Goldman Sachs Code Theft Not Quite So Cut and Dried 306
The New York Times has some interesting details that are surfacing about the recent charges brought against Sergey Aleynikov, the programmer who allegedly stole code from Goldman Sachs on his way out the door to another job. "This spring, Mr. Aleynikov quit Goldman to join Teza Technologies, a new trading firm, tripling his salary to about $1.2 million, according to the complaint. He left Goldman on June 5. In the days before he left, he transferred code to a server in Germany that offers free data hosting. [...] After his arrest, Mr. Aleynikov was taken for interrogation to F.B.I. offices in Manhattan. Mr. Aleynikov waived his rights against self-incrimination, and agreed to allow agents to search his house. He said that he had inadvertently downloaded a portion of Goldman's proprietary code while trying to take files of open source software — programs that are not proprietary and can be used freely by anyone. He said he had not used the Goldman code at his new job or distributed it to anyone else, and the criminal complaint offers no evidence that he has."
Print sceen (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Weird phrase (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, phrased weirdly, but I assume it means something like, "he incriminated himself even after being advised of his Miranda right to remain silent". It might mean something stronger, though, like police actively asked him if he was waiving his right not to incriminate himself, and he confirmed that he was--- police sometimes do this so that the recorded interview is absolutely clear that the suspect knew what his rights are and was consciously waiving them, rather than speaking accidentally or because he was tricked into incriminating himself.
Re:the Goldman Sachs Code is illegal front running (Score:5, Informative)
It is illegal front running IF it looks at their brokerage business order flow and trades ahead of that. Do you have evidence that they are doing that? If so, you should be talking to the SEC, not posting on Slashdot.
Lots of firms implement high frequency trading strategies based on statistical probabilities of short term market movements, and order book depth analysis. These strategies are usually capital constrained, and a lot of work to implement and maintain, but can be levered up and earn a relative huge return on a modest amount of capital utilized, when implemented properly.
Of course, they can also fail to get timely execution of orders if there are 5 people going after the same trades, in which case 4 of you are likely to lose your arses. Unlike other areas, high frequency strategies are often (though not always) a winner-takes-all world where your network latency and code execution speed are measured in microseconds, not seconds, or even milliseconds.
Re:open source... Likely defence (Score:2, Informative)
"if you work on it using company resources, between the hours of 9am and 5pm, the company owns it" is a standard part of employment contracts, it is NOT law. I have requested that it be removed from all employment contracts I have signed, and it was either removed or a separate document was written specifying amended terms. (in most cases the term was simply omitted, in another it was re-written to include the additional condition that they only own it if they told me to do it, which I thought was a nice touch, as the original wording had them owning any code I did at home in my spare time, too, while the new wording allowed me to work on personal projects during lunch)
If a lot of companies are in the habit of raping you, it doesn't make it "law", and there's usually something you can do about the rape part, too.
Re:Weird phrase (Score:1, Informative)
Speaking to the police appears to **always** be a bad idea.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc [youtube.com]
Re:Interesting... (Score:4, Informative)
No effort is spared in government to protect the dishonest business practices of these sheisters, and no effort is spared in the media to disguise it as the parent companies of the major media outlets benefit greatly from keeping the public in the dark.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. research analyst Marc Irizarry's published rating on mutual-fund manager Janus Capital Group Inc. was a lackluster "neutral" in early April 2008. But at an internal meeting that month, the analyst told dozens of Goldman's traders the stock was likely to head higher, company documents show.
Nothing like selling bonds out the front door and shorting them on your prop desk, right? Oh wait, Goldman did that too!
Securities laws require firms like Goldman to engage in "fair dealing with customers," and prohibit analysts from issuing opinions that are at odds with their true beliefs about a stock. Steven Strongin, Goldman's stock research chief, says no one gains an unfair advantage from its trading huddles, and that the short-term-trading ideas are not contrary to the longer-term stock forecasts in its written research.
Riiiight. And I'm the Easter Bunny.
In Case You're Tempted To Work For A Quant (Score:3, Informative)
It slipped my mind just now that I actually used to work for a quant myself, as a consultant. It was a futures hedge fund. That is, it would buy and sell pork belly and crude oil contracts in such a way as to... print money.
The guy who owned the fund is the richest person I have ever met, or am ever likely to meet. Yet they tried to stiff me out of my last month's paycheck, and wouldn't pay me unless I removed from my homepage what their directory of research said of me: "Your code is by far the best in our codebase."
I just violated my termination contract by telling you that. Fuck 'em - I shouldn't have had to sign that contract just to get the paycheck they owed me anyway.
Re:Holy JESUS (Score:1, Informative)
Nope, still not swayed. For $1.2 million per year I'd dig through shit all day with my bare hands.
Re:Weird phrase (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Copyright law applies to internal distribution (Score:3, Informative)
That analogy is, unfortunately, wholly incorrect.
The GPL requires you to distribute the source code to everyone you give the binary. If you do not distribute the binary but keep it in house, there is nothing that forces you to hand out any changes you've made to the source.
This isn't even a loophole in the GPL, this is in there by design --- if I "buy" GPL software from someone, I own it --- I am free to modify it in any way I see fit, and unless I'm seeking to profit by re-selling it, I have no further obligations to the person gave or sold me that software.
They Did (Score:3, Informative)
Re:open source... Likely defence (Score:3, Informative)
> You appear to have a form of Stockholm syndrome
No, I have gratitude that I didn't lose my job and get a reputation for being an idiot. Because I actually was. The PC didn't have a CD burner. We plugged one in.
Re:Holy JESUS (Score:1, Informative)
There is another catch- you have to be smart- damn smart. Smarter than the other 100,000 guys who would also be willing to give up their life for a chance at the golden goose.
Also, lets keep this in perspective- the $1MM is not guaranteed, you have to produce to get that.
I assure you, I have a background in this type of stuff, and have been looking for a new job. The pay is big, though exaggerated in the media you will be making hundreds of k, not millions unless you have demonstrated experience making many millions for a firm. It is tough to get a job in this area.
Typical interviews go like this:
The screener:
Implement Binary Search and Quicksort on the whiteboard right now (insert any classic algorithm here, merge sort, heapsort, you have to know them all). Sounds not so bad right? They are looking to see that you can do this without a single hitch or flaw in your code. If you sweat, they will be polite and give you another 20 minutes or so, and tell you it was nice to meet you and have a nice day.
Implement a multi-threaded data structure such as a queue, or a hash table.
Solve a sorting problem using an infinite number of processors, tell me in detail how this will perform in big-O notation.
Price this option for me based on underlying, vol, time to expiration, dividend, and risk free interest rate. or alternatively, derive black-scholes for me (options only). If fixed income, price this bond or exotic for me. Now how explain you would do this efficiently on a computer.
They will deliberately look at your resume, see what languages you use, then ask you details about other languages. I am a c++ programmer, they tend to ask me why java doesn't need vtables to implement polymorphism, or how to tame the garbage collector. The reasoning behind this is that you are claiming to be a superstar programmer, you should know these things, and how the central problems (or non-problems) in your language of choice are handled in other languages. Why can Java be faster than C++?
in-depth language questions using the most cutting edge techniques- Write me something that uses template metaprogramming, why do you like or dislike shared_ptrs (hint: ultra ultra fast stuff we are talking here, making a function call and passing an object via the call stack is slower than a raw pointer).
optimization questions: write me a function to get the time in the fastest manner possible on x86 linux and Solaris Sparc's. Hint: you auto fail if you make any system calls. See below for the answer to this one.*
Math questions, often involving series, derivatives, statistics and probability.
The most important point here is that you don't squirm on any of these, and answer each with an authority that shows you didn't just "get" the answer, but have mastery over the subject. They are looking to pay insane amounts of money, you better be insanely good. I am at the point where I know lots of stuff, but my math is a little weak, I struggle sometimes with big-O notation or writing template programs on whiteboards cold. I have also specialized in "low latency" multiplatform systems where milliseconds count, but not micro-seconds, so I don't have the in-depth system level knowledge that a lot of these guys want (from what I gather, telling them you know about e-poll doesn't cut it). I just don't cut it, and may forever be at the top of the mere-mortals heap (admittedly, not such a bad place to be, I am pulling down $150-175k now). But get this- if I don't make the leap into the elite space soon, I will be cut out forever. I have had recruiters tell me, $hiring manager at $Fund liked your resume, but he told me you haven't made a $100k bonus yet, and you are 28. He isn't looking for that type of guy. WTF?!!
*(correct implementation: ifdef's for architecture, then asm sections using the processor calls to get the tickcount. this avoids user/kernal space issues and system call overhead).
Re:Dumb people write code every day (Score:3, Informative)
TL;DR version - old military lingo from the Marine Corps
Long version -
In the Marine Corps, you have different MOSs (Millitary Occupational Specialty). They are broken down into broad groups. In the Army/Airforce/Navy, you can get guaranteed placement in a specific MOS. In the Marine Corps you can only get a guaranteed Field.
MOS's are 4 digit codes, the first 2 digits are the field, the second two are the occupation. For instance, 03## is a grunt. Someone who is on the front lines, putting rounds down range. The second two numbers indicate if you are a basic rifleman, a machine gunner, armory, or any number of other specific jobs.
All things IT related used to be lumped into the 40## field. Whether you were an RPG coder, a DBA, a network admin, ADA flight systems coder, what ever. Just to get into the 40## you had to do pretty well on your ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) test. The ASVAB is broken into a bunch of different parts, the important one for the 40## field though, is the General Technical score. IIRC it ranges from 0-140 or 150. You need to get a high ASVAB score to get into the 40## field, but to get into the 4067 MOS (computer programmers) you needed to have a 110 GT score or better.
They system wasn't perfect, but it ruled out most of the square peg-round hole guys. Even so, you wound up with a handful of marines in the 4067 field that still couldn't handle basic programming logic event after a 12+ week training course. Those people, the guys and gals who just barely squeaked by, were referred to as the "110ers" (one-ten-ers). Implying that they had just enough intelligence to get in above their head.
All of this is defunct now as under the start of the Bush administration the 4067 field was scrapped, all programming duties was sold off to contractors, and the 40## field was merged down to the 06## field and almost all IT work was outsourced.
-Rick