Daily Archives: October 15, 2010

Norwegian traders convicted for outsmarting US stock broker algorithm

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The Norwegian traders, Svend Egil Larsen and Peder Veiby, were handed suspended prison sentences and fines for market manipulation after outsmarting the trading system of Timber Hill, which is a unit of US-based Interactive Brokers.

The two men managed to work out how the computerised system would react to certain trading patterns. This allowed them to influence the price of low-volume stocks for their own gain.

via Norwegian traders convicted for outsmarting US stock broker algorithm – ComputerworldUK.com.

I agree – it’s like jailing someone for using Word to write a letter – if you know that’s the functionality, that’s what you’re going to exploit it for. Then Timber Hill shouldn’t have used something so predictable as a computer algorithm and certainly not without oversight. Just because there’s money in it, it’s a crime?!

Why patents suck: Rollover image on your website? That will be $80,000 (please)

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Dear website owner, congratulations on your excellent site, which includes features covered by our registered patent, #5,251,294. As the description indicates, many of the components on your pages, particularly your menus, rollover images, and shortcuts, are detailed in our claim. We would be delighted to lease these to you at a reasonable royalty rate of $80,000. Please call our offices at your convenience to arrange a payment schedule

Webvention acquired the property from the great patent gobbler itself, Intellectual Ventures, and has been having a grand old time with it ever since. The firm is suing Abercrombie and Fitch, Bed Bath & Beyond, Dell, Gamestop, E*Trade, Neiman Marcus, Visa and ten other companies for patent infringement on ‘294. And the outfit wants jury trials in Texas. East Texas.

via Rollover image on your website? That will be $80,000 (please).

WikiLeaks funding has been blocked. Claims US / AU government blacklisting is the cause.

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Moneybookers, a British-registered internet payment company that collects WikiLeaks donations, emailed the organisation to say it had closed down its account because it had been put on an official US watchlist and on an Australian government blacklist.The apparent blacklisting came a few days after the Pentagon publicly expressed its anger at WikiLeaks and its founder, Australian citizen Julian Assange, for obtaining thousands of classified military documents about the war in Afghanistan, in one of the US army’s biggest leaks of information.

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Moneybookers moved against WikiLeaks on 13 August, according to the correspondence, less than a week after the Pentagon made public threats of reprisals against the organisation. Moneybookers wrote to Assange: “Following an audit of your account by our security department, we must advise that your account has been closed … to comply with money laundering or other investigations conducted by government authorities.”

via WikiLeaks says funding has been blocked after government blacklisting | Media | The Guardian.