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A Goldman Sachs programmer was found guilty

Goldman ex-programmer Aleynikov conviction upheld

(Reuters) - Former Goldman Sachs Group Inc computer programer Sergey Aleynikov has lost his bid to reverse his December conviction for stealing the Wall Street bank's source code.

U.S. District Judge Denise Cote refused to set aside the verdict and dismiss the indictment against Aleynikov, or alternatively to grant him a new trial, court records dated Wednesday show.

The decision clears the way for Aleynikov to be sentenced on March 18. Federal prosecutors have requested a 97- to 121-month prison sentence. Aleynikov is seeking probation.

Kevin Marino, a lawyer for Aleynikov, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Cote last month jailed Aleynikov pending his sentencing, after prosecutors contended he could be a flight risk.

Aleynikov holds dual citizenship in the United States and Russia, and the court had heard that his wife was seeking a divorce and that he had become estranged from his in-laws.

A Manhattan federal jury last December 10 convicted Aleynikov on charges he copied and removed high-frequency trading code from Goldman in 2009, prior to taking a new job at a Chicago start-up firm.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/16/us-goldman-aleynikov-idUSTRE72F6SE20110316
 
Goldman Sachs invested millions of dollars in human capital and research to develop this collection of HFT algorithms and protect their trade secret, so Aleynikov is clearly a criminal whom deserves punishment. Does the punishment fit the crime though, 121 months? Wow.
 
IIRC, he used svn to push the code out.

Alain, it never ceases to amaze me that people who are obviously sophisticated programmers can do such obviously dumb things - crazy!
 
Alain, it never ceases to amaze me that people who are obviously sophisticated programmers can do such obviously dumb things - crazy!

I don't think it is that dumb. If you are going to do such a thing, how would you do it?

If he used an encrypted connection, finding out was not an easy thing. I don't know the details but I can guess GS found out by checking the command logs (history).
 
I don't think it is that dumb. If you are going to do such a thing, how would you do it?

If he used an encrypted connection, finding out was not an easy thing. I don't know the details but I can guess GS found out by checking the command logs (history).

Well first of all I wouldn't ;). I would have also thought that the security experts at the bank would have been on the look out for exactly this type of thing.

I know of one case where something similar happened and both employees involved were sacked (I'm not sure if it ended up in court though), the guy who caught them used to be a security and network admin guy at a financial firm - so the people with the skills for catching this type of thing def work in the industry.

I certainly wouldn't want to risk it, lets put it that way :).
 
Newhavenct raises a good point, and I'd turn it around...

This guy got caught because his method was all the way dumb.
The volume of traffic was so large that it stood out and it seems he made no real effort to hide it.

I've not heard of a case where sophisticated methods were used to take stuff, by 'sophisticated' I mean things you can't do with a shell script and tar.
That leads me to believe that the smarter people who take code aren't being caught.

However I am very explicitly saying this is not a reason to try...

Take the case of GS as an exercise in internal politics, not technology.

How does senior GS management see it ?

0) They see security as a cost, not just that, it often gets in the way
1) But they see now that people are stealing their stuff big time
2) If you're smart enough to be big at GS, you're smart enough to work out that if you catch one person, odds are there's more than one.
3) Security at GS succeeded, and banks are positive feedback systems, so their requests for more money to monitor are much more likely to succeed, and any complaint by stafff that the security stops them getting work done won't just be ignored, they will attract unwelcome and politically well backed attention from security.
 
8 years - that's a pretty heavy sentence. I think Leeson only did 6 years in prison for the Barings Bank meltdown.
 
8 years - that's a pretty heavy sentence. I think Leeson only did 6 years in prison for the Barings Bank meltdown.

Leeson did not really "steal" anything proprietary. There was theft in this case. He stole something that could make millions of dollars. He in a way ... robbed a bank.
 
To put things in perspective (from Business Insider):

Sergey Aleynikov, convicted high-frequency code thief ---- 8 years plus 1 month jail; 3 years probation; $12,500 fine
William J. Cannon, convicted of the attempted rape of a 16-year-old girl ---- 7 years
Rodney Williams, convicted of voluntary manslaughter for shooting a victim eight times ---- 12 months in prison and a $2,500 fine.



 
Leeson did not really "steal" anything proprietary. There was theft in this case. He stole something that could make millions of dollars. He in a way ... robbed a bank.

I'm pretty sure Leeson's victims saw it as a bank robbery as well ;).

I agree, he didn't go out and actively steal something, but he did a hell of a lot more damage.

Alain bring up some very good points above as well.
 
This is great news. This poor guy lost his job, his family and one year of his life.
 
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