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In Second Trial, Ex-Goldman Sachs Programmer Convicted of Code Theft

Posted by timothy on from the ok-that-information-did-not-want-to-be-free dept.

Ars Technica reports that A former Goldman Sachs programmer—featured in the book Flash Boys—was convicted on Friday for stealing high-speed trading code from the bank. Sergey Aleynikov, 45, was also acquitted on one count of unlawful duplication, according to Reuters. The New York state jury could not come to a verdict on another count of unlawful use of secret scientific material. Sergey Aleynikov was also acquitted of unlawful duplication. This was the second trial for Aleynikov in five years. He could face up to four years in prison.

3 of 84 comments (clear)

  1. 'Stealing' by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Stealing? So he REMOVED it from them with intent to deny them the use of it? Surely you mean copying? "Unlawful use of secret scientific material." wow, America is full of comedy laws.

    Goldman Sacs secret sauce is that when it can't sell bad assets, the ex Goldman Sacs execs in Federal Reserve banks, print money to bail it out. Setting up shell companies that buy the bankrupt assets at high value prices, lending those shell companies printed money, then closing *those* shell companies as bankrupt slowly over time and putting that on the banks books as a loss. Basically handing wealth from real dollar asset companies to Goldmans. Stock trading by its nature is a zero sum game and can't generate wealth without this kind of trickery.

    NOW THAT *IS* STEALING. Because it takes wealth away from dollar savers and gives the underlying value to Goldman Sachs.

  2. Re:It's not really about the code... by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 5, Informative

    I used to work at a large company that specialized in "e-trading". They paid a fee for access to second order quotes, which meant that they knew about not just the current price of a security, but the actual stream of bid and ask prices from individual investors. If you have access to the stream, you can just write code that slightly underbids and offers slightly overpriced shares, so you get to nickel and dime investors all day with sub-millisecond accuracy. It was basically software that stole money from everyone all day.

  3. Re:Goldman Sachs and possible GPL Violations? by martin-boundary · · Score: 3, Informative
    It's not stealing [ethically]. It's exactly what the GPL intends.

    Goldman in this case are an end-user. As an end-user, they have certain rights to run the code, and modify it as they wish for their own purposes.

    The GPL philosophy has always been to skew the copy rights towards users and away from distributors. If you're purely a user, there are practically no restrictions for you. If you're also a distributor, then some restrictions apply to you.