Blizzard's Battle.net Hacked; Company Recommends All Users Change Their Passwords [Mac Blog]

Blizzard Entertainment, the company behind Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo, today informed customers that their internal security network had been breached.

The company doesn't believe that financial information has been compromised but other data including email addresses for all non-China players and scrambled passwords were taken. The company believes it will be extraordinarily difficult for hackers to break into actual accounts, but is recommending that all users change their passwords.

Blizzard does offer the Battle.net Mobile Authenticator [App Store], an iPhone app that dynamically generates a new six-digit code every minute. Users can't log into any Battle.net account -- either through a game or on a website -- without the code. It virtually eliminates unauthorized access to the Battle.net account and it is recommended for all Battle.net accountholders.

Here is the letter from Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime: Players and Friends,

Even when you are in the business of fun, not every week ends up being fun. This week, our security team found an unauthorized and illegal access into our internal network here at Blizzard. We quickly took steps to close off this access and began working with law enforcement and security experts to investigate what happened.

At this time, we've found no evidence that financial information such as credit cards, billing addresses, or real names were compromised. Our investigation is ongoing, but so far nothing suggests that these pieces of information have been accessed.

Some data was illegally accessed, including a list of email addresses for global Battle.net users, outside of China. For players on North American servers (which generally includes players from North America, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia) the answer to the personal security question, and information relating to Mobile and Dial-In Authenticators were also accessed. Based on what we currently know, this information alone is NOT enough for anyone to gain access to Battle.net accounts.

We also know that cryptographically scrambled versions of Battle.net passwords (not actual passwords) for players on North American servers were taken. We use Secure Remote Password protocol (SRP) to protect these passwords, which is designed to make it extremely difficult to extract the actual password, and also means that each password would have to be deciphered individually. As a precaution, however, we recommend that players on North American servers change their password. Please click this link to change your password. Moreover, if you have used the same or similar passwords for other purposes, you may want to consider changing those passwords as well.

In the coming days, we'll be prompting players on North American servers to change their secret questions and answers through an automated process. Additionally, we'll prompt mobile authenticator users to update their authenticator software. As a reminder, phishing emails will ask you for password or login information. Blizzard Entertainment emails will never ask for your password. We deeply regret the inconvenience to all of you and understand you may have questions. Please find additional information here.

We take the security of your personal information very seriously, and we are truly sorry that this has happened.

Sincerely,
Mike Morhaime

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Oscar Pistorius And South African Relay Team Crash Out Of Heats, Appeal Their Way Back Into Finals [Oscar Pistorius]

The baton never even made it into Oscar Pistorius's handicapable hand. He was waiting to run the third leg for South Africa, and could only watch as the runner ahead of him collided with a rival, both going down injured. Everyone, most of all Pistorius, believed his Olympics were over without even getting to run a final time.

Coming around the final turn, Kenya's Vincent Kiilu moved to the outside to pass a runner in his path. That move put him in the way of South Africa's Ofentse Mogawane, who slammed into the Kenyan from behind. They went down in a heap, Mogawane with a dislocated shoulder. South Africa filed an appeal, but they didn't have much hope—appeals are rarely successful when a team fails to even complete the race. "Even a protest isn't any consolation," Pistorius said.

But the IAAF decided to uphold the appeal, announcing their decision less than an hour after the race:

"The Jury of Appeal met and agreed to advance the South African team to the final, even though they did not finish the race, considering that they had been severely damaged in the incident with Kenya," the IAAF said in a statement. "South Africa will run as an additional team in lane 9."

South Africa isn't expected to medal, and wasn't even favored to advance to the finals. But they at least deserve the chance to lose fairly, a chance denied by that strange collision today. And though the relay team is more than Oscar Pistorius, that's what Pistorius's 2012 Olympics have been about: the chance to run.

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Fan Of The Pittsburgh Pirates? Prove It By Paying Them Money To Join Their Stupid Fan Club. [UPDATE] [Video]

The Pittsburgh Pirates are at last contenders again, but they're still the Pittsburgh Pirates. They finally have fans excited again because they're actually winning. But they're still not above showing some degree of contempt for those fans by offering them something they're calling the Fan Advisor Network. And what is the Fan Advisor Network? Why, it's an exclusive chance to pay for the opportunity to feel like the team is taking you and your opinions on how the team ought to be run seriously. The image above is taken from the network's home page. Click to enlarge it. The whole idea—to say nothing of the timing—is so dumb it reads like a parody. But it is very, very real. From the website's "About" section:

The concept is fairly simple: Turn the most passionate and intelligent Pirate fans into consultants for the team that they love. Never before has the objective "voice of the fan" been captured. The Fan Advisor Network does so each and every week through its unique Fan Advisor Network Consulting System, a weekly single-question statistically valid survey. Confidential weekly reports are generated from this data and provided to the Pirates as well as to the Pirate Fan Advisors themselves.

Patterned after corporate advisory boards, Pirate Fan Advisors provide wisdom to the Pirates which becomes another invaluable data point for Pirate team executives as they make all manner of decisions about the team. Only though this unique system can the objective voice of the fan be taken into account at all levels of the organization.

Yeah. OK. All of a sudden, the Pirates are going to decide whether or not to bat Pedro Alvarez in the cleanup spot because Sam from Squirrel Hill bucked up to say so. I mean, check it out: There are three tiers of fan advisor subscriptions. For the bronze membership (which costs $9.95 a month), fans get to provide the Pirates with feedback, read their "confidential" fan advisor report, engage with other fan advisors in an exclusive fan advisors message board, plus—holy shit—a lapel pin! For the silver plan ($23.95 a month), fans get everything in the bronze plan, plus a chance to take part in "league-wide surveys," provide input on what question fans should be asking at weekly consulting meetings, an invite to the "annual fan meeting" with team officals, and a certificate! I almost can't stand all the perks of being a gold member, a privilege that will set you back just $600 a year: everything you'd get in the silver and bronze, plus a "guaranteed spot" at that annual meeting, input on the meeting's content, chances to be a "fan representative" at team events, an invite to represent the team at the "national fan advisor network meeting," and a fleece jacket! Oh, and the silver and gold plans have limited availability. So act now! Because if you're not first in line to be a gold-level member of the Pirates fan advisor network, you're obviously not a real fan.

Update (4:06 p.m.): The Pirates respond. They say they have "no financial agreement or affiliation" with the fan advisor group, though they did allow team president Frank Coonelly to record a video endorsing it, complete with the team logo. The video will soon be taken down, but you can continue to view it here:

Once news of the fan advisor idea began to spread this afternoon, Pirates fans and the Pittsburgh media chimed in via Twitter with some unsolicited advice of their own:

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Last Night On Hard Knocks, We Learned What NFL GMs Use As Their Version Of Facebook (And Got Ryan Tannehill's Cell Number) [Hard Knocks]

Aug 8, 2012 12:50 PM  

HBO's Hard Knocks has to maintain a balance between access and secrecy. The fans get to spend a few hours with the players and coaches in unusual settings; the coaches go along with the cameras but still get to obscure their plays and play calls from the public. Everybody wins all the time. Well, almost all the time.

Every so often we see a shot like this one, of general manager Jeff Ireland's computer, about halfway through last night's episode, where the NFL lets on more than it wants to. This is the public's first glimpse of the Player Enterprise Management System software, which appears to be a league-wide player management interface. (It could be Dolphins-specific, although all those logos at the top make us think it isn't.)

We see the information that makes the top of every player page—height, weight, speed, Wonderlic, arm length—and then we see how his general manager can mark him. He can be "available," or a "cap casualty," or a "key [free agent]." We also see other sections in the system: "playtime," "penalties," "injuries," and more. Those with access can gather lots of data. No surprise there. The one surprise? Tannehill's cell phone number is in there. Oops. [HBO]

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The Kansas City Chiefs Are Using Taxpayer Money To Pay Their Taxes, Too [Kansas City Chiefs]

Earlier tonight, we told you how a Kansas City radio station had acquired documents that showed the Royals were using tax dollars from a fund ostensibly set up for maintenance and repairs at Kauffman Stadium for purposes other than maintenance and repairs. A tipster in Kansas City has since sent word, with numbers, that the Chiefs are doing basically the same thing next door at Arrowhead Stadium.

The tipster explained that both stadiums generate tax revenues that are put into a fund that also draws money from a county sales tax and contributions from the city and state. That fund is used first to pay debt service on the $500 million bond floated for the recent upgrades to both Kauffman and Arrowhead stadiums. The teams then get reimbursed by the fund for repairs, maintenance, management, and operations (RMMO) expenses. The idea was pitched with the understanding that most of that RMMO money would be used for maintenance and repair. But both the Royals and Chiefs aren't doing that; they instead appear to be taking advantage of an amendment added to the stadiums' lease agreement in January 2006 that allows the RMMO funds to be used for "event day operations."

According to the documents obtained by WHB radio, the Royals used just nine percent of the $17 million they've requested in the last five years for maintenance and repair, with some of the money being used to cover payroll taxes. And the documents sent to us by our tipster show that the Chiefs have used just 33 percent of the $27.3 million they asked to have reimbursed during the same time period for maintenance and repair. What that means is that both franchises are using most of the taxpayer money they're getting to reduce the cost of running their teams.

And when you look at what the Chiefs have made reimbursement requests for this year, according to the info sent to us by our tipster, it gets even worse: The Chiefs have asked for more than $9 million since May 25, with just $546,000—a paltry six percent—going toward maintenance and repair. That money, the tipster said, has been approved by the Jackson County Sports Complex Authority, which oversees the operations of both stadiums, though it hasn't yet been dispersed.

So what are the Chiefs doing with the approximately $18 million they've asked taxpayers to pick up the tab for in the last five years? How about management and operations expenses that include nearly $11 million in payroll costs—$2.6 million in 2007-08, $3.2 million in 2008-09, and $5 million in 2010-11. Now, the tipster cautioned, the reimbursed payroll expenses cannot be used to pay players, since the money is supposed to be for management costs. But what's reimbursed could be used to pay, say, members of the team's front office, including GM Scott Pioli. The documents do not show exactly which management personnel has been paid what from the RMMO fund, however.

Other expenses for which the Chiefs have requested reimbursement since 2007 include $2.17 million for utilities and telephone service this year, $824,639 for supplies this year, $396,589 for payroll taxes in 2010-11, $231,209 for payroll taxes in 2008-09, and $208,771 in payroll taxes in 2007-08. That's right: The Kansas City Chiefs have stuck taxpayers with the bill for more than $800,000 in taxes since 2007.

[KC Royals Lease Amendment]

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Happy, Healthy, And Hitting Their Spots: How The American Women's Gymnastic Team Won The Gold [Gymnastics]

Today, the U.S. women's gymnastics team, which entered the Olympics as the heavy favorite for team gold medal, did what every commentator predicted it would—won the title in a commanding fashion, topping the Russians by five points, 183.596 to 178.530.

That point spread belied just how close it got at one point during this competition. The Americans rocketed into first place on the vault, as all of them stuck their Amanars—with McKayla Maroney doing perhaps the most perfect one ever. But on the uneven bars, they gave much of the lead back. The Russian team, which has superior difficulty scores on the apparatus, performed incredibly well to move within 0.4 points of the United States.

Then the U.S. went to beam and all three Americans hit, with nothing worse than a few small wobbles. Russia's Aliya Mustafina had breaks on several elements, and Viktoria Komova took a significant step on her dismount. That sent the United States into the floor exercise, the final event, with a lead of more than a point. It would have taken Russian perfection and mistakes from the American team to flip the standings.

Neither thing happened. The Russians weren't even close to perfect. Mustafina had a solid opener, but then Anastasia Grishina nearly put her hands down on her opening pass, then had to bail on her second tumbling run, scoring in the 12s. Then Ksenia Afanasyeva, the reigning world champion on the floor, crashed to her knees on her final pass.

And the Americans didn't put a foot wrong. Gabby Douglas, who contributed four routines for the team tonight, corrected her out of bounds error from the preliminary round. Jordyn Wieber also stayed in, and performed joyously throughout. Finally, team captain and floor anchor Aly Raisman was practically in tears of joy as she landed her final double pike. That's when the celebration began in earnest.

This team entered as the defending world champions. But that was not a guarantee of victory. Twice before this, in 2004 and 2008, the Americans came in as world champions and left with the silver.

What was different in London? Health, first of all. This team didn't endure many major injuries over the last year. In 2004, Courtney Kupets and Courtney McCool were both hampered by injuries after dominating the domestic qualifying events. In 2008, the situation was even worse: Chellsie Memmel broke her foot during pre-Beijing training, and Samantha Peszek sprained her ankle during preliminary warm ups. And even Alicia Sacramone, the team captain, was taped up and hurting all over.

This time around only, Maroney seemed to report any sort of physical problem, a relatively minor issue with her toe. She rested most of the week and only participated in podium training before the start of competition. Her vaults are assured enough that she didn't need intense practice.

In 2008, the Chinese team had more difficult programs than the rest of the field. This time, it was the United States that had prepared routines with an impressively high degree of difficulty. And unlike other teams, which were testing out new skills in front of the Olympic audience, the Americans didn't need to chuck any of their hard moves. They had already performed most of their elements for almost a year, in pressure situations. There was little doubt as to whether they would hit when it mattered most.

The team was well-trained, healthy, and supremely confident. Many other teams would've crumbled under this sort of pressure; they seemed to revel in it. This group didn't miss a single routine—that's 28 hits so far at the Games.

After Jordyn Wieber was beaten out of a spot in the all-around by her teammates, there had been speculation about her state of mind for the team final. There was something unfair and inappropriate in this, and it seemed unlikely that a male athlete would have had his resolve questioned under similar circumstances.

But Wieber nailed her sets. And she cheered her teammates on throughout. She was more emotive and expressive than I'd ever seen her during a meet. Her smile didn't just appear after it was obvious that the U.S. had it in the bag. She started smiling the moment her name was announced at the start, and she never stopped.

For a handy master schedule of every Olympic event, click here.

Dvora Meyers is a freelance writer based in Brooklyn. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Slate, Tablet and elsewhere. She writes about gymnastics and Judaism at Unorthodox Gymnastics, and she is the author of Heresy on the High Beam: Confessions of an Unbalanced Jewess. She blogs about woman-y stuff over at The Anti-Girlfriend.

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NBC Also Edited Out A Tribute Featuring Two Dead U.S. Servicemen From Their Opening Ceremony Broadcast [Video]

NBC explained that it skipped a memorial to terrorism victims in its broadcast of the Olympic opening ceremony because its show was "tailored for our American audience." While cutting that part of the show, NBC also skipped a transitional segment called the "Wall of Remembrance"—which included memorials to two deceased United States servicemen.

Olympic organizers solicited photos from around the world to honor "those who cannot be with us tonight," according to the opening ceremony media guide. One of the images was that of United States Air Force Academy cadet Andrew Chin, who passed away June 19th. An associate of Chin's tells me his CS-10 "Tiger Ten" squadmates were thrilled when they learned his photo had been selected for inclusion. Then, when they tuned in, they saw Ryan Seacrest interviewing Michael Phelps. (You can view video of the memorial in its entirety here.)

Cadet 2nd Class Yung C. Chin was a biology major who hoped one day to become a surgeon like his father and his memorial service remarked upon his generous character.

The second serviceman featured is this Marine, whose identity we do not know. A viewer from England named John Brown alerted me to this, saying NBC's decision was "not only an insult to the British dead, but also an insult to the American casualties of war and their families left behind." If you have any information as to this Marine's identity, please let me know.

PREVIOUSLY: Here's The Opening Ceremony Tribute To Terrorism Victims NBC Doesn't Want You To See
Opening Ceremony Choreographer "Disheartened And Disappointed" NBC Cut His Entire Performance Out Of Their Broadcast
NBC Responds: We Removed The Opening Ceremony Memorial To Terrorism Victims Because The Tribute Wasn't About America

For a handy master schedule of every Olympic event, click here.

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Olympics Protect Their Sponsors By Covering Up Some White Seats At Old Trafford [Branding]

Jul 30, 2012 2:10 PM  

Old Trafford, home of Manchester United, has been hosting some of the preliminary matches in Olympic soccer. That means the "Brand Exclusion Zone"—the desolate no-man's-land where only official sponsor's logos and products are allowed, and all others are physically barred—isn't limited to East London.

There's an exclave in Manchester, where SI's Grant Wahl just tweeted out this photo of Old Trafford's east stand. Normally (as seen in this picture), a select few seats are painted white to make a Nike swoosh. For qualifying matches, they've put tarps over just enough of those seats to render the swoosh unrecognizable. Now it's just a Nike line!

For a handy master schedule of every Olympic event, click here.

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Opening Ceremony Choreographer "Disheartened And Disappointed" NBC Cut His Entire Performance Out Of Their Broadcast [Video]

Jul 28, 2012 5:03 PM  

Choreographer and dancer Akram Khan, whose "Abide With Me" performance at last night's opening ceremony was for many the highlight of the evening, was visibly shocked to learn NBC had edited out his performance when the network aired the ceremony in tape delay, choosing instead to air a Ryan Seacrest interview with Michael Phelps.

Khan's dance director and partner in the performance Farooq Chaudhry told Olympic Rings And Other Things' Nicholas Wolaver "It's disgraceful U.S. media could make that decision and [I] would like to know why."

Wolaver told me he questioned the myriad British news sources that said Khan's performance was a tribute to victims of the 7/7 terror attacks, though Khan doesn't appear to deny that at any point, either. You can view some video of the Khan interview over at Wolaver's site; regardless of the actual theme of the performance, its exclusion from NBC's broadcast continues to be a mystery.

PREVIOUSLY: Here's The Opening Ceremony Tribute To Terrorism Victims NBC Doesn't Want You To See

For a handy master schedule of every Olympic event, click here.

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The Deadspin World Freedom Sports Index: Grading Countries On How Much They Allow Their Leaders To Suck At Sports [Video]

On the day of the Olympic Parade of Nations, let's consider the relationship between sports and national character. Every year, a few organizations release a list of the countries they think are the freest in the world, and in so doing make clear their own biases. The free-market wonks at the Heritage Foundation don't care that in Singapore it's illegal for two men to kiss each other, or for those same two men to merely each chew a piece of gum. They only care that the Malay city-state's business policies are the stuff of Mike Bloomberg's wet dreams (when the mayor isn't messing his sheets thinking about Singapore's expansive nanny state, that is). The same goes for Reporters Without Borders, whose list is unsurprisingly preoccupied with the ability of journalists to do their jobs without fear of decapitation. (Looking at you, Mexico.)

So here's the Deadspin World Freedom Sports Index. Like the more ponderous freedom indices, this one is based on a narrow underlying concept: The countries that enjoy the most liberty are the ones that don't have to pretend that their leaders are good at sports.

United States of America

With apologies to the Glenn Greenwalds of the world, there is no freer country on the planet than our own. And the proof lies in the continued existence of this 48-second video.

Were this a totalitarian state, footage of onlookers laughing at the president while he missed four straight from behind the arc would be immediately wiped from every server in the country. All witnesses would be summarily executed while still on the court. And the lone survivor's memoir, One for Five: The Unmasking of a Leader, would be passed around, samizdat-style, by dissidents.

Of course, only a few short years after this footage was shot Obama unilaterally decided to kill an American-born man without due process. So, yeah, we're sticking to sports here.

Great Britain

When Prime Minister David Cameron ran a mile-long race for charity back in March, not only was it not rigged so that he could win, the isle's newspapers were merciless in their description of his performance. Cameron, one wrote the next day, "tore away from the rest of the field like an Olympic sprinter, leaving his wife, daughter and son trailing in his wake" before being "overtaken by more sensibly paced runners" and "wheezing across the finish line" after logging an 11-minute mile.

Meanwhile, roughly half of London Mayor Boris Johnson's appeal seems to come from his ability to impersonate a well-dressed albino caveman while wielding a tennis racket or bocce ball. And the whole country can't seem to get enough of the video showing Johnson stumble and accidentally gore a German competitor during a charity soccer match.

You still have shitty libel laws, Britannia, but let no one ever accuse you of not having a laugh at your leaders' expense.

Monaco

The sovereign city-state makes the list because its prince (Albert, tee-hee) is a five-time Olympic bobsledder. Therefore, its people, all of whom I assume are both sexy and currently seated at a baccarat table, don't have to overestimate his abilities.

Bolivia

Two people were ejected from this match. One was the guy kneed in the balls by Bolivian president Evo Morales. Morales was not the other one.

Russia

In fairness to the goalie who allowed Putin's game-winning top-shelfer, he was probably a little distracted by the idea that making the save would have almost certainly meant a lifetime of labor in Siberian ice-prison.

China

The People's Republic has lowered its expectations for its leaders' athletic performance since the era when 73-year-old Chairman Mao reportedly swam 15 kilometers down the Yangtze River in 65 minutes, two and a half times faster than the 2008 Olympic 10K gold-medal pace. Current President Hu Jintao does appear to know how to play table tennis. (He even holds the paddle in that correct way that you tried for a few points back in middle school before realizing you couldn't stop from hitting the ball with the handle.) Still, look at the rigorousness of that clapping! You just know that if even one of those students doesn't smack his palms together hard enough to blunt-force kill a bunny, he's headed for one of the second-tier finishing schools. (Which, in China, is roughly equivalent to death.)

Uganda in the 1970s

Any dictator pretending to have game is pretty much just cribbing from the Idi Amin playbook. Take it away, Patrick Hruby:

According to a 2010 interview with Amin's former sports minister published in an East African newspaper, the Ugandan dictator decided, on a whim, to open the 1974 African amateur boxing championships with an impromptu bout between himself and national coach Peter Seruwai. Amin wore a necktie. Mr. Seruwagi wore a track suit. Under a headline modestly reading "Boxer of the Year," the official Ugandan state newspaper trumpeted Mr. Amin's technical knockout victory, noting that "the referee had to stop the fight in the second round to save Seruwagi from further punishment." True enough — as Mr. Seruwagi later said, "If I knocked out Amin, I would not have ended the night alive. As I was entering the ring, his security men were standing at all corners. So I had to use my wisdom not to humiliate him."

General Amin is also one of the few "Dictathletes" (Hruby's coinage, not mine) to compete underwater. In this scene from a 1974 documentary, Amin "beats" five other more well-conditioned men in a sprint from one side of the pool to the other. Notice the way the guy second from right doesn't even bother to dive. Or the way the two on the left allow Amin to run them over. They're humoring him the way you or I might humor a young relative in a game of HORSE, if that young relative also had the wherewithal to have us disappeared and was comforted by the knowledge that everyone would be too scared to go looking for us.

Iran

Evo Morales may get preferential treatment from the refs, but Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the guy who shows up to the pick-up game wearing pants. How impossibly disfigured could this man's calves be?

North Korea

To the unfortunate starving millions living in The Hermit Nation, dearly departed Dear Leader Kim Jong Il wasn't merely the greatest man to ever live, he was also the greatest sportsmen. Before his death last December, the North Korean state press had reported on all manner of Kim's accomplishments, including when he shot the best score in the history of golf (a 38-under round—his first—that included 11 holes in one), bowled a perfect 300 (again, during his first and only time on the lanes), and gave strategic advice to the coach of the men's national soccer team using an invisible cell phone of his own creation. Little wonder, then, that his death inspired such grief.

Caleb Hannan is a writer living in Denver who would have let Idi Amin beat him too.

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