Football

how-to-hack-the-jacksonville-jaguars’-jumbotron-(and-end-up-in-jail-for-220-years)

How to hack the Jacksonville Jaguars’ jumbotron (and end up in jail for 220 years)

Three examples of the video screen tampering.

Enlarge / Three examples of the video screen tampering.

US DOJ

Was someone messing with the Jacksonville Jaguars’ giant jumbotron?

On September 16, 2018, the Jaguars were playing the New England Patriots when the in-stadium screen experienced, in the US government’s words, “a loss in reference sync which manifested as a large horizontal green lines [sic] appearing across one whole video board.”

On November 18, during a game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, it happened again—but this time, entire video sub-boards filled with green.

Then, on December 2, 2018, the Indianapolis Colts came to town and the jumbotron glitched a third time as “a single video board experienced a change of what seemed to be the zoom of one of the base graphics displayed.”

The Jaguars’ IT staff could not at the time replicate any of these video errors, and they began to suspect that what they were seeing was not a technical problem but some sort of attack. Digging into log files, they quickly found that the source of the December 2 problem was “a command to change a specific parameter” of the video control software.

Where had the command come from? An Abekas Mira video control server known as MIRA9120. The Abekas Mira was meant to help in the production and display of instant replay video to be shown in-stadium on the massive jumbotron, but this particular server had been either decommissioned or kept on hand as a spare. In any event, the team thought the server was in storage. But when they went looking, MIRA9120 turned out to be sitting in the main server room, installed on a rack just beside the active Abekas Mira servers.

IT staffers started poking around in MIRA9120 and found the remote-access software TeamViewer, suggesting that someone had been controlling MIRA9120 from somewhere else. But only limited data about the culprit could be gleaned, because the TeamViewer instance had connection logging disabled.

On December 3, the Jaguars’ IT staff disconnected MIRA9120 from the other video control servers—but they left it powered on and in place. Then they turned TeamViewer’s connection logging back on. The idea was to set up a honeypot in case the attacker returned.

During the December 16 game against Washington, TeamViewer recorded another connection into MIRA9120. The TeamViewer account number that accessed the machine was logged, and the information was passed to the FBI, which was now actively investigating the situation. Agents sent a subpoena to TeamViewer, which in February 2019 provided the IP address of the machine that had used the account in question on that day.

This IP address was controlled by Comcast, so a subpoena to Comcast finally turned up the information the Jaguars wanted: MIRA9120 was accessed on December 16 from a home in St. Augustine, Florida—a home where Samuel Arthur Thompson was living.

The secret

The Jags knew Thompson. He had spent nearly five years as a contractor for the football team, helping Jacksonville design and install their stadium screen technology. After installation, Thompson helped to run the system during football games.

Thompson also had a secret: He had been convicted of sexually abusing a 14-year-old boy in Alabama in 1988. Thompson had not reported this to the Jaguars, either, though his contract required such a disclosure.

Someone had found out about the conviction and sent an anonymous letter about it to the Jaguars’ management. Once the letter arrived, the Jaguars terminated Thompson’s contract. His last day with the team had been February 23, 2018. The relationship was thought to be over—but maybe it wasn’t.

A closer search of network traffic and log files from that February day revealed that Thompson himself had installed TeamViewer onto MIRA9120 at 9: 09 am. So the pieces all fit: disgruntled employee on final day of work, the TeamViewer install, the IP address in St. Augustine.

But the FBI didn’t secure a warrant until the summer of 2019. Only in July did the FBI raid Thompson’s home in rather polite style, simply knocking on the door. (Thompson would later complain in a court filing that agents should have yelled out who they were and why they were there. He was strongly displeased about being surprised.) Thompson’s child opened the door. When Thompson himself came over, he still had his unlocked iPhone in hand—and an agent immediately grabbed it.

Then the case became something else entirely—because the phone had child sex abuse material (CSAM) on it.

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apple’s-first-new-3d-vision-pro-video-since-launch-is-only-a-few-minutes-long

Apple’s first new 3D Vision Pro video since launch is only a few minutes long

Immersive Video —

Major League Soccer highlight reel is the first Immersive Video since launch.

  • All the available Immersive Video launch content fit on a small strip in the TV app.

    Samuel Axon

  • Initial videos were labeled as episodes in a series, but subsequent episodes haven’t come.

Tonight, Apple will debut some new Immersive Video content for the Vision Pro headset—the first sports content for the device. It doesn’t seem like much after two months of no new content, though.

Starting at 6 pm PT/9 pm ET, Vision Pro users will be able to watch a sports film captured for the platform’s Immersive Video format. The video will be a series of highlights from last year’s Major League Soccer (MLS) playoffs, and according to Six Colors, it will run just five minutes. It will be free for all Vision Pro users.

On February 2, Apple released what appeared to be the first episodes of three Immersive Video series: Adventure, Prehistoric Planet, and Wildlife. Each debuted alongside the Vision Pro’s launch with one episode labeled “Episode 1” of “Season 1.”

However, it’s been almost two months, and none of those series have received new episodes. The only other piece of Immersive Video content available is an Alicia Keyes performance video that also debuted on February 2. Most of these videos were only a few minutes long.

That means that this short soccer video depicting sports moments from 2023 will be the only new piece of Immersive Video content Apple has put out since the device launched at the beginning of February.

When I reviewed the Vision Pro as an entertainment device, I lauded its capabilities for viewing 2D films and videos, but I also talked a bit about its 3D video capabilities. I said the first pieces of original 3D content from Apple seemed promising and that I looked forward to future episodes. Given that they were labeled just like Apple TV+ series in the TV app, I assumed they would arrive at a weekly cadence. Further episodes haven’t come.

Notably, Apple didn’t include a first-party app for playing 3D videos downloaded from the web with the Vision Pro, though an independent developer filled that gap with an app called Reality Player. There are a few 3D video streaming or downloading services in the visionOS App Store, but the selection is very anemic compared to what you have access to with other headsets.

Apple hasn’t been calling the Vision Pro a VR headset, opting instead for the term “spatial computing”—and that’s understandable because it does a lot more than most VR headsets.

But if you’re looking for new examples of the sorts of passive viewing content you can enjoy on other headsets, the Vision Pro is still far behind the competition two months in.

The device can display a wealth of 2D video content, but this drives home the initial impression that the Vision Pro is meant for viewing flat, 2D content as windows in 3D space. The situation isn’t quite as dire with apps and games, with a handful of new spatial apps in those categories rolling out in recent weeks.

Most apps behave just like iPad apps, with 2D viewports at the content; you can position those viewports wherever you want in the room around you. Most video content is also 2D.

There are situations where that’s neat to have, but it’s surprising Apple hasn’t invested more in actual 3D content yet. In terms of new stuff, this short soccer video debuting tonight is all we have right now.

Listing image by Samuel Axon

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the-super-bowl’s-best-and-wackiest-ai-commercials

The Super Bowl’s best and wackiest AI commercials

Superb Owl News —

It’s nothing like “crypto bowl” in 2022, but AI made a notable splash during the big game.

A still image from BodyArmor's 2024

Enlarge / A still image from BodyArmor’s 2024 “Field of Fake” Super Bowl commercial.

BodyArmor

Heavily hyped tech products have a history of appearing in Super Bowl commercials during football’s biggest game—including the Apple Macintosh in 1984, dot-com companies in 2000, and cryptocurrency firms in 2022. In 2024, the hot tech in town is artificial intelligence, and several companies showed AI-related ads at Super Bowl LVIII. Here’s a rundown of notable appearances that range from serious to wacky.

Microsoft Copilot

Microsoft Game Day Commercial | Copilot: Your everyday AI companion.

It’s been a year since Microsoft launched the AI assistant Microsoft Copilot (as “Bing Chat“), and Microsoft is leaning heavily into its AI-assistant technology, which is powered by large language models from OpenAI. In Copilot’s first-ever Super Bowl commercial, we see scenes of various people with defiant text overlaid on the screen: “They say I will never open my own business or get my degree. They say I will never make my movie or build something. They say I’m too old to learn something new. Too young to change the world. But I say watch me.”

Then the commercial shows Copilot creating solutions to some of these problems, with prompts like, “Generate storyboard images for the dragon scene in my script,” “Write code for my 3d open world game,” “Quiz me in organic chemistry,” and “Design a sign for my classic truck repair garage Mike’s.”

Of course, since generative AI is an unfinished technology, many of these solutions are more aspirational than practical at the moment. On Bluesky, writer Ed Zitron put Microsoft’s truck repair logo to the test and saw results that weren’t nearly as polished as those seen in the commercial. On X, others have criticized and poked fun at the “3d open world game” generation prompt, which is a complex task that would take far more than a single, simple prompt to produce useful code.

Google Pixel 8 “Guided Frame” feature

Javier in Frame | Google Pixel SB Commercial 2024.

Instead of focusing on generative aspects of AI, Google’s commercial showed off a feature called “Guided Frame” on the Pixel 8 phone that uses machine vision technology and a computer voice to help people with blindness or low vision to take photos by centering the frame on a face or multiple faces. Guided Frame debuted in 2022 in conjunction with the Google Pixel 7.

The commercial tells the story of a person named Javier, who says, “For many people with blindness or low vision, there hasn’t always been an easy way to capture daily life.” We see a simulated blurry first-person view of Javier holding a smartphone and hear a computer-synthesized voice describing what the AI model sees, directing the person to center on a face to snap various photos and selfies.

Considering the controversies that generative AI currently generates (pun intended), it’s refreshing to see a positive application of AI technology used as an accessibility feature. Relatedly, an app called Be My Eyes (powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4V) also aims to help low-vision people interact with the world.

Despicable Me 4

Despicable Me 4 – Minion Intelligence (Big Game Spot).

So far, we’ve covered a couple attempts to show AI-powered products as positive features. Elsewhere in Super Bowl ads, companies weren’t as generous about the technology. In an ad for the film Despicable Me 4, we see two Minions creating a series of terribly disfigured AI-generated still images reminiscent of Stable Diffusion 1.4 from 2022. There’s three-legged people doing yoga, a painting of Steve Carell and Will Ferrell as Elizabethan gentlemen, a handshake with too many fingers, people eating spaghetti in a weird way, and a pair of people riding dachshunds in a race.

The images are paired with an earnest voiceover that says, “Artificial intelligence is changing the way we see the world, showing us what we never thought possible, transforming the way we do business, and bringing family and friends closer together. With artificial intelligence, the future is in good hands.” When the voiceover ends, the camera pans out to show hundreds of Minions generating similarly twisted images on computers.

Speaking of image synthesis at the Super Bowl, people mistook a Christian commercial created by He Gets Us, LLC as having been AI-generated, likely due to its gaudy technicolor visuals. With the benefit of a YouTube replay and the ability to look at details, the “He washed feet” commercial doesn’t appear AI-generated to us, but it goes to show how the concept of image synthesis has begun to cast doubt on human-made creations.

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fake-grass,-real-injuries?-dissecting-the-nfl’s-artificial-turf-debate

Fake grass, real injuries? Dissecting the NFL’s artificial turf debate

Fake grass, real injuries? Dissecting the NFL’s artificial turf debate

iStock/Getty Images

Super Bowl LVIII will be played on a natural grass field in an indoor stadium in Las Vegas on February 11, 2024. How do you keep a grass field vibrant in such a hostile growing environment like the Nevada desert?

The answer: You don’t. By the end of the regular NFL season, paint was used to camouflage the reality that only a few scant patches of grass remained in Allegiant Stadium, home to the Las Vegas Raiders. Immediately after the Raiders’ last game on January 7, 2024, the field crew ripped up the remaining grass, installed California-grown sod over three days, and began the tedious process of keeping the grass alive long enough for the big game.

Herculean efforts to prepare a vibrant natural grass field for 2024’s Super Bowl LVIII are especially questionable when one realizes that Allegiant Stadium also has an artificial turf playing surface available (used by UNLV Football). Why don’t teams in hostile environments switch to more robust artificial turf, which is designed to overcome the many limitations of natural grass fields?

The answer lies in a debate over the safety of synthetic playing surfaces. While artificial turf manufacturers tout research that their products result in fewer injuries, the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) claims it raises injury risk and is advocating for its use to be abolished in the NFL. Let’s explore some key arguments of this debate, which continues to grab headlines with each high-profile NFL injury.

Super Bowl gridirons

Pressure for NFL field managers is especially high following the embarrassingly poor field conditions of last year’s Super Bowl. Super Bowl LVII took place at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona—another natural grass field in the desert (with a retractable roof, closed at night to protect the grass). Despite two years of preparation and an $800,000 investment, the grass field was a disaster, as players struggled to find footing on its slippery surface.

Veteran NFL groundskeeper George Toma attributed the mess to woefully improper field preparation. Players also complained about the slipping issue the previous time the Super Bowl was hosted at the natural grass field in State Farm Stadium eight years prior for Super Bowl XLIX in 2015. That year, the poor traction was blamed on the green paint used on the grass.

For perspective, some of the best sports field managers in the nation oversee field preparations for the Super Bowl. However, maintaining natural grass in desert conditions is so unfavorable (especially when the grass is sometimes indoors) that even the best can mess it up.

None of these issues existed when the Super Bowl was last played on artificial turf. Super Bowl LVI in 2022 was held at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, home to both the Los Angeles Rams and Chargers. Not only did the artificial turf stand up to double the workload during the regular season (hosting home games for the LA Rams and the LA Chargers), but it also withstood a busy playoff season. The artificial turf field at SoFi Stadium hosted NFL games through the regular season and right up to the last playoff game when the LA Rams beat the San Francisco 49ers. Two weeks later, the Rams ended up winning Super Bowl LVI on the very same surface.

While turf avoids the durability issues seen with grass surfaces, players have widespread concerns about its safety—a recent poll by the NFLPA reported 92 percent of players favored grass.

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