Madoff's Programmers Indicted 147
jason8 writes with news that two programmers who worked at Bernie Madoff's investment firm have now been indicted on charges of 'conspiracy, falsifying records of a broker-dealer and falsifying records of an investment adviser,' for their role in hiding the firm's activities (PDF) from the SEC and external accountants. Quoting Reuters:
"O'Hara and Perez, employed at the firm from 1990 and 1991, respectively, were primarily responsible for developing and maintaining computer programs in the investment advisory unit at the center of the fraud. Many of the programs were run on an IBM server known as 'House 17,' according to court documents. Prosecutors said the men took hush money to help keep the fraud going and designed codes to make up fake trade blotters and phantom records. US prosecutors said the two men worked under the supervision of Madoff and his top aide, Frank DiPascali, to deceive the US Securities and Exchange Commission and a European accounting firm. DiPascali is cooperating with prosecutors, who said his information led to the arrests of the programmers and the now defunct firm's outside accountant."
Re:I guess the moral of the story is to have moral (Score:5, Interesting)
but is it a bribe, or a bonus?
I mean, if I worked at a financial org, and they asked me to write some wierd code that created dummy trade records, I may think 'eh?' and ask whether it was correct or not, but they'd then tell me its all legal, above board and just another one of those stupid regulatory rules that seem to make no sense to mere programmers... and I'd shrug, say "well, ok then" and do it. then they give me a huge bonus and I think "great, working for financial services is wonderful - they always pay large bonuses"
I mean, imagine if you worked on a popular OS and my boss told me to put a back-door in, saying the NSA required it of us. what would you do? :)
Digital Era Henchmen Among Us (Score:5, Interesting)
Big Tobacco health data. Big Pharma test data. Big Oil environmental data. Enron accounting or trading data. Retails sales zappers.
There is no way all this data "tweaking" can be done without involving IT people: DBA's, programmers, techies.
Right now, at this very moment, some of these Digital Era Henchmen are reading Slashdot on iPhones or 32 inch monitors purchased with blood money. And chances are that some of these people are making snide comments about Microsoft or Darl McBride's ethics. Tsk tsk.
Re:I guess the moral of the story is to have moral (Score:2, Interesting)
but is it a bribe, or a bonus?
The 'please don't tell the SEC about this'-condition might have given them a hint about that.
I mean, imagine if you worked on a popular OS and my boss told me to put a back-door in, saying the NSA required it of us. what would you do? :)
Check with the NSA? Ask which law authorizes the NSA to do that?
Re:I guess the moral of the story is to have moral (Score:5, Interesting)
That's exactly why big financial institutions make their programmers spend 1hr+/week going through on-line training courses with dull topics like chinese walls, information leakage, money-laundering, ethics, non-public information, etc. The topic hardly matters, the point that is trying to be explained is "if it seems wrong, don't do it. Escalate to your management or the compliance department." A good firm takes this stuff seriously: I've seen several examples of a junior associate reporting pressure to do something questionable, three levels of managers and lawyers zoom in, 24 hours later, it is announced that a senior person has left the firm.
Re:I was going to post (Score:3, Interesting)
He also socializes in there with former Colombo crime family boss Carmine Persico.