The National Basketball Association (NBA) has been identified as a victim of an alleged criminal hacking scheme involving a Florida journalist and a savvy computer user in Washington state.
In court records reviewed by The Desk this week, attorneys for former Deadspin video editor Timothy Burke named the NBA as one of several companies whom the government claims are victims of his alleged conspiracy to access protected computer systems and obtain certain TV-related media.
The identity of the NBA has been concealed for months in court records filed by federal prosecutors and in a grand jury indictment that charged Burke with more than a dozen crimes, which range from computer hacking to conspiracy.
According to the government, Burke worked with another individual, later identified as Marco Gaudino, to exchange usernames and passwords belonging to several parties, including an unnamed international sports organization based in New York City.
The Desk was the first to report earlier this year that the NBA was the unnamed sports organization that federal prosecutors considered a victim of Burke’s allegedly hacking scheme. In a motion seeking the dismissal of the indictment, Burke’s own lawyers formally identified the NBA as one of several media entities whose computer networks were accessed by Burke, though they claim their client committed no crime.
To that end, Burke’s legal team note that the journalist “worked with and for companies producing NBA content for teams” through his role as a sports consultant, suggesting his prior work with those companies gave him authority to access a server used by the NBA where he obtained numerous media files.
But Burke didn’t use a password given to him by the NBA — instead, he relied on “published credentials found online” to access the server, his lawyers admit, adding that he “obtained information — namely short video clips of past NBA games or highlights.”
Those clips were readily accessible on other platforms, including YouTube, his attorneys say. That, couple with the notion that the credentials were available on the open Internet, means Burke didn’t access the NBA server without authorization and didn’t obtain material that was meant to be kept secret, his legal team asserts.
A person familiar with the matter said the NBA is aware of the case against Burke and has provided some cooperation to federal investigators. The league was not previously aware that someone had accessed its online server, and was not particularly interested in pursuing a legal case against Burke, the source said. The NBA has not commented publicly on the matter, and efforts to reach a spokesperson at the league have proven difficult over the past few months.
The bulk of the criminal case against Burke stems from his access to an online video transmission service that contained raw video feeds of Fox News programs. A Washington man, later identified as Marco Gaudino, gave Burke access to the service during an exchange on X (formerly Twitter). Burke used those passwords to access and record various Fox News video feeds.
Through his attorneys, Burke admits using the credentials and accessing the feeds, which he claims were not encrypted. His attorneys say Burke found the feeds after the system automatically downloaded a list of web addresses to his computer, something sources familiar with the product deny. Prosecutors have evidence that show Burke reverse-engineered the system to learn where the Fox News video feeds were available, according to a source with intimate knowledge of the case.
Burke affirms being the source behind a number of Fox News video clips that went viral between late 2023 and early last year, including one that showed an unaired portion of a conversation between commentator Tucker Carlson and rapper Kanye “Ye” West. The clips were published by Media Matters for America and Vice News; prosecutors say Burke sold at least one of the videos for cash.
Attorneys defending Burke contend no crime was committed, because the video feeds weren’t encrypted, and all passwords used by him were available on the open Internet. They liken Burke’s use of the passwords to a Starbucks customer logging on to the company’s public Wi-Fi by using a password that is displayed in store — which Starbucks does not do, because their public Wi-Fi hotspots are not password protected.
Burke’s attorneys also say that the government is criminalizing routine behavior akin to a Netflix subscriber sharing their password with someone beyond their household, something Netflix previously embraced, but has cracked down on over the past two years.
Attorneys representing Burke filed a motion to dismiss the indictment last week, claiming the federal grand jury that issued the indictment in February did not sufficiently allege any chargeable crimes. In public statements, Burke’s legal team say he does not know the alleged co-conspirator Gaudino, who pled guilty earlier this year after agreeing to cooperate with federal investigators.
Prosecutors say Burke violated the law by obtaining passwords that did not belong to him, then using those credentials to access protected computer servers, where he stole troves of data that would not have been available to him had he not trespassed into the systems.
Burke’s trial is scheduled for October.
