Goldman Sachs arrest casts spotlight on programmers

By now you've probably heard about Goldman Sachs' accusation that former programmer Sergey Aleynikov stole proprietary software code. This resulted in the FBI arresting him. He is now out on bail. The allegation came about after the company discovered Aleynikov had transferred code to an external server, prior to leaving.

The heart of the issue has to do with the kind of software that Aleynikov was working on. In this instance, it involves computer programs that do ultra-fast, automated stock trading, essentially exploiting minute differences in price to buy and sell large volume of shares in milliseconds for profit.

These software applications can take years to develop and are treated as closely guarded secrets. According to the New York Times, the Tabb Group estimates that such programs will make $8 billion this year for Wall Street firms.

The case is not so cut and dry though; Aleynikov has contended that he was merely trying to transfer some open source software and has not used the proprietary code at his new job at a competing company.

There are some interesting questions at stake here, one of which is the ease with which proprietary code was taken out of the company despite the security measures. In addition, the open source software that Aleynikov transferred has not yet been disclosed, and it would be interesting to see if Goldman Sachs was using open source software in its applications, and in what ways.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at the New York Times

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