Most chuckled at the news the laughingstock Astros had been hacked.
After all, what could they be hiding? How to run a minor league franchise in the major leagues?
The mental picture of general manager Jeff Luhnow cutting costs by using a “Cone of Silence” to protect sensitive information fit the team’s profile: cheap, raggedy.
It doesn’t take much to imagine Luhnow and Astros owner Jim Crane sitting under a massive bubble discussing how much water was needed to wash socks and jocks. Thus few were surprised that some Acid Burn-type could figure out how to break into the organization’s computer system.
It isn’t so funny if it turns out that Angelina Jolie’s character from the mid-90s film “Hackers” works for the St. Louis Cardinals.
The New York Times reported Tuesday that the Cardinals might have been caught stealing from the Astros, and we’re talking about more than just a base here or there.
Law enforcement officials told the Times that FBI agents uncovered evidence the Astros’ private computer database “Ground Control,” where team executives discuss everything from player personnel to potential draft picks to possible trades, had been entered from “a computer at a home that some Cardinals officials had lived in.”
If that proves to be true, the Cardinals will face significant penalties, and those employees – no matter how high or low on the food chain – should face a lifetime ban from Major League Baseball.
This is an integrity issue that ought to carry as stiff a penalty as gambling. MLB must send a message that such theft or attempted theft will not be tolerated.
Commissioner Rob Manfred said Tuesday that MLB would not conduct an independent investigation into the allegations. It doesn’t have to. We know a crime has been committed. The FBI will tell us the perpetrators.
The lack of an investigation shouldn’t prevent the commissioner from delivering the harshest punishment. This isn’t picking up catcher-to-pitcher signs or scuffing a ball.
The crimes for which Bill Belichick and Tom Brady received harsh penalties from the NFL are parking tickets compared to this. This is prying into the inner workings of an organization, potentially gathering information that would give more of an unfair advantage than just about anything that could happen on the field.
A year in the making
A year ago, Deadspin published excerpts from the hacker site Anonbin.com that featured in-house Astros documents and electronic communication, some of which the Astros admitted was authentic. The reflexive leap was the hacking was done as a prank by some silly kid or talented computer whiz working from her parents’ basement.
Ha. Ha. Ha.
Luhnow failed to see the humor, describing the cyberattack as an “evil activity” and the perpetrators as “criminals.” He was right. They are.
The Astros had a right to be upset.
It matters not if it turns out the breach was made easier because Luhnow and others in the Astros’ front office were lax in password protection. Hiding such information from outside attacks by MLB partners shouldn’t be part of the security equation, and the Cardinals cannot be excused for this type of espionage.
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.”
Malfeasance escalated
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 non-reported crime.
That didn’t happen.
Worse, the Cardinals’ message might have been, “What else can you get your hands on?”
As is standard in such situations, neither team would comment on the situation, but their “no comments” say something.
The Cardinals organization is “aware of theinvestigation” and has “fully cooperated,” but for now it “is not appropriate for us to comment further.”
The Astros said in a statement they are “actively cooperating” with the investigation.
You can refer to Luhnow’s reaction to last summer’s Deadspin release for a translation: “This information was illegally obtained and published, and we intend to prosecute those involved to the fullest extent.”
That was before he knew the guilty party might be a fellow MLB employee. If that is indeed the case, baseball’s punishment should be historic, as this is no laughing matter.
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