4 ms·

Where in the article is the actual story? Can someone please point me to the page and paragraph that contains what actually happened? What did he do?

• deleted 13y ago
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• deleted 13y ago
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• ig1 13y ago
  My understanding is he copied a bunch of confidential code off company servers and then deleted the audit trail from the servers. He claimed that the confidential code copied was accidental and that he only meant to copy some open source code.
  • kasey_junk 13y ago
    It's a little harsh to say he deleted the audit trail. He deleted his bash history. Something I do on a near daily basis.
    • ig1 13y ago
      The exact details (which aren't disputed) are covered in: http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/021110aleynikovindictment.pdf http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/021110aleyn... Basically he'd written a backup program which was specifically designed to compress both his home directory and propriety code from elsewhere on the system into a file (which it would do depended on parameters passed). On his last day of employment he ran it several times with different parameters which including copying propriety code. He then encrypted the file and then uploaded it to a SVN hosting service before deleting the encryption program and his bash history. Because it was encrypted it bypassed GS's automated scanners. He then downloaded the source files to both his laptop and external flash drive and took them to work at his new employer. Given the (undisputed) facts, he clearly broke several laws, the question is whether he was doing it innocently and just being stupid or if he did it with serious criminal intent.
      • nvarsj 13y ago
        It's hard to believe he did it accidentally. He probably just underestimated GS's reaction and didn't think it was a big deal. Firms like GS and other HFTs are excessively sensitive about their IP - especially the code base. Whenever an employee leaves, especially to go to a competitor, they're going to have a team of people checking what that person did. When you get in bed with the devil, you need to accept the rules.
        • walshemj 13y ago
          Yes he probably had the Russian laissez faire attitude to IP and had obviously not been listening at all to the training courses all big companies have on ethics and computer security. I agree its pretty obvious that this was a deliberate action
      • kasey_junk 13y ago
        I don't doubt he did something illegal and I don't care particularly what his reason is. What is way more troubling to me is how apparently easy it is for Goldman to get the highest levels of government involved and throw the criminal book at someone over what is typically a civil matter.
        • ig1 13y ago
          Any company can ask for a criminal referral on a corporate espionage case (United States v. Nosal is a major one), and while it's becoming more common it's still pretty unusual for companies of all sizes because it's often expensive for the company involved (legal counsel, staff time, etc) and means that they lose control of the case.
        • smacktoward 13y ago
          "The highest levels of government" and "Goldman Sachs" are pretty much interchangeable: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20001981-10391695.html http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20001981-10391695.html
      • foobarqux 13y ago
    • deleted 13y ago
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    • dekhn 13y ago
      Why do you delete your bash history daily. For "security"? He deleted his bash history (AFAICT) because it had passwords in it. if you are entering passwords on the command line such that it lands in your history, then you "delete it at the end of the day", you're not securing anything. you can turn off history for one command. That's better than deleting bash_history (well, I don't know what an auditor would say about that). But you should be storing your passwords in secure files, not entering them on the command line.
      • kasey_junk 13y ago
        I rarely nuke my entire history, but frequently prune commands out of it. As I develop I frequently change parameters/calling conventions on the applications I'm writing. While scanning the history I don't want bad commands to still be there. Bash history was never meant to be an audit trail and treating manipulating it as some form of security violation is idiotic.
    • mindslight 13y ago
      What are the benefits of not simply putting 'unset HISTFILE' in your shell rc?
  • doug1001 13y ago
    That's inaccurate. I just read the Lewis article and there are plenty of facts recited there contradict your summary; none of those facts support it. He deleted his bash history, which many programmers do every day, indeed, that's what the justice department used as evidence that he "deleted the audit trail" Once you look at the details of this case--in fact, even just the details as recited in the public documents filed by the Justice Department--a completely different story emerges. A few facts just for context: the person arrested and later set free by a Federal Appeals Court, Sergei Alienikov, is an accomplished programmer with a long history of open source contribution, for instance, he is the author of the (original?) ZeroMQ Erlang bindings. (http://zeromq.github.io/erlzmq/ http://zeromq.github.io/erlzmq/) The code that Goldman claims that Alienikov "stole" was code that he had written while employed by them; indeed, according to Goldman SA was hired to build their HFT rig, which he did. According to the Justice Dept documents, he only took a small portion of the total codebase (~ 2%) and he took that on the last day, six weeks after he had resigned from Goldman. SA claimed that code comprised his revisions to an open source library he used to build Goldman's HFT system. Combined with the fact that he took that on his last day in the office (he had resigned six weeks before (at Goldman's request, he stayed an additional month) and was open about his plans to work for a competitor, (and which his employment agreement did not forbid). Clearly a smart guy, but a pretty dumb criminal, which pretty strongly suggests he's no criminal at all. If his plan was to steal this codebase (the one he had in fact spent the previous two years writing) he would have, to begin with, actually taken all of it, not just a small fraction, and second he would not wait until his last day. These circumstances were relevant in that case because SA was on trial for committing a felony, and to prove guilt requires proving some criminal state of mind ("intent to steal", the complaint calls it.) What's more, Goldman had absolutely no evidence that SA used any of this code or gave it to anyone. The government's complaint is astonishingly frank about that. My understanding is that trade secret theft requires some unlawful use to actually constitute an IP theft.
    • vasilipupkin 13y ago
      In our industry( HFT ) generally, you sign all sorts of agreements which specifically prohibit you from taking any code whatsoever from your employer without specific authorization to do so. Michael Lewis article almost makes it sound like its Goldman's fault. But the fact is, he signed agreements that prohibited him from doing stuff like this and then did it anyway
  • dllthomas 13y ago
    It seems unrealistic to call bash_history an audit trail, when it can be trivially circumvented: set +o history steal secrets launch missiles set -o history
• mikepurvis 13y ago
  It's a Michael Lewis piece—it's worth reading the whole thing. (And when you're done, then The Big Short, Moneyball, and Liar's Poker.)