Blizzard Loses First Sponsor Due To Stance On Hong Kong Speech

from the in-the-pocketbook dept

Just a quick update on Blizzard and the ongoing backlash against the company over its attempts to muzzle its eSports competitors from making "political" comments about "politics", which mostly means not pissing off the laughably thin-skinned Chinese government over the fact that Hong Kong exists. It started when the company yoinked away prize money and issued a 1 year ban to a Hearthstone player, continued as it then issued more bans, then got weird when it decided to try to appease the backlashing public by halving that original ban, all of which led to basically everyone other than Beijing remarking on how totally shitty Blizzard is.

There has been a sense thus far that Blizzard believed it could lighten its punishments and run out the clock on the backlash, as the public moved on to whatever the next outrage would be. How is that going? Pretty fucking terribly, given that Blizzard just lost its first corporate sponsor due to its anti-speech actions.

When Blizzard decided to take action against a pro Hearthstone player for speaking out over the ongoing protests in Hong Kong, they ate a lot of shit from fans. They also, it turns out, lost a commercial sponsor in the form of Mitsubishi Motors.

The Taiwanese branch of the Japanese auto giant had been a sponsor of all of Blizzard’s esports events, but just two days after Blizzard’s decision to sanction Blitzchung for his actions, Mitsubishi Motors withdrew its support.

That this came from a Japanese company's branch in Taiwan is probably not without significance. At the risk of sounding ignorant through over-simplification, the status of Taiwan and Hong Kong share similarities. Indeed, Taiwan's President has spoken in solidarity with the protesters in Hong Kong.

More interesting is whether this is some kind of a one-off or a sign that the boycott floodgates are about to open. If this initial exodus of an advertiser triggers more advertisers to leave, suddenly the calculus for Blizzard on the cost and benefits of bowing to Chinese pressure may change. And change quickly. If that occurs, it will be fact that Blizzard will have painted itself into a corner. After all, it can't suddenly now reverse course and encourage its competitors to speak openly and maintain credibility. It also won't be able to dig its heels in further, or it risks losing even more advertising revenue.

I imagine there are several Blizzard executives shivering in their offices at the moment, all because they wouldn't allow their company to back up competitors speaking their minds.

Filed Under: advertising, boycotts, china, e-sports, free speech, heathstone, hong kong, sponsorship, taiwan
Companies: blizzard, mitsubishi

Mitsubishi Outlander Just The Latest 'Smart' Car That's Trivial To Hack And Control

from the not-so-smart dept

Yet another vehicle heavily advertised as being "smart" has proven to be notably less secure than its older, dumber counterparts. This week, researchers discovered that flaws in the Mitsubishi Outlander leave the vehicle's on-board network vulnerable to all manner of hacker attack, allowing an intruder to disable the alarm system, drain the car's battery, control multiple vehicle functions, and worse.

The app for most "smart" vehicles connects to a web-based service hosted by the manufacturer. This service in turn connects to a GSM module inside of the automobile, letting a user control the vehicle from anywhere. While convenient, this has proven to be problematic when poorly implemented -- something Nissan recently discovered after the company failed to implement any real authentication, letting an attacker use the Leaf app to track a driver's driving behavior, physically control the Leaf's heating and cooling systems, and drain the car's battery.

Analysis of the Mitsubishi Outlander's security flaw found that Mitsubishi did things differently, requiring users connect to an on-board Wi-Fi hotspot before controlling the vehicle using the associated app (presumably to save money on an online hosting service). But the researchers found that the Wi-Fi key was relatively trivial to hack:

"The Wi-Fi pre shared key is written on a piece of paper included in the owners’ manual. The format is too simple and too short. We cracked it on a 4 x GPU cracking rig at less than 4 days. A much faster crack could be achieved with a cloud hosted service, or by buying more GPUs."

Given the embedded access point has a unique SSID, an attacker can use public resources like Wigle.net to easily geolocate any Outlander PHEVs they might like to target. With the PSK and the SSID, the security firm was able to compromise the remainder of the car's rudimentary security using a man-in-the-middle attack to sniff the traffic flowing between the car and the app. Once inside, researchers noted that like the Leaf hack they could drain the car's battery, turn various vehicle functions on and off, and turn off the alarm. But they also note the vulnerability goes much deeper than with the Leaf:

"Once unlocked, there is potential for many more attacks. The on board diagnostics port is accessible once the door is unlocked. Whilst we haven’t looked in detail at this, you may recall from a hack of some BMW vehicles which suggested that the OBD port could be used to code new keys for the car. We also haven’t looked at connections between the Wi-Fi module and the Wi-Fi module and the Controller Area Network (CAN). There is certainly access to the infotainment system from the Wi-Fi module. Whether this extends to the CAN is something we need more time to investigate."

Like with so many vulnerabilities, the researchers say that when they brought the problem to the attention of Mitsubishi, the company showed "disinterest" in a dialogue. At least until they contacted the BBC, at which point Mitsubishi got chatty:

"Initial attempts by us to disclose privately to Mitsubishi were greeted with disinterest. We were a bit stumped at this point: As so often happens, the vendor takes no interest and public disclosure becomes an ethical dilemma. So, we involved the BBC who helped us get their attention. Mitsubishi have since been very responsive to us! They are taking the issue very seriously at the highest levels."

We've noted for a few years now that in-car security -- as with most products on board the "internet of things" hype train -- is aggressively atrocious. And it's not really clear it's getting any better despite several government warnings and bad press. Many car manufacturers still aren't quick to respond to disclosures, and even if they can, they often take far too long to patch problems when found. That's of great benefit to government, private or criminal entities that surely appreciate the easy new way to spy on, stall or even potentially kill via methods most police departments likely don't have the chops to adequately investigate.

Filed Under: connected cars, hacking cars, internet of things, outlander, smart car
Companies: mitsubishi

Crazy Coincidence, Plagiarism, Or An Obvious Idea For An Electric Car Ad?

from the seems-possible dept

David points us to this fantastic post by Ken Segall, entitled Creativity has many fathers, and analyzing the story of two car commercials that seem quite similar. The first, for the Nissan LEAF, is below: The second is from Renault, for the Z.E.: The two ads debuted within days of each other. You might note some similarities. Or, actually, a ton of similarities. My first response was to remember that Nissan and Renault are connected at the hip in a slightly odd non-merger alliance where each company owns a substantial stake in the other. However, the two companies are still mostly separate, and their marketing is apparently entirely separate. More specifically, the two ads were developed by two different ad agencies -- and apparently neither is particularly happy about this, with each suggesting the other "plagiarized" the ad. However, neither has been too vocal about this publicly, and no legal action has been threatened.

Segall digs up the possible reason why, in the form of one more ad... for the Mitsubishi i-Miev. This commercial came out way before the other two: Yeah, it's kind of tough to claim someone else plagiarized you, when your ad looks like a blatant copy of yet someone else's...

Perhaps the reality is that this idea was just so obvious that three different ad agencies came up with it. It's not hard to see how a brainstorming session might come up with exactly this concept pretty easily. Or perhaps there really was some copying. But, in the end, does it really matter? As Segall notes about all three ads, "Wow, what a fantastic concept."

Filed Under: cars, commercials, electric vehicles, ideas
Companies: mitsubishi, nissan, renault