Did Goldman Overstep in Criminally Charging Its Ex-Programmer? • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by perlpimp » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 10:07 AM UTC

appdeveloper wrote: post #151

nohuck13 wrote: post #120

I was working at one of the rival HFT's mentioned in the article when all this went down. I had some thoughts. -It's never ok to take proprietary code with you after quitting. I don't know anybody that would have thought that was OK, especially with the amount of money people were making off this IP in 2008. Of course that's true in any industry, but especially in trading. -That said, you can't just walk out the door…

I agree- it's not okay to take proprietary code. But criminal charges and an 8 year sentence? Totally disproportionate.

That is some advertisement for Goldman, work for us and you will be fine, quit and we will sic FBI, Police or whoever we can find to persecute you, take your money destroy your family and ...

.. man this sounds like some mafia.

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

#202

Post by walshemj » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 11:52 AM UTC

jonknee wrote: post #125

walshemj wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banks take security v seriously even trying to plug a usb drive into you pc to copy files will be logged and will probably get you fired.

Getting fired for breaking policy is fine. Calling in favors to the Feds and nailing someone for 8 years is not.

He was caught bang to rights with company property how is that different to a shop worker getting caught with some of the shops goods

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

#203

Post by walshemj » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 12:09 PM UTC

uxp wrote: post #47

michaelochurch wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ha…

Did he break the law, specifically the espionage act? I could see theft of property, possibly, but the furthest I could see it going is breaking an employment agreement, which is a contract between two private parties and doesn't bring criminal charges for violations.

Yes banks tend to be considered CNI (critical national infrastructure)

the The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (as amended 1994 and 1996) seem to indicate that financial institutions are protected computers

"intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access" which this guy did.

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

#204

Post by yummyfajitas » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 12:34 PM UTC

milemi wrote: post #181

yummyfajitas wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, Goldman generally stands by their employees provided they believe the employee stood by them. See for example, Fabrice Tourre, who's personal legal expenses were entirely covered by Goldman.

I think Goldman always stands by Goldman, first and foremost. And so do the lawyers paid by Goldman. Cf. in Fab's case they rested their case literally the minute they had their turn, without calling any witnesses. From day one I was amazed at the guy's naivete of accepting the "gift" from Goldman that he be represented by their lawyers. It's the rule #1: get your own representation folks. Company lawyers don't work…

Resting their case without witnesses is a fairly standard strategy in court - it's a way of emphasizing that the case has so little merit that there is nothing to argue against.

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

#205

Post by yogo » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 1:25 PM UTC

smm2000 wrote: post #174

yogo wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was my impression too. For someone that smart in a technical field, some things just seemed a little to casual or didn't make much sense. Deleting your bash history because there might be passwords in it? I generally give the benefit of the doubt to the guy in his position--maybe he was in a hurry or got comfortable being one of the chosen few super users--but, you have to think wtf. At a company like that where…

I have passwords in my bash history - namely mysql passwords.

Use the --defaults-extra-file to point to a file containing the password and stop the madness. At least that is what I think should be done if entering the password is inconvenient or not feasible (like in an automated script)

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

#206

Post by bradleyjg » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 2:46 PM UTC

impendia wrote: post #188

brazzy wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Appropriate response: "If we convict the wrong guy, the real murderer goes free, you realize".

Actually, it turns out that that wasn't true, at least not under the relevant law. The defendant was a gang member and a participant in an armed robbery, and when things got ugly (the victims fought back) one of the gang members shot one of the victims. It was not proved to us that the defendant was the shooter, but -- as I was shocked to learn -- California law put him on the hook for the murder. Possibly whoever ac…

It's called felony murder. If someone is killed during the commission of: robbery, rape, arson, burglary, or while escaping from prison, anyone involved in the underlying crime is liable for the death.

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

#207

Post by paul_f » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 3:25 PM UTC

smm2000 wrote: post #174

yogo wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was my impression too. For someone that smart in a technical field, some things just seemed a little to casual or didn't make much sense. Deleting your bash history because there might be passwords in it? I generally give the benefit of the doubt to the guy in his position--maybe he was in a hurry or got comfortable being one of the chosen few super users--but, you have to think wtf. At a company like that where…

I have passwords in my bash history - namely mysql passwords.

Why? Use 'mysql -uroot -p' It prompts for the password and does not show up in Bash hsitory

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

#208

Post by dllthomas » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 3:34 PM UTC

ig1 wrote: post #11

biafra wrote: post #8

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?

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.

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

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

#209

Post by pdog » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 3:55 PM UTC

nohuck13 wrote: post #120

I was working at one of the rival HFT's mentioned in the article when all this went down. I had some thoughts. -It's never ok to take proprietary code with you after quitting. I don't know anybody that would have thought that was OK, especially with the amount of money people were making off this IP in 2008. Of course that's true in any industry, but especially in trading. -That said, you can't just walk out the door…

Regarding your second point, the code for the strats would be immensely and immediately more useful than the trading platform. You wouldn't need much infrastructure to build a profitable strategy to trade against it.

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

#210

Post by craigching » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 4:34 PM UTC

kaonashi wrote: post #173

nohuck13 wrote: post #120

I was working at one of the rival HFT's mentioned in the article when all this went down. I had some thoughts. -It's never ok to take proprietary code with you after quitting. I don't know anybody that would have thought that was OK, especially with the amount of money people were making off this IP in 2008. Of course that's true in any industry, but especially in trading. -That said, you can't just walk out the door…

What does it mean exactly to 'take proprietary code'? You mean he had a copy on his laptop so he could work from home? Isn't that what most of us do?

Was it a personal laptop or a GS owned laptop? I don't want to defend GS and I think the criminal charges are overboard (and I don't understand how they think it's ok, hopefully it hurts their ability to recruit), but generally when you work for a company it is NOT ok to put company assets on personal machines.

Every company has its own policy, but I would bet GS wasn't cool with putting their code on personal machines.