Astros hacked by Cardinals (houses, club, bill)

[astrohip]

[Mods, if there's already a thread on this, please merge. I looked & searched, didn't see one.]

It appears the St. Louis Cardinals front office hacked into the Astros private and proprietary database, and used that access to both embarrass the Astros publicly, and get an edge on the Astros competitively. The FBI discovered the breach, and is preparing to release details of the case within days.

Here's a brief background of how we got here:

Around a year ago, some hackers got into the Astros database that houses scouting reports, medical information and other proprietary evaluations of players. They released this info on public web sites known for hosting hacked data. It was very embarrassing for the Astros, as some of the info released had very frank comments about both players, and other teams. There was even private email conversations with other teams GMs about potential trades, some of which was not publicly known. It was a huge black eye for the Astros, and several teams at the time made comments about how they would never deal with the Astros again since it appeared they couldn't count on confidentiality.

So a couple weeks of bad news, and like everything else, it faded from the public eye. It turns out MLB was not happy about this, and asked the FBI to look into it. They've been investigating for a year, and discovered the leak, and the hacking, traced back to the St. Louis Cardinals. Jeff Luhnow, our GM, was previously the Asst GM for the Cardinals. It turns out he used the same passwords at the Astros as he did when he was with the Cardinals. Someone at the Cardinals thought to try this, and it worked, and they had access to the entire Astros database.

[Aside: Really Jeff? After all the stories about not using birthdays or kid's names as pw, you keep the same one when you switch jobs?!?]

So the Cardinals are getting all this info, and using it to get a leg up on us. And then, in an act of hubris that will come back to bite them (doesn't it always!), they released some of the info publicly, so as to shame and embarrass the Astros.

The FBI used subpoenas and confiscated computers from the Cardinals, and discovered all of this. The story wasn't released until the FBI was at the end of their investigation (which is where we are now). There are two parts left: The FBI has said this is corporate espionage, and they intend to bring criminal charges. And MLB has said they are waiting for the final report, so they can decide what to do to the Cardinals as a team.

It appears if only mid-level employees were in on it, fines will be levied. Big ones. But if Cardinal execs knew about, even if they didn't encourage it, but simply knew about it and didn't stop it, MLB should consider harsh penalties. This is a team that has four consecutive National League championship series appearances, four World Series, and two championships in the past 12 seasons.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~end of background~~~~~~~~~~

Even the city of St. Louis is pretty upset. Here's an article from their big local paper, expressing dismay that one of the most storied teams in baseball history would do something like this.

Cardinals' reputation at stake in federal probe of Astros hacking : Sports

Personally, should high-level execs be found to know about this, I think they should be fired, banned from baseball, prosecuted as criminals, and the Cardinals fined an enormous amount, lose draft choices, and banned from all post-season play for a few years. This is cheating, and either MLB allows it, or they don't.

[Spartacus713]

This appears to be a pretty straight forward criminal investigation. People determined to have acted wrongly will be indicted, and if guilty sent to jail. As that process moves along, assuming that it does, those same people will be suspended, fired an/or appropriately penalized.

I am not sure what the controversial issue is here aside from the discovery of a case of corporate espionage, although it is an interesting story.

[baggiegenes]

Theo Epstein is frantically changing his passwords this morning and hoping the Red Sox didn't already think to try this.

[astrohip]

Originally Posted by Spartacus713

This appears to be a pretty straight forward criminal investigation. People determined to have acted wrongly will be indicted, and if guilty sent to jail. As that process moves along, assuming that it does, those same people will be suspended, fired an/or appropriately penalized.

I am not sure what the controversial issue is here aside from the discovery of a case of corporate espionage, although it is an interesting story.

What's controversial is a major league team cheated. MLB is a brotherhood of 32 teams. If it turns out execs with one of them cheated, that team will be a pariah. If it's just some low-level people, then they'll go to jail. High enough up the food chain, MLB will take stiff action. Remember when Marge Schott was banned from baseball? MLB takes its ethics seriously. (At least in the front office; drugs only now...)


From a sports columnist...

Say a low-level tech guy took a wild guess that Luhnow was using passwords he had used while with St. Louis, then went with the hunch to get into the Astros' private system. As soon as the techie shared that information with someone higher up in the organization, he should have been admonished with the message: "We don't operate that way."

A quick apology to the Astros, alerting them of their security issue, would have been the right thing to do. This would have been a non-story. A nonreported crime.


That didn't happen.

And that's the problem, and why this is a big deal.





BTW, I removed my reference to post-season ban from my post. Turns out that was a commentator, not MLB that said it.

[renorich1950]

Now Luhnow says he changed passwords when he came to the Astros.

[jerbear30]

Maybe he is protecting himself in some way by saying that he changed passwords. Imho it doesn't matter whether he did or he didn't. If this went down like it seems, it is ultimately the fault of the Cardinals management--upper management even--for not keeping their middle management in line.

[HookTheBrotherUp]

I'm all for it if it helps the Astros win games.

[Augiec]

Originally Posted by HookTheBrotherUp

I'm all for it if it helps the Astros win games.

Lol, I agree. We should all hope the Cardinals copy the Astros' system for coming in at or near the bottom of the division. It'd be nice to not be able to call them the Lastros.

[jerbear30]

The Astros are doing quite well under Luhnow right now. I was a skeptic of his system. I actually thought that it was mostly a ruse by the owner (who I really dislike) to get away with keeping a low payroll under the ruse of "rebuilding." The club and Luhnow have certainly proven that theory wrong. I still think the owner is a bit of a turd, but they are a good team right now with one of the best pitchers in baseball.

[astrohip]

"Cardinals owner admits that someone in his organization was involved in hacking the Astros"

Cards owner Bill DeWitt Jr. for the first time acknowledged that his organization had played a role in accessing proprietary information belonging to the Astros, blaming “roguish behavior.”

Meeting with reporters in St. Louis on Thursday along with general manager John Mozeliak, DeWitt said his own organization’s investigation was still ongoing and did not specify which employee or employees were responsible, but told club workers on Thursday “we’ve all been tainted.”