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Prosecutors Request Closed Courtroom For Goldman HFT Programmer's Trial
dave562 writes "Goldman Sachs' lawyers have asked the Federal judge to seal the court room during the trial of Sergey Aleynikov. Aleynikov was one of the programmers who developed Goldman's High Frequency Trading (HFT) programs. What does this say about the state of the financial industry? Given the problems HFT seems to have caused over the last few years, shouldn't more light be shined into the dark corners of how it works?"
If it is a program, there are assumptions. If those assumptions are false, then the program is exploitable. If the program is exploitable, it will be exploited. If it is exploited, people will lose their shirts while others make a fortune. The rich don't want to be fleeced automatically by computers, they just want to fleece others with computers.
That is all this is.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
If it were just the HFT source to be protected, then the judge can seal a few documents or clear the court for a few witnesses. That's not a good enough reason to close the entire trial.