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by mortdeus
2638 days ago
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What about that dude who they put in jail for open sourcing software he developed in a personal side project while under
contract with them? Didn't they like completely throw the book at him by charging him under that completely insane law the Computer Fraud Act? |
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In particular, the claim that he was "open sourcing software he developed in a personal side project" turned out to be a self-serving fabrication. From the Second Circuit's opinion:
> Aleynikov’s last day at Goldman was June 5, 2009. At approximately 5:20 p.m., just before his going-away party, Aleynikov encrypted and uploaded to a server in Germany more than 500,000 lines of source code for Goldman’s HFT system, including code for a substantial part of the infrastructure, and some of the algorithms and market data connectivity programs.
> Aleynikov also transferred some open source software licensed for use by the public that was mixed in with Goldman's proprietary code. However, a substantially greater number of the uploaded files contained proprietary code than had open source software.
It's the high-tech version of a man accused of murdering his wife giving the excuse "I swear, I thought I was shooting at a burglar that had broken into our bedroom!"
Note also that while Aleynikov's conviction was vacated by the Second Circuit, it was because of a loophole. The Second Circuit decided that stolen source code did not count as a "stolen good" under the Economic Espionage Act. (Congress corrected that loophole the same year.)