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from the banking-conduct-that-warrants-prosecution dept.
The New York Times and The Register report that former Goldman Sachs programmer Sergey Aleynikov's conviction for "unlawful use of secret scientific material" has been overturned:
[...] celebration may not last long. State prosecutors in Manhattan have already indicated they may appeal the decision issued Monday, which threw out a jury's verdict. Once before, Mr. Aleynikov had believed he was in the clear, when a federal appeals court overturned his conviction under a federal corporate espionage law in 2012. The appellate court ruled that federal prosecutors in Manhattan had misapplied the law, and it ordered Mr. Aleynikov to be immediately released from a federal prison.
Less than a year later, however, Mr. Aleynikov was back in court defending himself, after state prosecutors in Manhattan charged him with violating state computer-theft-related laws. Now Justice Conviser — much like the federal appellate court before him — ruled that the decades-old state law that Mr. Aleynikov was convicted of violating did not apply to the accusations against him.
Justice Conviser said he did not find sufficient legal evidence to support the jury's conviction in May, which came after eight days of deliberation and two dozen requests for testimony to be read back or the statute's arcane terminology to be explained. He said the jury's confusion had been understandable, given that the "unlawful use of secret scientific material" criminal statute that Mr. Aleynikov was charged with violating was enacted in 1967 and predates much of the digital age. The judge said the state law was out of step with modern electronic communications and needed to be amended. He said that if prosecutors wanted to criminalize the kind of conduct Mr. Aleynikov engaged in when he downloaded portions of Goldman's source code onto his personal computer before leaving for a new job in June 2009, they should petition the Legislature to either amend the statute or pass a new law.
"We update our criminal laws in this country, however, through the legislative process," Justice Conviser said. "Defendants cannot be convicted of crimes because we believe as a matter of policy that their conduct warrants prosecution." A conviction on a charge of unlawful use of secret scientific material required prosecutors to prove that Mr. Aleynikov had made a "tangible" reproduction of the files he downloaded. But in his ruling on Monday, Justice Conviser said prosecutors had not submitted any evidence that the source code downloaded by Mr. Aleynikov "could be touched" or had "physical form," which is the essence of something being tangible. [...] The judge noted that the District Attorneys Association of the State of New York supported several legislative proposals to "modernize" the state's criminal laws with regard to computer crime.
Here is our previous story on Aleynikov's conviction.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bootsy on Tuesday July 07 2015, @12:10PM
I'm pretty sure this goes on quite a bit in the industry. Let me try and back that statement up.
One large bank I worked for had a new starter who was tasked with writing an OLAP cube type set up, a project that should have taken 3-6 months. He had turned up on the first day with a CD-R and within a week a usable system was up which was still in heavy use when I left. Apparently there was a very similar system in his old place of work.
In another place, a big team was brought in to build a new trade capture setup. Halfway through the project they all quit on the same day and went on to start a company. That is fairly common as people with knowledge of things like E-trading Market gateways and trade capture of exotic products tends to be quite rare.
Every bank I have every worked for has had one or more Quant libraries where the code was owned and written by the Quant team. You could never get access to the source code and they guarded it and were treated like a firm within a firm. Even though it was the company's code they treated it like their own.
In short you can get a job offer by taking the code, err I mean your expertise elsewhere in the financial industry, and there are many opportunities for people to quit and start their own small companies as the expertise is not widely shared. I have personally never done this but I have seen people quit or blackmail the employing bank by threatening to do so.
Every contract I have signed has made it clear that the code developed under company time was owned by the company. I am not sure why they cannot take a civil case against Mr Aleynikov for breaking this clause.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday July 07 2015, @01:53PM
Good post - you're already +5 so I can't give you another "interesting".
And, this really IS what galls me about business. If you're high enough up that you can steal millions and billions, then you're usually above the law. I guess the law for those people is something like "choose your target wisely". These same people who are "appropriating" code for their own use are quite likely to take some chump to court for screwing with "their" code after they go into business. Some of these same people may be working with copyright/patent trolls.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2015, @04:22PM
The employment contracts these days say that the company owns the stuff you do on your own time, too. Not just what you do at work. You have to register any software you write as "work product".
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @12:30AM
Don't sign those.
Remeber: this is a woman's country. It's not like if you starve to death you're losing out on anything.
Or kill them.
There really needs to be a war.
I hope the south rises again and ends america.
(Score: 1) by linuxrocks123 on Wednesday July 08 2015, @03:11AM
Hi MikeeUSA, go away now please k thx.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2015, @03:27PM
Give your name and address and say that again.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by khallow on Tuesday July 07 2015, @07:54PM
I am not sure why they cannot take a civil case against Mr Aleynikov for breaking this clause.
I guess they want harsher retribution or obstruction than what one can get from a civil case. Even if these cases continue to be overturned, it'll mess up Aleynikov's business dealings for many years.