I love to stick it to Goldman as much as anyone else here, but I think the story is probably more nuanced than "Goldman jails innocent programmer for leaving the firm". I know that I have on occasion kept copies of source code for projects that I'm proud of (and there was often some open source code involved; that changes nothing). Not to give it to someone else, but because I was proud of the work.
That is probably a breach of contract but I don't think it should be a crime punishable by jail time (unless someone can prove that said code was used to aid another company).
Proving that the code was used to aid a company is not a good measure of the seriousness of of the crime. What if you take the code and store it on a device with really low security? You don't share it, but you allow "hackers" to easily take it, so you are in fact aiding competing companies.
The developer was not innocent:- but the punishment was disproportionate and heavy-handed, considering that he did not appear to have made use of the source code that was taken.
The major problems raised by the story lie firstly in the technological ignorance that the authorities displayed; secondly in the developer's legal ignorance (in trying to correct the authorities' technical ignorance) and finally, and perhaps most importantly, in the breathtaking arrogance and conceit displayed by GS in it's handling of the case -- yet more evidence (as if we needed it) of the vile, corrosive, and fundamentally corrupt culture that infects our financial services.
I suppose most programmers do this. I'm just playing the devils advocate here, but the difference might be in the type of code that was kept on file. Nothing I've ever kept was rocket science or novel in any form - No competitor would ever gain an advantage by peeking into it. But they could supposedly be something novel in a trading algorithm.
That is probably a breach of contract but I don't think it should be a crime punishable by jail time (unless someone can prove that said code was used to aid another company).