Alleged Goldman Sachs data heister, NYSE are all saying ‘oops’: Update

Earlier today, I wrote about a former Goldman Sachs IT guy walking off with proprietary program trading data. He was arrested and arraigned in New York over the weekend. Turns out, everyone involved would like to say that the train of events is just one big oops. I’m not buying it.

Oops No. 1: In the criminal complaint, the alleged hesiter Sergey Aleynikov says he meant to download open source software. He inadvertently downloaded the proprietary stuff that could cost Goldman Sachs a fortune.

Oops No. 2: The New York Stock Exchange didn’t mention it had a glitch last week that meant Goldman Sachs wasn’t included in the top program trading tally — and that in a week which saw record program trading. Goldman is usually the leader of the program pack and by a country mile.

Oops No. 3: The NYSE forgot to mention that it wasn’t going to report daily program trading anymore because bloggers like Zero Hedge were making hay with the data.

Possible Oops No. 4: The NYSE and Goldman forgot to tell anyone other than the FBI that the investment firm had suffered a serious security breach.

And, oops, we still don’t know who hired the over-zealous downloader and why they didn’t report anything strange. Wouldn’t you think they might want to come forward and explain why, according to the criminal complaint, they saw fit to triple Aleynikov’s  Goldman Sachs salary of $400,000? Just askin’.

Update: Zero Hedge via Bloomberg reports that Aleynikov has posted $750,000 but must promise to stay away from his computer. No more oopsy, please. Further, Goldman tells the judge that Aleynikov’s actions could enable someone to unfairly manipulate the market — something, we’re sure Goldman would never do. Oops.