was arrested on Friday night by FBI agents as he got off a flight at Newark Liberty International Airport, according to court documents.
He is accused of "theft of trade secrets" related to computer codes used for sophisticated automated stock and commodities trading at an unspecified, New York-based financial institution, according to the court affidavit filed by FBI special agent Michael McSwain.
A Goldman representative declined to comment.
A lawyer for Aleynikov, Sabrina Shroff, declined to comment.
The case could shed light on the intricate trading systems developed by Goldman, and also raises questions about the security of Wall Street's proprietary trading operations.
Authorities contend that Aleynikov, who had a $400,000-a-year job at one of the financial institution's New York offices, improperly copied proprietary computer code and then uploaded it to a computer server in Germany.
He told authorities who arrested him that he had only intended to collect "open source" files on which he had worked but "later realized that he had obtained more files than he intended," the FBI agent said in the affidavit.
In the court papers, the FBI said Aleynikov worked at an unspecified financial institution as a programmer from May 2007 until June 5, when he left to work for a new company focused on high-volume automated trading.
Aleynikov's wife, Elina, told Reuters on Sunday that her husband is innocent. Speaking in a phone interview from the couple's New Jersey home, she said her husband worked hard for Goldman and has been a good citizen who has lived in the United States for 19 years.
Aleynikov was being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, according to the federal Bureau of Prisons website and an officer at the jail.
Meanwhile, the New York Stock Exchange said Monday there was no connection between the alleged security breach at Goldman Sachs and an error that dropped the big investment bank from a trading report the exchange issued last week.
The Big Board, run by NYSE Euronext, issued a report last week that inexplicably did not list Goldman among its most active program trading firms in the week ended June 26. Goldman often tops the weekly list, which measures computer-driven orders for large baskets of stocks.
On Monday, an NYSE spokesman told Reuters the exchange was to blame for Goldman missing from the list, adding the bank reported its data to the exchange correctly and on time.
It does sound like a mistake, but I would have to see HOW MUCH code he bundled with the opensource he was uploading.
If I was GS, I would demand: NO OPEN SOURCE ALLOWED! Then there cannot be this sort of thing going on....
These are the same people who never saw the Wall Street collapse coming.
You are wrong on this one, Laz. Everything I write is open-source, and that goes into the indemnification that I require prospective employers to sign.
The problem isn't open-source, it's scumbag people that don't understand or follow the NDAs.
I'm a big proponent of intellectual property, and don't steal music, songs, or software. I'm also not allowing anyone to take what I create without an agreement on payment.
/johnny
They saw it coming. They shorted the companies that they sold their garbage securities to.
/johnny
If they were so prescient, why did so many go belly up, and none make it through unscathed?
The apologists here for wall street (small ws) are amazing.
You'd pretty much cripple your internal network, access to outside networks, and the web services your company would use.
Many didn’t see it...they were too close to it, or just too stupid. Goldman Sachs did see it though. They needed no bailout, and tried to refuse it. They have already paid back the 10 billion they were forced to take with interest.
Only compiled, serverside C#.NET, ASP.NET, and Silverlight is worth a damn.
The closest I ever get to open-source is JavaScript and AJAX. ;)
Not sure about the network stuff, but my understanding of consuming web services is, they are language agnostic. As long as you offer me decent XML in a SOAP package, I could care less if you wrote it in COBOL.
Good one, Laz!
I'll be laughing all night!
But the web server is probably open source.
Ohhh kay...... I'll just step back now, hands in the air, not making sudden moves.
Who are you and how much to ransom Laz? (intellectual curiosity, I'm not going to spend a farthing or guilder.)
/johnny
Is there a B&D forum on FR? Or does this get moved to religion?
/johnny
(hypercard?)
/johnny
Have they repaid the $13 billion that Paulson laundered for them through AIG?
;0)
Lululululululululu.......
Give me .NET, or give me a crappy language to maintain. ;)
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