The sport of baseball is comprised of thousands of
statistics of each player on each team in the entire league. All this
information is vital for teams, and each team uses and stores the information
differently. The St Louis Cardinals have been one of the top teams in baseball
for the past decade, but now they are under federal investigation for cyber-hacking
information from the Houston Astros off their database known as “Ground Control,”
a built from scratch online database for the private use of the Houston Astros,
which gives access to an easy-to-use interface to player statistics, videos,
and communication with other teams around the league3.
One main
point presented in this article is that the Cardinals employees are believed to
have used passwords stolen from the Astros to gain access into their network.
However, this posses the question of why the Astros, a team that has not made
it to the post season in years. The answer is “Moneyball,” Jeff Luhnow was a
consultant to the Cardinals during the start of the “Moneyball” era. He then
moved to be the General Manager for the Astros. It has been speculated that the
hack was over bitterness of him leaving, the need for his “moneyball” mind, or
even for the “Ground Control” database itself. 2 If these
speculations turn to be true, it would be considered the first known instance
of a corporate competitor using tactics against a rival.1 When
information from the Astros’ computers were posted online the FBI became
involved and traced the network back from computers used in the homes of some
Cardinals employees. The FBI went on record stating that they “pursue all
appropriate avenues to hold accountable those who pose a threat in cyberspace.”1.
This hack proved that using only simple
passwords to access highly valuable information is not an appropriate tactic,
because people can possibly gain access to it with just only knowing a little
password. This information was stolen from the Astros’ when published online
showed 10 months of internal trading talks, including negotiations, overtures,
and actual trades3. Making this information public before it was
official gave people insight into the behind the scenes world of baseball and
how trades really go down.
While
reading over these articles, there are still some unanswered questions relevant
to this case, such as who was the mole that possibly gained the knowledge of
the password used to access this vast amount of information. Beyond that, what
steps are the Astros taking now to build a more protected database to feel
safer that this will not happen to them again? In the article Luhnow was quoted
as stating, “Today I use a pencil and paper in all my conversations”1
showing that his faith is not fully restored in technology although it is
easier to use, there is always a threat present. One final point the article could
have elaborated on is the actual database behind “Ground Control” explaining how
the data is stored, displayed, and accessed.
My most recent blog post is about the use of data analytics in professional sports. "Moneyball" was also referenced in the article I read. It is awful that the Cardinals took advantage of their big data access, seeing how beneficial sports analytics could be to their sport. When used correctly and ethically, sports analytics can be used in motion tracking devices, sensors, and in other data collection technologies to later be analyzed further, resulting in valuable information to improve player and coaching strategies. Additionally, the use of big data in sports has actually transformed the game of the NBA. For instance, the use of data analytics in the NBA has encouraged more three point shots to be taken as well as a quicker game tempo. It is unfortunate that big data causes ethical and moral issues among its users.
ReplyDeleteUpon further research about the "Ground Control" database used by the Astros from a Bloomberg article, in an attempt to fill in more information about incident, the Astros felt that at least before the hake, Ground Control was very safe(http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-16/my-time-with-the-architect-of-the-astros-ground-control-database). They have a log of user who are and are not allowed to have access to it and all when accesses are made. And besides that, the data was on servers, so in theory, no one is able to download it, save it, or transfer it. Once accessed, it could be looked at, but nothing else. It really goes to show how important security truly is in today's world.
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