Slashdot Mirror
Goldman Sachs Code Theft Not Quite So Cut and Dried
The New York Times has some interesting details that are surfacing about the recent charges brought against Sergey Aleynikov, the programmer who allegedly stole code from Goldman Sachs on his way out the door to another job. "This spring, Mr. Aleynikov quit Goldman to join Teza Technologies, a new trading firm, tripling his salary to about $1.2 million, according to the complaint. He left Goldman on June 5. In the days before he left, he transferred code to a server in Germany that offers free data hosting. [...] After his arrest, Mr. Aleynikov was taken for interrogation to F.B.I. offices in Manhattan. Mr. Aleynikov waived his rights against self-incrimination, and agreed to allow agents to search his house. He said that he had inadvertently downloaded a portion of Goldman's proprietary code while trying to take files of open source software — programs that are not proprietary and can be used freely by anyone. He said he had not used the Goldman code at his new job or distributed it to anyone else, and the criminal complaint offers no evidence that he has."
To steal code, you print screen and save it as an image file :)
Yeah, phrased weirdly, but I assume it means something like, "he incriminated himself even after being advised of his Miranda right to remain silent". It might mean something stronger, though, like police actively asked him if he was waiving his right not to incriminate himself, and he confirmed that he was--- police sometimes do this so that the recorded interview is absolutely clear that the suspect knew what his rights are and was consciously waiving them, rather than speaking accidentally or because he was tricked into incriminating himself.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
It is illegal front running IF it looks at their brokerage business order flow and trades ahead of that. Do you have evidence that they are doing that? If so, you should be talking to the SEC, not posting on Slashdot.
Lots of firms implement high frequency trading strategies based on statistical probabilities of short term market movements, and order book depth analysis. These strategies are usually capital constrained, and a lot of work to implement and maintain, but can be levered up and earn a relative huge return on a modest amount of capital utilized, when implemented properly.
Of course, they can also fail to get timely execution of orders if there are 5 people going after the same trades, in which case 4 of you are likely to lose your arses. Unlike other areas, high frequency strategies are often (though not always) a winner-takes-all world where your network latency and code execution speed are measured in microseconds, not seconds, or even milliseconds.
For those who are interested, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has put together a Surveillance Defense Project manual which discusses the basics of government search and seizure powers in the United States (among other things). There are other sources available on the same and related topics (the searches are left as an exercise to the reader), but basically the only way to completely preserve one's rights when dealing with the authorities is to refuse any cooperation, other than name and id, from the very start and continue that refusal until one's attorney is present and one is acting under advice from that attorney. Of course, our individual rights are being constantly diminished in this country so your mileage may vary, but at least in theory if you want to protect your 5th amendment right against self incrimination you must never cooperate, not even partially, until you are acting under the advice of your attorney, even if you have not yet been arrested or detained (i.e. this applies to any interactions with the authorities under any circumstances).