New cybersecurity technique keeps hackers guessing

By U.S. Army DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory Public Affairs
July 27, 2021

ADELPHI, Md. -- Army researchers developed a new machine learning-based framework to enhance the security of computer networks inside vehicles without undermining performance.

With the widespread prevalence of modern automobiles that entrust control to onboard computers, this research looks toward to a larger Army effort to invest in greater cybersecurity protection measures for its aerial and land platforms, especially heavy vehicles.

In collaboration with an international team of experts from Virginia Tech, the University of Queensland and Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, researchers at the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, known as DEVCOM, Army Research Laboratory devised a technique called DESOLATOR to help optimize a well-known cybersecurity strategy known as the moving target defense.

“The idea is that it’s hard to hit a moving target,” said Dr. Terrence Moore, Army mathematician. “If everything is static, the adversary can take their time looking at everything and choosing their targets. But if you shuffle the IP addresses fast enough, then the information assigned to the IP quickly becomes lost, and the adversary has to look for it again.”

DESOLATOR, which stands for deep reinforcement learning-based resource allocation and moving target defense deployment framework, helps the in-vehicle network identify the optimal IP shuffling frequency and bandwidth allocation to deliver effective, long-term moving target defense.

According to Army computer scientist and program lead Dr. Frederica Free-Nelson, achievement of the former keeps uncertainty high enough to thwart potential attackers without it becoming too costly to maintain, while attainment of the latter prevents slowdowns in critical areas of the network with high priority.

“This level of fortification of prioritized assets on a network is an integral component for any kind of network protection,” Nelson said. “The technology facilitates a lightweight protection whereby fewer resources are used for maximized protection. The utility of fewer resources to protect mission systems and connected devices in vehicles while maintaining the same quality of service is an added benefit.”

The research team used deep reinforcement learning to gradually shape the behavior of the algorithm based on various reward functions, such as exposure time and the number of dropped packets, to ensure that DESOLATOR took both security and efficiency into equal consideration.

“Existing legacy in-vehicle networks are very efficient, but they weren’t really designed with security in mind,” Moore said. “Nowadays, there’s a lot of research out there that looks solely at either enhancing performance or enhancing security. Looking at both performance and security is in itself a little rare, especially for in-vehicle networks.”

In addition, DESOLATOR is not limited to identifying the optimal IP shuffling frequency and bandwidth allocation. Since this approach exists as a machine learning-based framework, other researchers can modify the technique to pursue different goals within the problem space.

“This ability to retool the technology is very valuable not only for extending the research but also marrying the capability to other cyber capabilities for optimal cybersecurity protection,” Nelson said.

Researchers detail information about their approach in the research paper, DESOLATER: Deep Reinforcement Learning-Based Resource Allocation and Moving Target Defense Deployment Framework, in the peer-reviewed journal IEEE Access.

 

Visit the laboratory's Media Center to discover more Army science and technology stories

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As the Army’s national research laboratory, ARL is operationalizing science to achieve transformational overmatch. Through collaboration across the command’s core technical competencies, DEVCOM leads in the discovery, development and delivery of the technology-based capabilities required to make Soldiers more successful at winning the nation’s wars and come home safely. DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory is an element of the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command. DEVCOM is a major subordinate command of the Army Futures Command.

 

---

DOI

10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3076599

ARTICLE TITLE

DESOLATER: Deep Reinforcement Learning-Based Resource Allocation and Moving Target Defense Deployment Framework

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

29-Apr-2021

Argentina lagoon turns a stunning, stinky pink due to pollution

Spectacular photos only tell half the story at the Corfo Lagoon in Argentina, where the water has turned a striking shade of pink due to stinky, contaminated fish waste.

© DANIEL FELDMAN/AFP via Getty Images An aerial view of the Corfo lagoon that turned pink due to a chemical used to help shrimp conservation in fishing factories near Trelew, in the Patagonian province of Chubut, Argentina, on July 23, 2021.

The water at the lagoon is typically blue, but activists say it took on a bright pink hue last week after local authorities reportedly permitted fish-processing plants to dump their waste in the nearby Chubut river, which feeds the lagoon.

Locals say the water now reeks of pollution due to the waste.

"The coloration is due to a preservative called sodium sulfite," Federico Restrepo, a local activist and environmental engineer, told the AFP. "It is an antibacterial that also contaminates the waters of the Chubut River and waters of the cities of the region."

The chemical is used to prepare prawn for export at the local fish-processing plants. Those plants are required by law to treat their waste before dumping it, but one town has reportedly given them a pass on that rule.

"Those who should be in control are the ones who authorize the poisoning of people," environmental activist Pablo Lada told the AFP.

Lada is one of several activists who are sounding the alarm about the lagoon, which is located in the Patagonian region of Argentina, near the towns of Trelew and Rawson.

The area is home to fish-processing plants that typically send their waste to a nearby treatment centre on trucks. However, Rawson residents have grown fed-up with the pollution and the stinky shipments, so they stepped up earlier this month to cut off the route entirely.

"We get dozens of trucks daily," Lada said. "The residents are getting tired of it."

City officials responded to the blockade by easing pollution guidelines at the affected plants.

Some of those officials say the pollution is nothing to worry about.

"The reddish colour does not cause damage and will disappear in a few days," Juan Micheloud, the environmental control chief for Chubut province, told AFP last week.

The lagoon is not used for swimming but it still poses a concern to local residents, according to Sebastian de la Vallina, Trelew's planning secretary.

"It is not possible to minimize something so serious," he told the AFP.

Corfo's colour is unnatural, but there are a handful of naturally occurring pink lagoons in the world. The most famous one is Lake Hillier, one of several pink bodies of water in Australia.

India's Lonar Crater Lake mysteriously turned pink overnight last year. Experts suspected at the time that it was due to a combination of algae and high salinity levels in the water.

The water at Corfo was still pink on Monday, according to local reports.

AFP

KENNEY THE GHOST OF KLEIN

Alberta hospital laundry job cuts to begin in September as work outsourced
Janet French

© Vincent Bonnay/Radio-Canada About 10,000 people in Alberta are on a waiting list for knee surgery.

Alberta Health Services says 334 workers will lose their jobs by next April as it outsources the last of its in-house laundry work.

K-BRO WAS CREATED WHEN KLEIN CONTRACTED OUT LAUNDERY SERVICES IT IS NOW A NORTH AMERICAN MONOPOLY IN LAUNDRY CARE CONTRACTING OUT

A transition will begin in September, starting in rural areas around Calgary, when company K-Bro Linen Systems will take over the work. By April 2022, all linens from AHS hospitals and care centres will be washed, sorted and shunted around by K-Bro.

The company already handles about two-thirds of AHS's linens, including in Edmonton and Calgary facilities.

"AHS is confident that K-Bro will continue to provide this high-quality service throughout the province on a continuous basis at their state-of-the-art facilities," AHS spokesperson Kerry Williamson said in an email.

Although he said costs will be lower with the service outsourced, he was unable to provide a dollar figure Monday.

The employees, AHS, and their union will "explore potential options" to see if laid-off laundry workers can get new jobs with K-Bro, Williamson said.

It will be mostly people in small cities and rural communities affected by the move, said Sandra Azocar, executive director of Friends of Medicare.

Many of the employees are in Medicine Hat, she said, but there may not be new jobs there. She says it's likely the linens will be trucked to Calgary. No one from K-Bro could be reached for comment Monday afternoon.

Trucking laundry around Alberta instead of washing it locally could also lead to shortages when the roads are in poor condition, said Alberta Union of Provincial Employees vice-president Kevin Barry.

Outsourcing all linen handling was one of several recommendations in the 2019 EY report, which was commissioned by the government to find possible cost savings and operational improvements for AHS.

The EY report said outsourcing seven services, including laundry, food and others, would save between $100 and $146 million a year. It would also prevent AHS from spending $200 million to upgrade aging in-house laundries.

Last October, the province announced up to 11,000 public health-care jobs would be outsourced.

It prompted hundreds of workers to stage an illegal walkout later that month.

Government seeks private clinics for hip and knee surgeries

Last week, the government also said it's accepting proposals for future private clinics to perform hip and knee surgeries in Edmonton and Calgary.

The province hasn't said how many of the surgeries it would like to outsource, or when they would begin the procedures.

The move is part of a UCP pledge to tackle growing surgical waitlists, which were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Government data shows some Albertans are waiting longer than a year for a hip or knee replacement once they're ready for surgery.

In a news release, the government said 45 per cent of people in line for knee surgeries are waiting longer than the recommended maximum of six months, as were 40 per cent of people awaiting a new hip.

Its plan is to spend $140 million on private, low-risk orthopedic surgeries during the next seven years, but the cost of individual contracts will depend on the bids.

A similar initiative in Saskatchewan saw wait times drop only temporarily while that province was putting more funding into public and private surgeries.

Critics say these kinds of arrangements don't resolve systemic problems that cause waitlists and introduce risks for taxpayers.

Azocar says the health system is already struggling to retain workers burned out from the pandemic and facing government wage cuts.

If private clinics now compete for those workers, it will drive up pay and costs in both sectors, she said.

"It just doesn't make sense for this government to be so bent on privatizing public health care when they can't even address some of the issues that are taking place within our public system," she said.

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2021/07/the-ghost-of-klein-haunts-alberta-about.html

FOR BACKGROUND ON K-BRO, AND THE WILCAT STRIKE AGAINST KLEIN IN 1995 SEE

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for LAUNDRY WORKERS 

Border workers vote to strike, potentially hampering Canada's reopening plans

Catharine Tunney

CBC

© Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press A Canada Border Services Agency officer checks vehicles entering into Canada at the Peace Arch in Surrey, B.C., in March 2020.

 More than 8,500 unionized staff with the CBSA have given their union a strike mandate.

Canada's reopening plans could be hindered as thousands of border officers gird themselves for potential strike action.

The two unions representing more than 8,500 Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) employees announced this morning that the majority of their members have given them a strike mandate.

That means they could begin strike action as soon as Aug. 6, mere days before Canada reopens the border to fully vaccinated U.S. residents, said the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) and the Customs and Immigration Union (CIU) in a news release.

Many workers would be deemed essential, but the union said strike action could slow down commercial traffic at the border and ports of entry; hit international mail and parcel deliveries from Canada Post and other major shipping companies; and disrupt the collection of duties and taxes on goods entering Canada.

The unions' members — who have been without a contract since June 2018 — include border service officers at airports, land entry points, marine ports and commercial ports of entry; inland enforcement officers; intelligence officers; investigators; trade officers; hearings officers; and non-uniformed members.

Their essential services agreement allows for 2,600 members to take full strike action, while the essential workers can take work-to-rule actions in their workplace.
Window to avert strike 'quickly closing'

The unions have been fighting primarily for three things: salary parity with other law enforcement workers in Canada; better protections against harassment and discrimination; and a remote work policy for non-uniformed members.

© Evan Mitsui/CBC An influx of travellers is expected in the coming weeks as the federal government moves to let fully vaccinated tourists visit Canada again.

Chris Aylward, PSAC national president, said the unions are hoping the government will return to the negotiating table.

"But their window to avert a strike is quickly closing," he said in a statement.

Last week, when the strike vote was ongoing, a spokesperson for the CBSA said the agency is preparing for a possible work disruption.

"The Canada Border Services Agency will respond quickly to any job action/work disruption in order to maintain the security of our border, ensure compliance with our laws and facilitate the flow of legitimate goods and travel," said Louis-Carl Brissette Lesage in an email to CBC News.

"We expect that our officers will continue to fulfil their duties with the highest level of integrity and professionalism."

On Monday, the federal government announced plans to let fully vaccinated tourists visit Canada again soon.

Starting Aug. 9 at 12:01 a.m. ET., fully vaccinated U.S. citizens and permanent residents living in that country will be able to visit Canada.

The government said it plans to open Canada's borders to fully vaccinated travellers from all other countries on Sept. 7.

SHAMELESS LYING LIBERALS

Canada approved deal to sell $74-million worth of explosives to Saudi Arabia

DON'T CALL 'EM PROGRESSIVE

STEVEN CHASE

SENIOR PARLIAMENTARY REPORTER
 JULY 27, 2021

The federal government last year approved a deal with Canadian business connections for the sale of nearly $74-million of weapons to Saudi Arabia, even as there were calls for Canada to stop arms transactions with the Saudis, one of the main combatants fuelling the war in Yemen.

Global Affairs said in a report that Ottawa issued a brokering permit to a Canadian, or Canadian company, that sold $73.9-million worth of explosives to Saudi Arabia. The arms originated in France, according to the recently released 2020 Report on Exports of Military Goods from Canada.

In 2018, Parliament passed legislation giving Ottawa authority to regulate brokering of the sale or transfer of weapons or other restricted technology between two or more foreign countries when Canadians or Canadian companies are involved in the transaction. This means foreign weapons deals brokered by Canadians or Canadian companies located outside of the country require a brokering permit from Ottawa.

Ottawa discloses little about these transactions. It keeps the identities of weapons brokers and suppliers secret in the name of commercial confidentiality. It also doesn’t reveal the precise nature of the goods sold, only saying in this case that they belong to Export Control List category 2.4, which includes “bombs, torpedoes, rockets, missiles, other explosive devices and charges and related equipment and accessories.”

Saudi Arabia has been embroiled in a war in neighbouring Yemen since 2015 as the leader of a coalition of Mideast and African countries supporting a Yemeni government against Houthi rebels backed by Iran. Human-rights groups and Western political leaders – including the European Parliament – have urged a freeze on arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

Kelsey Gallagher, a researcher with Project Ploughshares, a disarmament group that tracks arms exports, said it’s puzzling why Canada would greenlight a brokering permit for selling explosives to Saudi Arabia, which has been carrying out air strikes in Yemen for six years.

“The concern here is that Canada could be facilitating the transfer of military explosives to a country that frequently breaches international humanitarian law,” he said.

Mr. Gallagher noted that a United Nations panel of experts on Yemen has said “the provision of weapons to any of the conflict parties in Yemen is facilitating the conflict itself and potential war crimes.”

Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau’s department declined to answer questions regarding why it approved the $74-million brokered deal, instead providing a summary of published rules governing permits.

Global Affairs spokesman Grantly Franklin said in an e-mailed statement that under Canadian law, a permit would not be issued if the government believes “there is a substantial risk that the items to be brokered could be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international human-rights law or international humanitarian law or serious acts of gender-based violence or violence against women and children.”

NDP foreign affairs critic Jack Harris said the government has a record of taking a “very narrow” view of what constitutes risk from arms exports, pointing to successive reports by Global Affairs that determined billions of dollars in weapons sales to Saudi Arabia were not a problem.

“It’s part of an ongoing pattern, particularly with Saudi Arabia,” Mr. Harris said. “There is an ongoing failure by this government when it comes to following through on its stated commitment to human rights.”

According to the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, almost a quarter of a million people have died in the Yemen war. The conflict has led to an estimated 233,000 deaths since 2014 – including 131,000 from indirect causes such as lack of food, health services and infrastructure. It’s also led to what the UN body has called the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis.”

Last fall, Canada was for the first time publicly named as one of the countries helping fuel the war in Yemen by a panel of independent experts monitoring the conflict for the UN and investigating possible war crimes by the combatants, including Saudi Arabia.

Other named countries included France and the United States. Saudi Arabia remains the top export destination for Canadian-made military goods after the United States, in large part owing to a $15-billion deal to sell armoured vehicles, many equipped with guns or cannons, to Riyadh.

Saudi Arabia has one of the worst human-rights records in the world. Rights group Amnesty International’s 2020 report said ”repression of the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly intensified.”

Among those harassed, arbitrarily detained, prosecuted or jailed “were government critics, women’s-rights activists, human-rights defenders, relatives of activists, journalists, members of the Shia minority and online critics of government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.” By the end of 2020, “virtually all known Saudi Arabian human-rights defenders inside the country were detained or imprisoned at the end of the year.”

Western countries have been reluctant to heed calls to scale back arms sales. Thomas Juneau, an associate professor at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, noted that while U.S. President Joe Biden is not chummy with Saudi Arabia as his predecessor Donald Trump was, weapons deals continue.

“The tone has changed but the substance of the relationship continues,” Prof. Juneau said.

He said he believes the U.S. is reluctant to end weapons sales to Riyadh because it would handicap Saudi Arabia’s fight in Yemen “and then the Houthis win. … And that is not good, both strategically and because the Houthis are horrible from a human-rights perspective.”

Mismanagement and cut costs doomed Warcraft 3: Reforged, a new report finds

Insiders claimed the reviled remake was never treated as a priority by Activision

(Image credit: Blizzard)

By Natalie Clayton

 3 days ago

Warcraft 3 Reforged's underwhelming release was the result of budget cuts, mismanagement, and internal disputes, a recently-released report from Bloomberg has found.

Released last February, Reforged arrived in a shocking state. Not only was the remake missing many of the planned grand, sweeping updates to the game's art and voiceover, but it retroactively ruined the original 2002 Warcraft 3—wholesale replacing its online service with one lacking basic features like competitive ladders.

In the new report, sources write that Warcraft 3 suffered from constant instances of miscommunication and financial pressures. Planned improvements were scrapped as the game was rescoped. Arguments flared over the game's art style and scope. The head of Blizzard's Classic Games team, Rob Bridenbecker, was accused of having an "aggressive management style", as well as frequently taking trips out of the country during production.

“We have developers who have dealt with exhaustion, anxiety, depression and more for a year now," developers wrote in an internal post-mortem obtained by Bloomberg. "Many have lost trust in the team and this company. Many players have also lost trust, and the launch certainly didn't help an already rough year for Blizzard's image."

Reforged also faced pressures from corporate owners Activision, which didn't prioritise a throwback RTS with little hope of becoming a blockbuster success. Mass layoffs across the company in 2019 didn't help, and with pre-orders opening long before the game was complete, the team was constantly having to "resist the urge to ship an unfinished product because of financial pressure."

"We took pre-orders when we knew the game wasn't ready yet," a post-mortem writer explained.

The report goes further into how the Classic Games team was largely maligned by Blizzard, and how management at Blizzard was "out of touch" with the project until extremely late in development. But the report ultimately blames Activision's increasing influence over Blizzard post-merger, pushing the developer to focus only on its stable of billion-dollar games like World of Warcraft and Overwatch.

This report comes hot on the heels of a lawsuit filed against Activision Blizzard by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing accusing the publisher of a "frat boy workplace culture" that saw women paid demonstrably less than their male colleagues and subjected them to "constant sexual harassment".

Warcraft 3’s Remake Faced Mismanagement, Budget Cuts, And Premature Release

BY ANDREA SHEARON

PUBLISHED 3 DAYS AGO

A new report sheds light on the internal conflict the Warcraft 3 team faced.


Following the allegations surrounding Blizzard’s toxic work culture, a new report also reveals that its projects began to suffer following the Activision acquisition. Warcraft 3 Reforged launched early last year to poor reception, and now it’s understood to be from serious mismanagement, budget cuts, and a premature release.

In a new report from Bloomberg, the internal strife at Blizzard points to earlier beginnings around the Activision acquisition and with the departure of co-founder Mike Morhaime. The report indicates that growing pressures from Activision to reduce costs, talent departures, and wage disputes led to growing discontent within the company. These allegations come just a day after the state of California filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard for its “pervasive frat boy workplace culture.”

As Bloomberg reported, morale on the team took a harsh nose dive as the project began to flounder. Reforged’s team began “worrying that they had promised more than they could deliver.” Problems led back to head of the Classic Games team Rob Bridenbecker, who was “known for his aggressive managerial style,” and often held expectations that the team could not deliver on.

The small team continued to struggle as its budget was cut, forcing employees to take on multiple job roles and fall into crunch. That’s when the Bloomberg report suggests that the project began to see cuts to features and trashed work that was already completed. Instead of adding new cinematics and voice-over like Blizzard had promised, they were forced to use materials from the original.

The developers voiced their frustrations with leadership, noting that senior members of the team sounded the alarm on unrealistic expectations several times and flagging the project as something that was in trouble. It was not until the very end that Blizzard finally brought in help, but it still didn’t save the project. Ultimately, Reforged launched far too early, held to a tight deadline that wasn’t typical of older leadership, and the company offered refunds to those who were upset with the project.

In 2021, Reforged remains mostly in the same messy state it launched in. Bloomberg's report mentions Blizzard has brought on a new team to helm changes to the game after Classic Games was dismantled, but we've yet to see the results of that work.

Report: Blizzard's misfiring Warcraft III remake was the result of cost-cutting and mismanagement

July 23, 2021 | By Chris Kerr

The rocky launch of Warcraft III: Reforged was the result of mismanagement and financial upheaval at Blizzard Entertainment.

According to a report from Bloomberg, which spoke with people familiar with the project and managed to obtain an internal postmortem, Blizzard seemingly chose to prematurely release the long-awaited remake knowing it was going to underdeliver.

Despite being branded a "monumentally important" project by Blizzard president J. Allen Brack when it was announced in 2018, Reforged was never truly backed by the studio's parent company Activision Blizzard, which reportedly pushed the developer to cut costs and refocus on other, bigger titles.

That left Blizzard in a precarious situation, with the studio having already promised hefty updates including over four hours of updated in-game cutscenes and re-recorded voice-overs. Ultimately, the company failed to implement those features and offered a number of excuses including not wanting cutscenes to "steer too far from the original game."

It also struggled to bring over features from the original Warcraft III, such as the 'ladder' competitive ranking system, turning the remake into a hollow impersonation of the original release.

Apologies were issued and "no-questions-asked" refunds were dished out, and yet it seems like Blizzard knew exactly what it walking into. In an internal postmortem, a number of Reforged developers said the company "took pre-orders when we knew the game wasn't ready yet," and said the team struggled to "resist the urge to ship an unfinished product because of financial pressure."

Another Blizzard spokesperson told Bloomberg that "in hindsight, we should have taken more time to get [Reforged] right, even if it meant returning pre-orders." As many developers began to realize the scale of the problem facing Reforged, infighting began and morale nosedived.

Those in the know said an aggressive management style, perpetuated by the head of Blizzard's Classic Games team, Rob Bridenbecker (who declined to comment on the report), coupled with unrealistic deadlines and scoping issues sparked arguments and left a number of developers with physical and mental health problems.

"We have developers who have dealt with exhaustion, anxiety, depression and more for a year now. Many have lost trust in the team and this company. Many players have also lost trust, and the launch certainly didn't help an already rough year for Blizzard's image," reads the postmortem. "We were missing and/or had the wrong people in certain lead roles. The team structure didn't set up the project for success."

Bloomberg's report on Reforged, which you can read in full right here, comes hours after the state of California sued Activision Blizzard for instilling a sexist, harmful workplace culture.

The lawsuit contains a number of shocking allegations obtained by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH), all of which suggest Activision Blizzard promotes a "frat boy" culture that results in systemic harassment and misconduct. Responding to those allegations, Activision Blizzard said it values diversity and inclusivity, and described the DFEH's report as "distorted" and "false."

Opinion: World of Warcraft is tainted. Let it be – let it put you off playing it, let it act as a reminder of Activision Blizzard’s abhorrent behaviour. If that’s what it’s going to take to start eliminating sexual harassment from this industry, then so be it

Posted on July 22, 2021 by Dom Sacco

Esports News UK editor Dom Sacco pens some thoughts from the heart following the news that the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing is taking Activision Blizzard to court over sexual harassment and its treatment of women in the workplace (content warning: sexual harassment, adult content and suicide).

“This IP will carry his stain on it. Everything in the current lore and setting derives from Alex. Everything is tainted.”

I’m reading through the WoW forums, through tweets, through blog posts and news stories following the news this morning. I don’t know what I’m looking for – I’m trying to digest this awful story I guess.

I search for Alex Afrasiabi on Google, I stumble upon this particular forum thread about him departing Activision Blizzard suddenly, quietly, this time last year.

Others have done the same as me. A few new posts at the bottom of the thread by Warcraft players say what I’m thinking.

“So they definitely knew what was up. Tried to scrub it away. Wow.“

Another says: “Everything in the current lore and setting derives from Alex. Everything is tainted.”

Alex was a quest designer for WoW before becoming creative director for the Warlords of Draenor and Battle for Azeroth expansions. He has NPCs named after him, like Field Marshal Afrasiabi, and items, such as Fras Siabi’s Cigar Cutter axe. He designed the legendary Thunderfury questline.

If you step foot in Azeroth it’s almost impossible to ignore his influence.

Alex was also one of the harassers named in the lawsuit.

Stephanie Krutsick, one of the victims of harassment who was previously working at Activision Blizzard, wrote an important Twitter thread about her experience.

She said: “Most of my coworkers were wonderful, talented people who cared about quality games. And some weren’t. The problem was the lack of accountability.”

In the lawsuit, it’s alleged that J. Allen Brack, president of Blizzard Entertainment, had multiple conversations with Alex Afrasiabi about his behaviour towards female employees at company events, “but gave Afrasiabi a slap on the wrist (i.e verbal counselling) in response to these incidents”.

“Subsequently, Afrasiabi continued to make unwanted advances towards female employees, including grabbing a female employee’s hand and inviting her to his hotel room and groping another women.”

This is obviously not okay. Stephanie is right – we don’t have enough accountability in this industry.

So yes. WoW is tainted. It’s arguably been tainted for a while now following Activision Blizzard’s other despicable actions – the poor pay conditions that saw some workers skipping lunch because they couldn’t afford it, the CEO’s absurd bonuses, the huge job layoffs, the sudden culling of the HotS esports scene, the list goes on – and now today’s news.

I stupidly booted it up again last night before the news broke, and logged into a dead Classic WoW server. I don’t even know why. Nostalgia probably. Today I’ve cancelled my subscription again – that was probably the stupidest way I’ve thrown away £10.

WoW for me was one of the most magical game experiences when I played it religiously as a student back in 2005-2007. And I’ve played it on and off over the years. But I’m not sure I can play it again.

The game just reminds me of the behaviour of Activision Blizzard. And this problem is of course not exclusive to them. Ubisoft, Riot Games and others have been accused of similar behaviour, with those publishers producing the likes of Rainbow Six Siege and League of Legends respectively.

As a journalist I still need to cover the esports developments in these games (it’s been a struggle covering the Sanctum of Domination Race to World First after this story broke), but I don’t forget the actions of the publishers, I don’t forget wrongdoing, and I will continue to address it. I hope you do the same.

So let Warcraft act as a reminder of Blizzard’s actions. Let it put you off playing it. Let it remind future game developers and others in this industry that there is no place for sexual harassment. Let it prompt publishers to change their workplace practices and bring greater accountability in the future. That’s the least their victims deserve.

Further reading: 5 tweets from the UK gaming community

Content warning: Sexual harassment, adult content and suicide

Further reading: Finding the courage to speak out about harassment in esports

Dom Sacco

Dom is an award-winning writer who graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.

As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV as well as Riot Games and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Association up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and as an esports consultant helping brands and businesses better understand the industry.

If The Activision Blizzard Lawsuit Shocks You, You Haven't Been Paying Attention

BY STACEY HENLEY

PUBLISHED 5 DAYS AGO

The sexist workplace culture needs to be stamped out.

Activision Blizzard is currently being sued by the state of California for its ‘frat boy’ workplace environment, which allegedly includes harassing female employees, passing naked photos of female employees around at a staff party, and micromanaging female employees while male employees were allowed to play video games and drink alcohol at work. Certain sections of the lawsuit detail that the micromanagement - and subsequent lack of full-time employment or promotion, despite having greater experience compared to male co-workers - was particularly prominent with women of colour. These allegations are shocking, in that they include some incredibly disturbing allegations, and it's harrowing to read about such things. But sadly, they shouldn’t be surprising.

Much of the reaction to these allegations has crystallized around a single question - How? How, in the year 2021, can these practises still be happening? How can men act in such a sexist, not to mention illegal, way and get away with it? How can a company as notable as Activision Blizzard operate with these standards? How did these women stand it? How did their co-workers stand by and just let it happen?


RELATED: If We Want To Talk About Diversity In Gaming, We Need To Be Intersectional

The content of this lawsuit is upsetting and may be difficult to read: Content warnings for rape and suicide.

We should be beyond these questions by now. Even just in gaming, several other studios have faced allegations of a toxic, sexist work environment, not to mention that there is still a loud and dedicated section of the gaming audience determined to push women out with its misogynistic abuse. Just last month, the E3 journalists portal used the pronoun ‘he’ for everyone. Yes, this was a minor tech snafu, but it’s hard to imagine that it would have been released if the portal used ‘she’ by default, because it likely would have been caught during testing.

Gaming is not the only industry rampant with toxicity, of course. Hollywood recently tried to expel its most abusive predators as part of the MeToo movement, and sexism extends beyond million dollar creative industries into every single workforce. Not every male boss or male dominated workspace is a cauldron of misogyny, but while men continue to hold a disproportionate amount of leadership roles and in many cases have unchecked power over the progression of the women in their workforce, the conditions are consistently in place for abuse like this.

This is not to excuse Activision Blizzard’s culture - quite the opposite. That this sort of thing happens elsewhere does not mean it should be accepted, nor forgiven. But it does mean we should stop acting so surprised. It’s important to keep this particular case under the microscope, to grill Activision Blizzard into meaningful changes and to ensure that those accused are investigated and suitably face consequences. Still, Activision Blizzard is not the only example - acting as if this is an isolated case, as if the problem will be eradicated with this lawsuit, is unhelpful at best and wilfully ignorant at worst.

Of course, some of the details within the lawsuit are extreme. The lawsuit accuses male Activision Blizzard employees of regularly engaging in a "cube crawl" - this is described as an activity where male employees drink "copious amounts of alcohol as they crawl their way through various cubicles in the office and often engage in inappropriate behavior toward female employees." In another incident, a female employee suffered ongoing sexual harassment at work, including having naked photos of her passed around at an office party. During a business trip with a male supervisor, the woman took her own life. The male supervisor was “found by police to have brought a buttplug and lubricant on this business trip.”


As it often is, the lawsuit also alleges that racism was mixed in with the misogyny at Activision Blizzard. Two African American employees allege that they were micromanaged beyond belief, one being forced to explain her decision to go for a brief walk while her male co-workers sat around playing video games, and the other being singled out to write a one-page report when she requested time off work - something other employees were not subjected to.

These are among the most damning details of the lawsuit, and naturally, the immediate reaction has been to focus on them. While sexist work culture permeates everywhere, the ‘cube crawl’ is likely specific to Activision Blizzard, although it’s childish enough and gross enough that other, similarly toxic workplaces might have had a similar idea. What we also need to focus on, however, are the smaller details. Female employees allege that they were passed over for promotion or employment opportunities, in many cases despite having more positive progress reports and greater experience than other applicants, because of their gender. They were warned that pregnancy would limit their opportunities at Activision Blizzard. They were shamed for picking up their children from daycare. They had to listen to jokes about rape. These issues are not exclusive to Activision, and the general tolerance of those attitudes across workplaces provide the fertile soil for cube crawls to grow.


Many people will be reading the Activision Blizzard report and will be shocked and upset by what they read. But many will find it all too familiar, both the more standard sexism and in some cases, the more extreme incidents. We need to move beyond ‘How?’, because we know how. Women, especially women from minority groups, rarely get the opportunities they deserve in leadership roles, partially because they’re never offered the progression and partially because when they are, they’re expected to double up as an educator, and end up burning out from exhaustion. We need to do better, and we know how. It’s not just about stopping the cube crawls, it’s about stopping the rot at its roots by calling this behavior out, and restructuring to ensure that there are viable pathways for the culture to be changed, not be exhausted individuals, but by a concerted effort from every well-meaning worker to ensure this racism and sexism is no longer tolerated.

Activision Blizzard harassment scandal: 'As bad as described,' 

ex-employee says

Daniel Howley

·Technology Editor

Thu., July 22, 2021, 2:09 p.m.·3 min read

Former female employees of Activision Blizzard (ATVI) are coming forward to share their experiences at the company after a California state agency filed a civil rights lawsuit against the gaming giant alleging widespread sexual harassment and gender and racial discrimination.

The suit, which seeks compensatory and punitive damages, as well as unpaid wages, has kicked off a firestorm against the “Call of Duty” and “World of Warcraft” maker, with users across social media platforms lambasting the company for its alleged behavior and several employees claiming they were also discriminated against at Activision Blizzard.

“I was there from 2015 to 2016, and it was as bad as described in the documents then,” Cher Scarlett, a former software engineer for Activision Blizzard’s Battle.net, told Yahoo Finance.

In response to the suit, Activision Blizzard said it takes allegations of misconduct and harassment seriously and that action was taken in cases related to the suit. But the company also moved to discredit the allegations made by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH).

Bobby Kotick, chief executive officer of Activision Blizzard, attends the annual Allen and Co. Sun Valley media conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, U.S., July 10, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

“The DFEH includes distorted, and in many cases false, descriptions of Blizzard’s past,” the company said. “We have been extremely cooperative with the DFEH throughout their investigation, including providing them with extensive data and ample documentation, but they refused to inform us what issues they perceived.”

Activision Blizzard's 'frat house' atmosphere

The suit portrays a company that allowed unchecked harassment to fester for years, with men groping female colleagues and women being denied promotions and raises. One woman died by suicide due to a relationship with a male supervisor, the complaint alleged. The same woman was also allegedly harassed by other coworkers who shared a nude image of her at a holiday party.

The suit, in particular, alleges Scarlett’s former team fostered a “frat house” atmosphere.

According to the suit, one employee noted that “women on the Battle.net team were subjected to disparaging comments, the environment was akin to working in a frat house, and that women who were not ‘huge gamers’ or ‘core gamers’ and not into the party scene were excluded and treated as outsiders.”

Jennifer Klasing, who worked for Activision Blizzard from 2013 to 2020, tweeted that she experienced similar gender discrimination to those mentioned in the suit.

“I would get told I was ‘too direct’ with my manner of speaking, while male coworkers were never similarly chastised. I was called emotional, unreasonable, and unprofessional,” she wrote.

“I have heard of male coworkers getting in screaming matches with their manager, and [getting] promoted after.”

Racial discrimination was also a problem, according to the suit. When one African American female employee asked to take time off, she had to submit a one-page summary of how she would spend that time— something her colleagues didn’t have to do, the complaint alleged.

Sexual harassment and gender discrimination pervade the gaming industry. French gaming giant Ubisoft faced a similar reckoning in 2020, leading to the resignation of five executives, while a 2018 Kotaku report found women at Riot Games, creator of the popular “League of Legends,” experienced widespread harassment and discrimination. The company acknowledged the matter and developed its own diversity and inclusion team.

The roughly half of women who are gamers have faced discrimination, as well. Notoriously, a misogynist movement known as Gamergate began in 2014 and targeted female game developers and gamers under the guise of ethics in games journalism.

The California case will likely take time to wind its way through the courts, but it’s unlikely to be the last time a gaming company finds itself under fire for its treatment of women.

For Scarlett, there’s only one solution to the industry-wide problem.

“Legal repercussions would be the only way to stop this form being so pervasive,” she said.

SHAREHOLDER ALERT: Lowey Dannenberg Is Investigating Activision Blizzard, Inc. for Potential Breaches of Fiduciary Duty by Its Board of Directors

Lowey Dannenberg, P.C.
Thu, July 22, 2021, 


NEW YORK, July 22, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lowey Dannenberg P.C., a preeminent law firm in obtaining redress for consumers and investors, is investigating potential breach of fiduciary duty claim involving the board of directors of Activision Blizzard, Inc. (“Activision Blizzard” or the “Company”) (NASDAQ: ATVI).

On July 20, 2021, California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) filed a lawsuit against the Company alleging rampant sexual harassment and gender discrimination.

If you are a long-term shareholder of Activision Blizzard and wish to participate, learn more, or discuss the issues surrounding the investigation, please contact our attorneys at investigations@lowey.com or by calling 914-733-7256.


About Lowey Dannenberg

Lowey Dannenberg is a national firm representing institutional and individual investors, who suffered financial losses resulting from corporate fraud and malfeasance in violation of federal securities and antitrust laws. The firm has significant experience in prosecuting multi-million-dollar lawsuits and has previously recovered billions of dollars on behalf of investors.

Contact

Lowey Dannenberg P.C.
44 South Broadway, Suite 1100
White Plains, NY 10601
Tel: (914) 733-7256
Email: investigations@lowey.com