
How much of a breach is it when a hacker 'steals' his own code? - AndrewWarner
http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=403429&f=28%E2%8A%82=Contributor
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yangyang
Why do Goldman's profits have to be mentioned in so many articles about this
"code theft"?

Does the fact they've just made lots of money, regardless of what actually
happened regarding this programmer, change the meaning of right and wrong?

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joezydeco
If the code is part of the reason for Goldman's huge profits, then let's hear
about it.

There are a few sites accusing GS of packet-sniffing the NYSE electronic
exchange and slipping in their trades microseconds before the real trades take
place. Those are rumors.

One known fact is that Goldman was pulling down USD $100,000,000 per DAY in
profits from their automated trading systems. That's a hundred million
dollars. A day.

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yangyang
> One known fact is that Goldman was pulling down USD $100,000,000 per DAY in
> profits from their automated trading systems. That's a hundred million
> dollars. A day.

I don't think that is a "known fact" at all.

All I've found is "more than $100 million in trading revenue on a record 34
separate days during the first three months of 2009" ([http://www.business-
standard.com/india/news/goldman-sachss-1...](http://www.business-
standard.com/india/news/goldman-sachss-100-million-trading-days-hit-record-in-
quarter/357270/)). That's firmwide revenue, from all their trading activities,
_not_ just automated trading. And it's not "every day".

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joezydeco
Okay, I'll concede that. What I won't ever believe is that Goldman made 100
million dollars in profit trading securities and commodities only for
customers in this current economic climate.

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run4yourlives
It's not necessarily your code just because you wrote it.

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sophacles
True. However I do not have copies of code I wrote in the past, but I can
probably bang out all the interesting parts in a matter of a few days, from
memory. It's not that I am that super of a coder or anything, it's that the
interesting parts took a lot of thinking, therefore remembering. I think
that's why it was 'steal' instead of steal.

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run4yourlives
Except that as a coder, and given current laws, if you come close enough to
reproducing a trade secret or other copyrighted work, you technically are
stealing it.

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sophacles
Right. I think the point is that someone wants me to work for them based on
what I did for a competitor. This whole code stealing thing is silly when its
really my ability to help them steal the ideas that matters. They already have
the knowledge by getting me, code is pretty irrelevant.

Of course the technical stealing is easier to prove with the code...

