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Did Goldman Overstep in Criminally Charging Its Ex-Programmer?

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Re: Did Goldman Overstep in Criminally Charging Its Ex-Programmer?

#31

The best lesson here: > The fourth, and final, rule was by far the most important: Don’t say a word to government officials. “The reason you don’t,” he says, “is that, if you do, they can place an agent on a witness stand and he can say anything.” Aren't you allowed to have a lawyer present in conversations with agents?

A right he did not exercise

Re: Did Goldman Overstep in Criminally Charging Its Ex-Programmer?

#32

I was on a jury for a murder trial, and so I have some insight into how juries work. At one point, when I was splitting some hairs and discussing the meaning of some small details from the evidence, one of the other jurors got impatient and reached for the coroner's photo of the victim. "Someone died here, you realize."

I was on a jury for an arson trial, and the deliberations were pleasant and rational and focussed on the evidence and what it meant without anything like that.

Some of its probably the difference between murder and arson without personal injury in the mix, some of it is probably the luck of the draw in the jury pool. How a jury worked and how juries work aren't really the same thing.

Re: Did Goldman Overstep in Criminally Charging Its Ex-Programmer?

#33

On the night of the arrest—without an arrest warrant—Serge waived his right to call a lawyer. He phoned his wife and told her what had happened and that a bunch of F.B.I. agents were on the way to their home to seize their computers, and to please let them in—though they had no search warrant, either. Then he sat down and politely tried to clear up the F.B.I. agent's confusion. "He was completely not interested in th…

Are you sure about that? Do non-Americans have the same rights as Americans? Can they refuse to talk to the police, refuse to let the police into their home without a warrant, have an attorney present, ...?

Re: Did Goldman Overstep in Criminally Charging Its Ex-Programmer?

#34
post #30

From the article: "He didn’t fully understand how Goldman could think it was O.K. to benefit so greatly from the work of others and then behave so selfishly toward them." I don't think he understands Wall Street.

While I'm a capitalist, I wouldn't conduct business with Goldman. They have a history of screwing the market (semi-ok), screwing their customers (not ok), and screwing their employees (not ok). And then blaming everyone else. I expect a certain degree of ethical behavior.

Re: Did Goldman Overstep in Criminally Charging Its Ex-Programmer?

#35
post #19

I was on a jury for a murder trial, and so I have some insight into how juries work. At one point, when I was splitting some hairs and discussing the meaning of some small details from the evidence, one of the other jurors got impatient and reached for the coroner's photo of the victim. "Someone died here, you realize."

You should have taken him to a side and told him to go watch 12 Angry Men when he gets home.

Or smacked him and told him to grow the fuck up.

Re: Did Goldman Overstep in Criminally Charging Its Ex-Programmer?

#36
post #18

In case people aren't clear on this. He worked in an industry that takes this sort of thing very seriously. He shouldn't have even been trying to download open source from work. You don't email stuff home to work on it, for example.

Yes, he did something stupid. It's not clear that he did anything wrong, but he should have known (and maybe did) that this was a really bad move on his part. It's not worth it to take work code out of its place, especially not in finance where this will be prosecuted.

Unfortunately, engineers fail to account for the fact that image and credibility matter far more than substance. This is a case of a man who really had no intention to do anything wrong, but almost certainly did break the law in a pattern that's a notorious bugbear in finance.

Re: Did Goldman Overstep in Criminally Charging Its Ex-Programmer?

#38
post #9

If it was a normal company you could boycott them, but how do you boycott Goldman Sachs for all they have done?

Why boycott GS? It's their state, country and mostly their world to loot. They have been above the law for over 80 years. They own the current administration, courts and congress. I wouldn't doubt it if someone claimed they had access to much of the NSA collection due to the amount of influence they have...

Re: Did Goldman Overstep in Criminally Charging Its Ex-Programmer?

#39
This makes me angry. Not just the story itself, but the way VF goes about telling it, which commits the same sins (albeit with better intent) as Goldman Sachs. "So-called 'subversion repository'?" Why don't we just accuse him of summoning demons while we're at it?

Re: Did Goldman Overstep in Criminally Charging Its Ex-Programmer?

#40

Side question: how do these people with "only the vaguest interest in his fellow human beings" end up with a wife and three kids? It seems to be a common theme amongst articles like this. They always paint the hero-programmer as some kind of rainman figure and then it turns out he has a loving family. Just the usual fictional press nonsense I guess. EDIT: should always read on before commenting: "He married a girl an…

As far as the article has it, it wasn't a match of love. It was just two Russians getting together through the ex-pat community, she got security and money to spend, and he just did it because it was the thing to do.
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