13 ms·

‘Flash Boys’ Programmer in Goldman Case Prevails Second Time

222 points by chollida1 11y ago

gcb0 11y ago
when i briefly consulted for a security firm working for banks, i learned that most banks takes daily hits as high as 100,000 and they don't even get reported to the police as to not generate any public record. most get reported to the insurer, which also avoid reporting it in most cases. i confess i never got the whole picture. but most issues I've been involved with was to try to track down the internal people, if any, and the exact means used. and this only over for criminal reports if we did find something conclusive and it was overseas. if it was local it was usually dealt with lawyers and such out of the records. edit: forgot to mention it wasn't the us. but the banks were american.
chollida1 11y ago
There isn't a whole lot of content here but since this case has had a lot of publicity I thought it would be nice to highlight when the programmer wins one over the larger corporation.
- vasilipupkin 11y ago
  I agree it's time for the prosecutors to let go of this one. But, he did take Goldman's code. So, I don't quite share the sentiment that this is a hero standing up to an evil corporation.
- leereeves 11y ago
  The programmer won all the battles in court, but GS won the war.
acqq 11y ago
The most interesting part of the story about him is that the laws were changed inspired by his former acquittal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Aleynikov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Aleynikov "On April 11, 2012, Dennis Jacobs, Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals, published a unanimous decision in a written opinion[11] stating: On appeal, Aleynikov argues, inter alia, that his conduct did not constitute an offense under either statute. He argues that: [1] the source code was not a "stolen" "good" within the meaning of the NSPA, and [2] the source code was not “related to or included in a product that is produced for or placed in interstate or foreign commerce” within the meaning of the EEA. We agree, and reverse the judgment of the district court.[10] In the course of these events, Aleynikov has spent 11 months in prison. Aleynikov has divorced, lost his savings,[12] and, according to his lawyer, "[his] life has been all but ruined".[13] The government did not seek reconsideration of the Second Circuit's ruling, thus ending federal action against Aleynikov.[14] Later, on December 18, 2012, the law was changed by Congress, in order to punish acts like the ones Aleynikov committed in future rulings, in a law referred to as the "Theft of trade secrets clarification act of 2012".[15]"
- tpatke 11y ago
  No. The most interesting part is that this is an example of a vindictive employer ruining someone's life. I used to work at Goldman's and can tell you that they are paranoid about this kind of thing. They are trying to make an example out of Sergey. We used to get daily updates (on the corporate intranet) about the progress of the case. There is no telling how much money Goldman's has spent going after this guy. Both directly and indirectly through lobbying. You have to ask why, after a year in jail with no conviction, the government still trying to prosecute him? Could it be because Goldman has a very powerful lobbying arm which is particularly strong in New York? If you are leaving your employer, don't upload any code. Sure. ...but that was over 6 years ago and the guy has already done time. Try getting a job with a prison record. I can tell you that in the banking industry it will not happen. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if they keep coming after him. Poor guy. One last point. There is no market for stolen code. If I stole Google's search algorithm, who would I sell it to? Microsoft wouldn't be interested and it is not like you can take out an ad on ebay. Who would have the brains to figure it out? If you had those brains, wouldn't it be easier to just write it yourself? What is true for Google's code is also true for any complex system such as trading software.
  - frozenport 11y ago
    >>If you had those brains, wouldn't it be easier to just write it yourself? Except it takes months to recreate code. Much easier for you to walk up to your boss and show them a working prototype after a week of refactoring.
    - monsterix 11y ago
      > Except it takes months to recreate code. No. For a neanderthal leadership it doesn't take months to recreate code. It usually takes forever. Goldman Sachs and many such large corporation, including the US Government, are led by a bunch of dinosaurs. People who do not understand what code is. What they understand instead is bullying, setting an example like some sort of public execution, owning people to the point of slavery etc. They know what it means to prosecute and destroy lives of individuals. And enjoy parties and drinks on the side in the evenings. And this is just one example of that tyrannical trait.
joesmo 11y ago
Cyrus R. Vance Jr. is a real prick who enjoys wasting taxpayers money trying to prosecute an innocent man who has already had his life ruined because of inappropriate charges and spent time in jail for crimes he did not commit. While, not illegal, his pursuit of Aleynikov is a hundred percent self-centered and illogical (as this decision shows). I hope the people of New York vote him out and choose a prosecutor with the people's interests in mind, not his own personal gains. After all, he is supposed to represent the people of his district.
- rayiner 11y ago
  I don't agree. Aleynikov did not win on the aspects of the case that folks in the tech industry rallied around (e.g. copying open source code). He won on narrow issues of statutory construction: 1) The National Stolen Property Act does not extend to intangible property; 2) The Economic Espionage Act does not encompass code used internally for commercial purposes, only code sold or licensed in commerce; 3) New York's law against unlawful use of secret scientific material did not apply because trading code wasn't "scientific material." I think Vance should have left well enough alone after the first prosecution failed, and the New York "scientific material" charge was clearly the weakest of the three. But the federal prosecution was perfectly reasonable. The statutes at issue were intended to make that sort of conduct illegal. But they hadn't been updated for the digital era. Had Aleynikov made photocopies of the code instead of uploading it, the first conviction would have been upheld.
  - nkassis 11y ago
    But at this point what is the goal of continuing this process? What can the state gain from further prosecutions?
    - rayiner 11y ago
      Nothing. I think the prosecutors should have taken their lumps and gone home after the Second Circuit ruling.
      - 11y ago
davidw 11y ago
Hopefully he can return to hacking Erlang now.
- arthurcolle 11y ago
  If you followed him on GitHub you'd see he has continued to be very active hacking on erlexec, among others :) see: https://github.com/saleyn https://github.com/saleyn
  - davidw 11y ago
    Yes, I know :-) https://github.com/saleyn/erlexec/graphs/contributors https://github.com/saleyn/erlexec/graphs/contributors That whole thing had to have been hugely distracting, though.
rhino369 11y ago
From another source (law360, which is paywalled): "prosecution failed to prove that Aleynikov made a tangible reproduction of the source code he was accused of appropriating, as required by the statutory language." Damn this guy keeps winning on statutory issues. This must be pretty damn embarrassing for the state's attorney. The guy served a year in prison and there is no indication that he used the misappropriated code. I can't imagine the judicial resources are best used continuing the case. Though, anyone leaving a company shouldn't take this as a signal that you are allowed to just take code and run out of the door. The federal law he was acquitted under was amended to make what he did illegal. And in most states he's definitely flirting with trade secret misappropriation laws. Don't take any code with you.
- rasz_pl 11y ago
  >I can't imagine the judicial resources are best used continuing the case. Are you kidding? Its Goldman Sachs we are talking about here, nothing is too good for our banker overlords.
forinti 11y ago
I find it absurd that someone should go to jail because of stealing code. At most, the penalty should be a fine (if it should be considered a crime at all). EDIT: Of course, breaking into a building or hacking a network to get it is a different matter altogether.
- rhino369 11y ago
  It's really no more or less absurd than someone going to jail for stealing a car. Though I have to admit I think sending people to jail for that is a really bad idea.
  - msandford 11y ago
    A car is a physical good whereby for one person to have it, another must be deprived it. Code is not a physical good so the rules can be very, very different.
    - frozenport 11y ago
      >>physical good What an interesting opinion. The value of a thing comes, in part, from the labor to get it. His employer paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to make this code. On the other hand, stealing it, unlike a car, results in a duplication with the original still in working condition. Was anything lost, physically no, but he did commit a serious breach of contract rather than theft.
    - tormeh 11y ago
      Inany cases the value of a good depends on other people not having it. Why this is hard to understand is beyond me.
      - jrochkind1 11y ago
        So you could consider Linux to be of no value? I assume you don't use it then? Or any other open source software, which you consider worthless?
topkai22 11y ago
What I find interesting is that Aleynikov (and the sources I've read about him) claim the code was open source. The issue of Goldman making false claim to GPLed or similarly licensed code hasn't come up. If the court ruled that modified GPLed code can't be taken by an exiting employee then that has a whole host of other implications.
- rayiner 11y ago
  The Second Circuit ruling expressly addressed that aspect: http://sunsteinlaw.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/2013_01_IP_Update_Aleynikov.pdf http://sunsteinlaw.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/2013_01... ("Aleynikov also transferred some open source software licensed for use by the public that was mixed in with Goldman's proprietary code. However, a substantially greater number of the uploaded files contained proprietary code than had open source software") (Page 5, Footnote 1)
  - fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
    Link appears to be broken.
    - rayiner 11y ago
      Fixed, thanks.
- derekp7 11y ago
  Well technically, any modifications you make to GPL code are still owned by your employer. Now if the modified code gets distributed by your employer, THEY are the ones that are under obligation to make the source available. But if they don't redistribute any of the code, then the GPL specifically allows them to keep the changes proprietary.
  - current_call 11y ago
    Doesn't the code get distributed to the employees? How are they prevented from redistributing it?
dataker 11y ago
Quite unusual for the finance industry : a small win for capitalism and loss for crony corporatism.
s_q_b 11y ago
Sounds like a familiar analysis... Oh that's right, I posted it the last time this came up, and a certain prominent legal mind here shouted it down as ignorant and insulted my intelligence. No hard feelings. Cheers, sir.
- jessaustin 11y ago
  Got a link?
  - scott_s 11y ago
    I think this thread, but to my eyes, the discussion remained civil: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9044805 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9044805
    - tedunangst 11y ago
      sqb's primary argument in that thread is that the FBI should have done more investigating instead of believing what GS told them. That doesn't appear related to the analysis in the submitted article.
      - s_q_b 11y ago
        There was also a strong current of discussion about the legality of the underlying actions. The tone did remained civil, after a few choice edits on all sides. Tptacek can bother me because he often presents the best possible form of the counterposition, as can Rayiner. We have different minds about jurisprudence, but I respect them both tremendously. The discussion was in large part about the legality of the actions, as you can see through Rayiner's comment: >"The Court concluded that he had in fact tried to take 500,000 lines of valuable and mostly proprietary source code, but that his conduct didn't fall within the reach of the two laws charged in the indictment. Solid legal analysis, but an ordinary person would say that he got off on a technicality." Although my central point was indeed regarding the FBI's outsourcing of its investigation to Goldman Sachs, a private corporation and interested party, which seemed to offend fundamental notions of justice. But the discussion most definitely significantly touched upon the legality of Aleynikov's actions. See e.g. Rhino paraphrasing Rayiner's analysis: >"Aleynikov definitely violated New York trade secret law. He got off the federal charge because the trading software wasn't a product for sale, it was a product for internal use. The law was poorly drafted and once that came to light it was immediately fixed. Like Rayiner said, in layman's terms, he got off on a technicality." Or Rayiner himself: >"That was his defense. But the jury found that he had in fact grabbed valuable proprietary software, and the Second Circuit agreed that the 500,000 lines that he uploaded were mostly proprietary, valuable code." For example, this exchange: "tptacek: >I have a passing understanding of the policies and procedures binding on developers at trading firms. I dispute the idea that any senior developer could work at Goldman Sachs on an HFT infrastructure and believe that they were authorized to --- or, indeed, that they would not be immeditely fired for --- uploading the code to a proprietary automated trading system to a random SVN host in a different country. This is the code we, as security testers, were never allowed to see, even after owning up the machines hosting it. These firms are not kidding around about this stuff. It is a huge smoking gun to have uploaded any of it to some off-brand foreign svn host. These are firms where you can be fired for plugging a thumb drive into your computer, or for using the company network to access Dropbox. I have worked for more than one financial firm that spent literally millions of dollars merely on the problem of detecting their network users trying to reach Google Mail. I also dispute the idea that because developers commonly use ssh, gzip, and svn, that it is common practice to (1) gzip a tarball of source code, (2) encrypt that source code, (3) commit that compressed encrypted blob to svn, (4) remove all traces of the encryption key from their work computer. That's something happens zero times on normal dev machines. The conviction was overturned because the technical details of exactly what Aleynikov took from GS didn't fit the ambitious charge the DOJ filed against him. But the appeal doesn't refute the finding of facts from the original trial, which include: There was more than sufficient evidence presented at trial, however, for a rational juror to conclude that Aleynikov intended to steal Goldman Sachs' proprietary source code. First, it was undisputed at trial that Aleynikov actually did take proprietary source code from Goldman Sachs. As Aleynikov concedes in his motion papers, the code he took from Goldman Sachs included a “purposefully designed” portion of the Goldman Sachs “proprietary, custom-built trading system.” Indeed, the evidence showed that Aleynikov took a significant percentage of the proprietary source code for that system. While Aleynikov attempted to show that there was open source code embedded within the proprietary code and to identify the files in which that might be true, his expert witness was only able to identify one file among those taken by Aleynikov that both bore a Goldman Sachs copyright banner and appeared to contain open source code. I'm just fine with Aleynikov's conviction being overturned. Again, the charges against him seemed ambitious. But this is a forum full of software developers. Rayiner is a lawyer and a compiler developer. It's somewhat insulting to everyone's intelligence to pretend that people here are unfamiliar with ssh and svn. We understand how software development works. What happened here was extremely sketchy. You can't play the "well in the world of software development, this is totally normal" card on HN."" s_q_b: > "...Agreed, but it was established that he did this fairly consistently throughout the course of his employment. It's idiosyncratic, but not unexplainable. Sure, it was poor development practice, but I'm not convinced it was malicious. Again, if the intent was trade secret theft, why not take the valuable part, the trading strategies?" I held that his actions violated neither state nor Federal law, so I'm razzing those that insisted his action were criminal, just a bit, all intended in fun. Perhaps the language could have used a bit of softening :)
NoMoreNicksLeft 11y ago
So, the prosecutor might appeal even though the man has already been punished as much as he'd ask for anyway if the conviction is upheld? Seriously, wtf?
pdevr 11y ago
>> two jurors were dismissed after one accused the other of trying to poison her lunch. Is it common for both jurors to be dismissed in such a case? Or is it determined on a case by case basis?
- tedunangst 11y ago
  Seems like an expedient way to avoid appeals on the basis that the wrong juror was excused.

222 points by chollida1 11y ago

gcb0 11y ago

when i briefly consulted for a security firm working for banks, i learned that most banks takes daily hits as high as 100,000 and they don't even get reported to the police as to not generate any public record. most get reported to the insurer, which also avoid reporting it in most cases. i confess i never got the whole picture. but most issues I've been involved with was to try to track down the internal people, if any, and the exact means used. and this only over for criminal reports if we did find something conclusive and it was overseas. if it was local it was usually dealt with lawyers and such out of the records. edit: forgot to mention it wasn't the us. but the banks were american.

chollida1 11y ago

There isn't a whole lot of content here but since this case has had a lot of publicity I thought it would be nice to highlight when the programmer wins one over the larger corporation.

vasilipupkin 11y ago
I agree it's time for the prosecutors to let go of this one. But, he did take Goldman's code. So, I don't quite share the sentiment that this is a hero standing up to an evil corporation.
leereeves 11y ago
The programmer won all the battles in court, but GS won the war.

acqq 11y ago

The most interesting part of the story about him is that the laws were changed inspired by his former acquittal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Aleynikov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Aleynikov "On April 11, 2012, Dennis Jacobs, Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals, published a unanimous decision in a written opinion[11] stating: On appeal, Aleynikov argues, inter alia, that his conduct did not constitute an offense under either statute. He argues that: [1] the source code was not a "stolen" "good" within the meaning of the NSPA, and [2] the source code was not “related to or included in a product that is produced for or placed in interstate or foreign commerce” within the meaning of the EEA. We agree, and reverse the judgment of the district court.[10] In the course of these events, Aleynikov has spent 11 months in prison. Aleynikov has divorced, lost his savings,[12] and, according to his lawyer, "[his] life has been all but ruined".[13] The government did not seek reconsideration of the Second Circuit's ruling, thus ending federal action against Aleynikov.[14] Later, on December 18, 2012, the law was changed by Congress, in order to punish acts like the ones Aleynikov committed in future rulings, in a law referred to as the "Theft of trade secrets clarification act of 2012".[15]"

tpatke 11y ago
No. The most interesting part is that this is an example of a vindictive employer ruining someone's life. I used to work at Goldman's and can tell you that they are paranoid about this kind of thing. They are trying to make an example out of Sergey. We used to get daily updates (on the corporate intranet) about the progress of the case. There is no telling how much money Goldman's has spent going after this guy. Both directly and indirectly through lobbying. You have to ask why, after a year in jail with no conviction, the government still trying to prosecute him? Could it be because Goldman has a very powerful lobbying arm which is particularly strong in New York? If you are leaving your employer, don't upload any code. Sure. ...but that was over 6 years ago and the guy has already done time. Try getting a job with a prison record. I can tell you that in the banking industry it will not happen. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if they keep coming after him. Poor guy. One last point. There is no market for stolen code. If I stole Google's search algorithm, who would I sell it to? Microsoft wouldn't be interested and it is not like you can take out an ad on ebay. Who would have the brains to figure it out? If you had those brains, wouldn't it be easier to just write it yourself? What is true for Google's code is also true for any complex system such as trading software.
- frozenport 11y ago
  >>If you had those brains, wouldn't it be easier to just write it yourself? Except it takes months to recreate code. Much easier for you to walk up to your boss and show them a working prototype after a week of refactoring.
  - monsterix 11y ago
    > Except it takes months to recreate code. No. For a neanderthal leadership it doesn't take months to recreate code. It usually takes forever. Goldman Sachs and many such large corporation, including the US Government, are led by a bunch of dinosaurs. People who do not understand what code is. What they understand instead is bullying, setting an example like some sort of public execution, owning people to the point of slavery etc. They know what it means to prosecute and destroy lives of individuals. And enjoy parties and drinks on the side in the evenings. And this is just one example of that tyrannical trait.

joesmo 11y ago

Cyrus R. Vance Jr. is a real prick who enjoys wasting taxpayers money trying to prosecute an innocent man who has already had his life ruined because of inappropriate charges and spent time in jail for crimes he did not commit. While, not illegal, his pursuit of Aleynikov is a hundred percent self-centered and illogical (as this decision shows). I hope the people of New York vote him out and choose a prosecutor with the people's interests in mind, not his own personal gains. After all, he is supposed to represent the people of his district.

rayiner 11y ago
I don't agree. Aleynikov did not win on the aspects of the case that folks in the tech industry rallied around (e.g. copying open source code). He won on narrow issues of statutory construction: 1) The National Stolen Property Act does not extend to intangible property; 2) The Economic Espionage Act does not encompass code used internally for commercial purposes, only code sold or licensed in commerce; 3) New York's law against unlawful use of secret scientific material did not apply because trading code wasn't "scientific material." I think Vance should have left well enough alone after the first prosecution failed, and the New York "scientific material" charge was clearly the weakest of the three. But the federal prosecution was perfectly reasonable. The statutes at issue were intended to make that sort of conduct illegal. But they hadn't been updated for the digital era. Had Aleynikov made photocopies of the code instead of uploading it, the first conviction would have been upheld.
- nkassis 11y ago
  But at this point what is the goal of continuing this process? What can the state gain from further prosecutions?
  - rayiner 11y ago
    Nothing. I think the prosecutors should have taken their lumps and gone home after the Second Circuit ruling.
    - 11y ago

davidw 11y ago

Hopefully he can return to hacking Erlang now.

arthurcolle 11y ago
If you followed him on GitHub you'd see he has continued to be very active hacking on erlexec, among others :) see: https://github.com/saleyn https://github.com/saleyn
- davidw 11y ago
  Yes, I know :-) https://github.com/saleyn/erlexec/graphs/contributors https://github.com/saleyn/erlexec/graphs/contributors That whole thing had to have been hugely distracting, though.

rhino369 11y ago

From another source (law360, which is paywalled): "prosecution failed to prove that Aleynikov made a tangible reproduction of the source code he was accused of appropriating, as required by the statutory language." Damn this guy keeps winning on statutory issues. This must be pretty damn embarrassing for the state's attorney. The guy served a year in prison and there is no indication that he used the misappropriated code. I can't imagine the judicial resources are best used continuing the case. Though, anyone leaving a company shouldn't take this as a signal that you are allowed to just take code and run out of the door. The federal law he was acquitted under was amended to make what he did illegal. And in most states he's definitely flirting with trade secret misappropriation laws. Don't take any code with you.

rasz_pl 11y ago
>I can't imagine the judicial resources are best used continuing the case. Are you kidding? Its Goldman Sachs we are talking about here, nothing is too good for our banker overlords.

forinti 11y ago

I find it absurd that someone should go to jail because of stealing code. At most, the penalty should be a fine (if it should be considered a crime at all). EDIT: Of course, breaking into a building or hacking a network to get it is a different matter altogether.

rhino369 11y ago
It's really no more or less absurd than someone going to jail for stealing a car. Though I have to admit I think sending people to jail for that is a really bad idea.
- msandford 11y ago
  A car is a physical good whereby for one person to have it, another must be deprived it. Code is not a physical good so the rules can be very, very different.
  - frozenport 11y ago
    >>physical good What an interesting opinion. The value of a thing comes, in part, from the labor to get it. His employer paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to make this code. On the other hand, stealing it, unlike a car, results in a duplication with the original still in working condition. Was anything lost, physically no, but he did commit a serious breach of contract rather than theft.
  - tormeh 11y ago
    Inany cases the value of a good depends on other people not having it. Why this is hard to understand is beyond me.
    - jrochkind1 11y ago
      So you could consider Linux to be of no value? I assume you don't use it then? Or any other open source software, which you consider worthless?

topkai22 11y ago

What I find interesting is that Aleynikov (and the sources I've read about him) claim the code was open source. The issue of Goldman making false claim to GPLed or similarly licensed code hasn't come up. If the court ruled that modified GPLed code can't be taken by an exiting employee then that has a whole host of other implications.

rayiner 11y ago
The Second Circuit ruling expressly addressed that aspect: http://sunsteinlaw.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/2013_01_IP_Update_Aleynikov.pdf http://sunsteinlaw.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/2013_01... ("Aleynikov also transferred some open source software licensed for use by the public that was mixed in with Goldman's proprietary code. However, a substantially greater number of the uploaded files contained proprietary code than had open source software") (Page 5, Footnote 1)
- fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
  Link appears to be broken.
  - rayiner 11y ago
    Fixed, thanks.
derekp7 11y ago
Well technically, any modifications you make to GPL code are still owned by your employer. Now if the modified code gets distributed by your employer, THEY are the ones that are under obligation to make the source available. But if they don't redistribute any of the code, then the GPL specifically allows them to keep the changes proprietary.
- current_call 11y ago
  Doesn't the code get distributed to the employees? How are they prevented from redistributing it?

dataker 11y ago

Quite unusual for the finance industry : a small win for capitalism and loss for crony corporatism.

s_q_b 11y ago

Sounds like a familiar analysis... Oh that's right, I posted it the last time this came up, and a certain prominent legal mind here shouted it down as ignorant and insulted my intelligence. No hard feelings. Cheers, sir.

jessaustin 11y ago
Got a link?
- scott_s 11y ago
  I think this thread, but to my eyes, the discussion remained civil: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9044805 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9044805
  - tedunangst 11y ago
    sqb's primary argument in that thread is that the FBI should have done more investigating instead of believing what GS told them. That doesn't appear related to the analysis in the submitted article.
    - s_q_b 11y ago
      There was also a strong current of discussion about the legality of the underlying actions. The tone did remained civil, after a few choice edits on all sides. Tptacek can bother me because he often presents the best possible form of the counterposition, as can Rayiner. We have different minds about jurisprudence, but I respect them both tremendously. The discussion was in large part about the legality of the actions, as you can see through Rayiner's comment: >"The Court concluded that he had in fact tried to take 500,000 lines of valuable and mostly proprietary source code, but that his conduct didn't fall within the reach of the two laws charged in the indictment. Solid legal analysis, but an ordinary person would say that he got off on a technicality." Although my central point was indeed regarding the FBI's outsourcing of its investigation to Goldman Sachs, a private corporation and interested party, which seemed to offend fundamental notions of justice. But the discussion most definitely significantly touched upon the legality of Aleynikov's actions. See e.g. Rhino paraphrasing Rayiner's analysis: >"Aleynikov definitely violated New York trade secret law. He got off the federal charge because the trading software wasn't a product for sale, it was a product for internal use. The law was poorly drafted and once that came to light it was immediately fixed. Like Rayiner said, in layman's terms, he got off on a technicality." Or Rayiner himself: >"That was his defense. But the jury found that he had in fact grabbed valuable proprietary software, and the Second Circuit agreed that the 500,000 lines that he uploaded were mostly proprietary, valuable code." For example, this exchange: "tptacek: >I have a passing understanding of the policies and procedures binding on developers at trading firms. I dispute the idea that any senior developer could work at Goldman Sachs on an HFT infrastructure and believe that they were authorized to --- or, indeed, that they would not be immeditely fired for --- uploading the code to a proprietary automated trading system to a random SVN host in a different country. This is the code we, as security testers, were never allowed to see, even after owning up the machines hosting it. These firms are not kidding around about this stuff. It is a huge smoking gun to have uploaded any of it to some off-brand foreign svn host. These are firms where you can be fired for plugging a thumb drive into your computer, or for using the company network to access Dropbox. I have worked for more than one financial firm that spent literally millions of dollars merely on the problem of detecting their network users trying to reach Google Mail. I also dispute the idea that because developers commonly use ssh, gzip, and svn, that it is common practice to (1) gzip a tarball of source code, (2) encrypt that source code, (3) commit that compressed encrypted blob to svn, (4) remove all traces of the encryption key from their work computer. That's something happens zero times on normal dev machines. The conviction was overturned because the technical details of exactly what Aleynikov took from GS didn't fit the ambitious charge the DOJ filed against him. But the appeal doesn't refute the finding of facts from the original trial, which include: There was more than sufficient evidence presented at trial, however, for a rational juror to conclude that Aleynikov intended to steal Goldman Sachs' proprietary source code. First, it was undisputed at trial that Aleynikov actually did take proprietary source code from Goldman Sachs. As Aleynikov concedes in his motion papers, the code he took from Goldman Sachs included a “purposefully designed” portion of the Goldman Sachs “proprietary, custom-built trading system.” Indeed, the evidence showed that Aleynikov took a significant percentage of the proprietary source code for that system. While Aleynikov attempted to show that there was open source code embedded within the proprietary code and to identify the files in which that might be true, his expert witness was only able to identify one file among those taken by Aleynikov that both bore a Goldman Sachs copyright banner and appeared to contain open source code. I'm just fine with Aleynikov's conviction being overturned. Again, the charges against him seemed ambitious. But this is a forum full of software developers. Rayiner is a lawyer and a compiler developer. It's somewhat insulting to everyone's intelligence to pretend that people here are unfamiliar with ssh and svn. We understand how software development works. What happened here was extremely sketchy. You can't play the "well in the world of software development, this is totally normal" card on HN."" s_q_b: > "...Agreed, but it was established that he did this fairly consistently throughout the course of his employment. It's idiosyncratic, but not unexplainable. Sure, it was poor development practice, but I'm not convinced it was malicious. Again, if the intent was trade secret theft, why not take the valuable part, the trading strategies?" I held that his actions violated neither state nor Federal law, so I'm razzing those that insisted his action were criminal, just a bit, all intended in fun. Perhaps the language could have used a bit of softening :)

NoMoreNicksLeft 11y ago

So, the prosecutor might appeal even though the man has already been punished as much as he'd ask for anyway if the conviction is upheld? Seriously, wtf?

pdevr 11y ago

>> two jurors were dismissed after one accused the other of trying to poison her lunch. Is it common for both jurors to be dismissed in such a case? Or is it determined on a case by case basis?

tedunangst 11y ago
Seems like an expedient way to avoid appeals on the basis that the wrong juror was excused.