The Missouri-SEC leaked release

Couldn't find anything here about this; apologies if I missed it.

I'm sure everyone heard that on Oct. 27 someone hacked into SECSports.com and obtained a release that had been prepared announcing Missouri joining the SEC.

There was a link on the story to a Q and A with Tony Barnhart. Once the leak occurred, some wondered if Barnhart had been sitting on the story, etc.

The leaked version was about 1100 words and had links to the Barnhart Q and A plus a link to Chris Dortch talking about Missouri basketball.

The "real" release made available Sunday was about 570 words and there were no links to the Barnhart or Dortch files.

 

Someone hacked in? Is that what they're calling it?

 

Yep. The initial release had been prepared and was sitting in the system. My understanding is that if a computer geek knows there's a story like that, it doesn't take much (other than time) to ferret it out. Basically, whoever got in the SEC system was able to get through a "back door."

Which still makes me wonder why the SEC went to all the trouble to prepare a big release and then not use it.

 

Just to clarify, the release was not "sitting in the system." It had been posted to the site but was not just linked to any other pages and thus was unlikely to be found by anyone who was not looking for it. The moral of the story is don't publish something that's not ready, because someone will eventually find it.

I hope Tony still got compensated by the SEC for his outstanding journalism. (/sarcasm)

 

It's hacking in the sense that you're probing a system, but it's not the same type of hacking the media makes a big scare out of.

 

Bloomberg was actually doing something like this to get early earnings releases:
http://www.talkingbiznews.com/?p=20669