Continuing the story from his Wiki page:<p>In March 2011, Aleynikov appealed the conviction, asking the Second Circuit to review the District Court's decision denying his original motion to dismiss the indictment for failure to state a claim.[9]<p>On February 16, 2012, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit heard oral argument on his appeal and, later that same day, unanimously ordered his conviction reversed and a judgment of acquittal entered, with opinion to follow.[10] Aleynikov was released from custody the next day.<p>On April 11, 2012, Dennis Jacobs, Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals, published a unanimous decision in a written opinion[10] stating:<p>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.[9]<p>In the course of these events, Aleynikov has spent 11 months in prison. Aleynikov has divorced, lost his savings, and his career is ruined.[11]<p>The government did not seek reconsideration of the Second Circuit's ruling, thus ending federal action against Aleynikov.[12]
For those that don't know, Serge is a great Erlang and C++ programmer and he contributes to open source (had some pull requests to Erlang itself).<p>Here is his Github account:<p><a href="https://github.com/saleyn" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/saleyn</a><p>You can find his posts on Erlang's mailing list once a while.<p>Two of his interesting project I am following:<p><a href="https://github.com/saleyn/erlexec" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/saleyn/erlexec</a> -- a utility to control OS process from Erlang.<p><a href="https://github.com/saleyn/eixx/" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/saleyn/eixx/</a> -- Erlang to C++ interface.
This sucks, but seriously never talk to the police. Don't write anything down. Don't say anything. Don't sign anything. Tell them your name and otherwise just stay silent. They are never trying to help you, they're trying to close their case.
Read the GPL carefully, very carefully...<p>An organisation counts the same as an individual, and as long as code stays within the organization that doesn't count as 'distribution', and Goldman Sachs is under no obligation to release the code. They even retain the rights to prevent the code being released.<p>It's easy to hate on Goldman Sachs for many things, but in this case they didn't violate the GPL, and Aleynikov did commit a crime.
<i>The programmer types were different from the trader types. The trader types were far more alive to the bigger picture, to their context. They knew their worth in the marketplace down to the last penny. They understood the connection between what they did and how much money was made , and they were good at exaggerating the importance of the link. Serge wasn’t like that. He was a little-picture person, a narrow problem solver. “I think he didn’t know his own value,” says the recruiter.</i><p>This infuriates me to no end. These engineers need to be rounded up, and given a serious life lesson on the reality of markets. Knowing your product/service's worth is step 1 of any free market activity.<p>Engineering is the only profession where the most talented engineers occupy the lowest compensation brackets with respect to their worth. All sorts of bullshit excuses are made up for this (my favorite - they're "Specialists"), but the bottom line is they are not being compensated at anywhere near what they're worth.<p>This is why startups, and consulting firms, are so key. If the market you're trying to enter is too big for a small operation (like Wall St.), then just consult. Those 20 superstar programmers need to meet up and start a consulting firm. Then, they sell their services to these banks and charge them whatever they want (read: a lot).<p>They then use this compensation to hire the best engineers from across the world, and keep them out of Wall St's hands. This wouldn't be too difficult, because Wall St would never match salaries because they are traders, and would die before they paid an engineer more than themselves.<p>To all of HN: please don't underestimate your worth. It hurts everyone, including yourself.
Sounds to me like it was Aleynikov who didn't understand the severity of the crime he committed.<p>I work in a similar environment and I'm fully aware that if I do something remotely like bringing my code from work home, holy crap I'm committing a very VERY serious crime and my employer would go after me as viciously as they could. Very especially if I were to be going somewhere else where this code would set me up to make a new competing engine.<p>Pushing stuff to SVN and mailing seem innocuous... but depending on what you are actually passing around they can be extremely serious crimes.
> He deleted his bash history— the commands he had typed into his own Goldman computer keyboard. To access the computer, he was required to type his password . If he didn’t delete his bash history, his password would be there to see, for anyone who had access to the system.<p>Wait, what?
Old story. Definitely sucks for him, but mailing yourself proprietary code of a very secretive and ruthless bank is not exactly the smartest thing to do.
Amazing how naive in some regards a very smart person can be. You don't send yourself source code, and you definitely don't talk to police without a lawyer, or invite them into your house.
Seems to me here, the biggest lesson one can learn from this story is don't work for companies like Goldman Sachs. if they don't want to get with the times and understand how the world they don't understand works then they deserve to be technically behind. So on top of not understanding your work as a developer instead of learning how things work, they choose to abuse the law. Worse part is the law is like a big spider web where it traps the small guys while the tigers and elephants walk right through, there is no justice here no matter how many sections you quote or how many laws you read. Best thing is to just be smart and not get involved. There are many opportunities out there for talented developers.
I don't understand this bit about the DNI:<p><pre><code> US master spy Clapper says spies steal open source, then immediately
claims ownership and classifies it, and prosecutes if the material is
disclosed, like Goldman Sachs.
</code></pre>
What did Clapper do?
flash boys also talks about the FBI's suspicion when they heard Aleynikov was using software called 'subversion', and assuming he was thus doing something 'subversive'<p>that cracked me up!
Moral of the story: If you don't want to be thrown in jail for stealing something you didn't steal, don't sign a confession...<p>In fact it sounds as if the defendant actually phrased most of the confession himself...
So, he emailed source code to himself (yes that was illegal and violated his employment contract,) deleted the bash history (there are plenty of other ways to prevent your password from showing up in history,) waived his right to a lawyer, talked endlessly with an FBI agent and was surprised (?!) that the agent was not a computer expert, then signed a confession.<p>Sorry if I fail to have much sympathy. If you play in the big leagues, you should at least have some sense of self preservation.
His federal conviction was overturned then they later recharged him for the same incident in state court. Also Congressman Lamar Smith, who sponsored SOPA, amended the Economic Espionage Act of 1996 with the Theft of Trade Secrets Clarification Act of 2012 specifically related to this case.<p>Sergey's Legal Defense Fund - <a href="http://www.aleynikov.org/" rel="nofollow">http://www.aleynikov.org/</a>
> On the night of his arrest, Serge waived his right to call a lawyer. [...] Then he sat down and politely tried to clear up the confusion of this FBI agent who had arrested him without an arrest warrant.<p>These are things no sane person should do, <i>especially</i> if they're innocent.
the problem I have with the article is that FOSS/OSS used internally and modified for that use and not distributed would mean under normal copyright and work rules that yes GS did own the changes to OSS/FOSS used internally but never distributed.
There is a simple solution to this. When you publish open source software, make sure that in your license it says that Goldman Sachs is not allowed to use this code for any purpose whatsoever.
What repeatedly stands out every time I read of this account is the relative ineptitude of the federal agents handling the investigation.<p>There appears to be every indication that agent McSwain did everything short of taking explicit marching orders from GS.<p>The FBI either lacked the will or ability to understand the crimes they were tasked with investigating. I find that disturbing.
(I'm sorry if I do this incorrectly; first time posting plus I'm on an app)<p>"Serge tried to explain why he always erased his bash history, but McSwain had no interest in his story. “The way he did it seemed nefarious,” the FBI agent would later testify."
Whom is the FBI agent referring to, McSwain or Serge?
I don't normally bring this up but in this case the site formatting is essentially unreadable for someone with poor eyesight who needs to expand the text and make the container narrow to avoid constant left/right scrolling.
The original link didn't mention this was an excerpt from Flash Boys so I had no clues Michael Lewis wrote it. I've never read any of his books. Now I want to because he actually writes pretty well.
Flagged because article completely misunderstands how GPL works. GPL doesn't apply if you modify source-code to use internally, it only applies if you distribute it externally to third party users.<p>[GPL not mentioned in article; my recollection from the original court documents is that the code was largely LGPL and GPL code]
"Aleynikov was employed for two years, from May 2007 to June 2009, at Goldman at a salary of $400,000.[1] He left Goldman to join Teza Technologies, a competing trading firm which offered to triple his pay.[5]"<p>jeez, those banks pay a pretty penny.
Okay, so.<p>* misleading title. Goldman Sachs stole nothing.<p>* This guy steals code from Goldman Sachs.<p>* Covers his tracks. There is almost no reason why your password ever ends up in your bash history. If it does, you edit out <i>only</i> the password. Or you put a space before the command you run. At any rate, this guy <i>should</i> have known how to prevent his password from getting in the shell history and had <i>no</i> reason to delete his history.<p>* The guy talks to the cops<p>* Waves his rights to a lawyer<p>* Signs a confession<p>* Lets cops into his house without a search warrant.<p>* Doesn't testify at this trial.<p>This guy fully deserved what was coming to him. Goldman Sachs did nothing wrong here.
Reminds me of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Aleynikov" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Aleynikov</a>