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The Big Ten has a chance to be in the right place at the right time.

Many expected the league to announce its fancy new TV rights package, which will probably be north of $1 billion, around Memorial Day (that was the scuttle during league meetings in early May). The end of that month has come and gone and theres no press release. As negotiations continue, it now seems like the next logical time to announce something would be around conference media days at the end of Julyif it can get a deal (or deals) done.

One thing we know: Fox will remain in control of the primary package of games (think Ohio State/Michigan/Penn State vs. anyone good). Fox stumbled into Big Noon Saturday games by scheduling necessity to avoid conflicts with Major League Baseball, and it has been a success. But theres opportunity here if NBC is really pushing for another college football game to pair with Notre Dame in a doubleheader slot, as Front Office Sports reported, and if CBS wants to stay in the college football game after losing the SEC, as Sports Business Journal reported.

The Big Tens current media rights deal expires in 2023.

Joseph Cress/Iowa City Press-Citizen/USA TODAY Network

The Big Ten could hypothetically blanket your Saturday on three broadcast networks by splitting the package. Lets take a random league schedule for an example. Heres Oct. 7:

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Thats one great matchup on paper, and two O.K. ones. A hypothetical national TV slate could go: Ohio State at Michigan State on Fox at noon; Wisconsin at Northwestern on CBS at 3:30; and Michigan at Indiana on NBC at 7:30. The rest can head to the Big Ten Network.

Whether you think those games are sexy is immaterial. Where theyre broadcast is important for the leagues continued visibility as it fights for supremacy against the SEC, and utilizing three different broadcast networks means three different networks have incentive to promote their gamesand that promotion can occur during, for instance, NFL Sundays or the World Series. As the season gets into its later days, matchups get juicier as the Playoff push comes into focus. Considering the Big Ten is probably going to get rid of divisions soon, a new scheduling arrangement could yield different and better matchups down the stretch. CBS has an existing relationship with the Big Ten for mens basketball, and a rights agreement with the Tiffany Network could include continuing to share those games with Fox.

This would also wrestle some control over the scheduleand some might say the sport, existentiallyaway from ESPN. There would be consternation about doing that from coaches and athletic directors who see ESPN as a draw because of its ubiquity, but there are others within the footprint who will always think the four-letter network has bias against it because there isnt, for instance, a Big Ten version of Paul Finebaum who can pop on SportsCenter and stump for the league. But even as ESPNs SEC ties deepen, its not as if the network will go quietly into the night as a long-term partner of the league. However, Foxs 60% stake in the Big Ten Network means that Fox is consulting on a deal with other networks, including ESPN, its chief rival, as it continues to position itself as an alternative home for some of college footballs best games and use the noon time slot, which was for years a deadzone.

There are further suitors as well, including Turner Sports (now owned by Warner Bros. Discover) and of course Amazon and Apple as tech giants with more money than God. Whether its worth it to stick college sports behind another layer of streaming is for the suits to decide, but if either gets a Big Ten package of games it would be the first rights deal in this country that either did not win by default. For instance, Amazon has exclusive NFL rights for Thursday night, which none of the other networks wanted.

The Big Ten is not the be-all, end-all for any of these media companies, as the Big 12 and an increasingly needy Pac-12 have rights deals coming up in the next few years. But depending on where you live, the Big Tens brand is only eclipsed by the SEC in college football, and those are the rights still up for bid.

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The Big Ten Has a Prime Opportunity With Its Media Rights Package - Sports Illustrated

Washington, D.C. U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and colleagues sent a letter to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel regarding the sale of 18 Spanish-language radio stations, including Miamis conservative Radio Mamb, to the Latino Media Network (LMN), a recently formed media group run by Democrat activists and funded in part by leftwing billionaire George Soros.We are concerned that LMN, as a newly formed front group led by partisan operatives with zero experience in broadcasting, may work to silence political viewpoints with which its funders disagree. If successful, LMN could exercise virtually uncontested influence over nearly one third of all Hispanics across the country, the lawmakers wrote. Given the importance of the FCCs stewardship over the limited AM and FM bandwidth available across the United States, we ask that the commission carry out its due diligence and thoughtfully scrutinize the takeover of these stations by a partisan organization only announced last week.Far from benign, the proposed sale is the latest in a series of moves by elite progressives desperate to claw back support from Hispanic voters, who have rightly turned their backs on Democrats and their socialist priorities, the lawmakers continued. But instead of overhauling their own unpopular policies, we are concerned that far-left ideologues are attempting to consolidate and expand their control over the media, so they can flood the airwaves with propaganda with the hopes of fooling listeners so that they can silence effective conservative voices who challenge their progressive propaganda.Joining Rubio were Senators Rick Scott (R-FL) and Tom Cotton (R-AR), as well as Representatives Carlos Gimnez (R-FL), Mara Elvira Salazar (R-FL), and Mario Daz-Balart (R-FL).The full text of the letter is below.Dear Chairwoman Rosenworcel:We write to urge the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), within all applicable rules and regulations, and pursuant to the FCCs public interest mandate pursuant to the Radio Act of 1927 (P.L. 69-632), to thoroughly scrutinize the proposed sale of 18 Spanish-language radio stations to the so-called Latino Media Network (LMN), including Radio Mamb 710 AM in Miami, Florida. We are concerned that LMN, as a newly formed front group led by partisan operatives with zero experience in broadcasting, may work to silence political viewpoints with which its funders disagree. If successful, LMN could exercise virtually uncontested influence over nearly one third of all Hispanics across the country. Given the importance of the FCCs stewardship over the limited AM and FM bandwidth available across the United States, we ask that the commission carry out its due diligence and thoughtfully scrutinize the takeover of these stations by a partisan organization only announced last week.Many of the stations implicated in this sale are pillars of their local community. For example, Radio Mamb serves a vital role in South Florida, offering listeners critical coverage of the dictatorship in Cuba and local news reporting. In some cases, these are among the last media outlets dedicated to, and staffed by, the local community. The hostile takeover by LMN would destroy those long-standing community connections.LMNs founders, Obama Administration and campaign alumnae, have emphasized the unprecedented scope of the proposed sale, touting it as one of the largest single acquisitions of stations by a Latino owned and operated company in history. While grave questions remain about the nature of LMN its precise ownership structure, the potential involvement of foreign funding, how it intends to program a massive network of radio stations given its total lack of experience there should be no ambiguity about the intent of this transaction. Funding for the LMN comes mostly from Democrat partisans, including Lakestar Finance LLC, an investment firm tied to leftwing billionaire George Soros.Far from benign, the proposed sale is the latest in a series of moves by elite progressives desperate to claw back support from Hispanic voters, who have rightly turned their backs on Democrats and their socialist priorities. But instead of overhauling their own unpopular policies, we are concerned that far-left ideologues are attempting to consolidate and expand their control over the media, so they can flood the airwaves with propaganda with the hopes of fooling listeners so that they can silence effective conservative voices who challenge their progressive propaganda.In fact, leftists have been explicit about these aims; last year, faced with the prospect of losing political influence via the proposed sale of a single AM radio station located in Miami, members of the all-Democrat Congressional Hispanic Caucus jumped to action to halt the transaction. Past and present members of the caucus were clear about their real purpose in getting involved, with one proclaiming in April 2021: To win in 2022 this must stop!With the collapse of that sale, Democrats are back on the offensive, now pushing to take over 18 different Spanish-language radio stations around the United States. We believe that this blatant, partisan effort to destroy community-based radio and silence opposing voices provides ample reason for the FCC to act with the due diligence with which it has been tasked. We also believe that any takeover of this scale and speed, especially when critical questions remain about LMN and its lack of operational experience, must be analyzed with extraordinary scrutiny.Thank you for your attention to this vitally important subject. We look forward to your response.Sincerely,

RUBIO Y COLEGAS ALERTAN SOBRE VENTA DE ESTACIONES RADIALES EN ESPAOL AL RECIN FORMADO LEFTWING MEDIA GROUP

Originally posted here:
English/Espaol: Rubio, Colleagues Sound the Alarm on Sale of Spanish-Language Radio Stations to Newly Formed Leftwing Media Group - Senator Marco...

Eight zero-day vulnerabilities affecting a popular industrial control provided by Carrier have been identified and patched, according to security researchers from Trellix who discovered the issues.

The vulnerabilities affect the LenelS2 Mercury access control panel, which is used to grant physical access to facilities and integrate with more complex building automation deployments.

Carriers LenelS2 Mercury access control panels are widely used across hundreds of companies in the healthcare, education, and transportation industries as well as federal government agencies and organizations.

Trellix said they combined both known and novel techniques that allowed them to hack the system, achieve root access to the devices operating system and pull firmware for emulation and vulnerability discovery.

Carrier associate director of product security architecture Joshua Jessurun disputed the idea that these are zero-day vulnerabilities but told The Record that his team worked with Trellix on remediating the issues and released an advisory with detailed guidelines on what users need to do to address the vulnerabilities. Some of the issues need to be mitigated while most are addressed in firmware updates.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released its own advisory on the issues which are tagged as CVE-2022-31479, CVE-2022-31480, CVE-2022-31481, CVE-2022-31482, CVE-2022-31483, CVE-2022-31484, CVE-2022-31485, CVE-2022-31486 with most carrying CVSS scores above 7.5.

CISA explained that exploitation of the bugs would give an attacker access to the device, allowing monitoring of all communications sent to and from the device, modification of onboard relays, changing of configuration files, device instability, and a denial-of-service condition.

Trellix security researchers Steve Povolny and Sam Quinn said they anticipated a strong potential for finding vulnerabilities, knowing that the access controller was running a Linux Operating System and root access to the board could be achieved by leveraging classic hardware hacking techniques.

While we believed flaws could be found, we did not expect to find common, legacy software vulnerabilities in a relatively recent technology. Furthermore, this product has been approved for U.S. Federal Government use following rigorous security vulnerability and interoperability testing, the two explained, noting that they took their findings to CISA after discovery.

Using the manufacturers built-in ports we were able to manipulate on-board components and interact with the device. Through reverse engineering and live debugging, we discovered six unauthenticated and two authenticated vulnerabilities exploitable remotely over the network.

They managed to bypass security measures by utilizing hardware hacking techniques to force the system into desired states.

The two explained that by chaining just two of the vulnerabilities together, they were able to exploit the access control board and gain root level privileges on the device remotely.

With this level of access, we created a program that would run alongside of the legitimate software and control the doors. This allowed us to unlock any door and subvert any system monitoring, they said.

Most significantly, the vulnerabilities uncovered allowed us to demonstrate the ability to remotely unlock and lock doors, subvert alarms and undermine logging and notification systems.

They added that customers using HID Global Mercury boards should contact their Mercury OEM partner for access to security patches prior to weaponization by malicious threat actors, which could lead to both digital or physical breaches of sensitive information and protected locations.

The two noted that the tools were added to the Government Service Administration (GSA) Approved Product List (APL) and were approved for federal government use, giving the impression that the product was highly vetted.

It is crucial to independently evaluate the certifications of any product prior to adding it into an IT or OT environment, Povolny and Quinn said.

Jonathan has worked across the globe as a journalist since 2014. Before moving back to New York City, he worked for news outlets in South Africa, Jordan and Cambodia. He previously covered cybersecurity at ZDNet and TechRepublic.

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8 zero-day vulnerabilities discovered in popular industrial control system from Carrier - The Record by Recorded Future

A near-perfect season for NASCAR Cup Series competitor William Byron in Super Late Model competition continued at Berlin Raceway on Thursday evening in the Money in the Bank 150.

Nobody could match the efficiency Byron displayed at the front of the stacked 30-car field, as he held off Bubba Pollard following the final competition caution to tally his fifth victory behind the wheel of a Super Late Model in 2022.

FLORACING: Watch all the on-track action at Berlin Raceway

With his win, Byron joins a small but elite group of drivers that have won the Money in the Bank 150 during its brief existence. That list includes Pollard, local regular Brian Campbell and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series driver Carson Hocevar, who won the last two runnings of the race.

Below are the key takeaways from Byrons dominant run in Thursdays Money in the Bank 150 at Berlin Raceway.

William Byron the class of the field

William Byron had never seen Berlin Raceway prior to arriving at the track earlier in the week.

Once he strapped into his No. 24 Axalta Coating Systems Toyota prepared by short track veteran Donnie Wilson, any uneasiness evaporated for Byron as he took control of the Money in the Bank 150 after passing Bubba Pollard early on.

Byron expected Pollard to challenge him as the laps clicked off but said that keeping his composure and taking care of his equipment were crucial towards holding on for the win.

It came down to good tire management, Byron said. Branden [Lines] was coaching me through it the whole time and I was trying to run a good pace with Bubba [Pollard]. At times, I thought he was better than me, but it worked out to where I could get my tires cooled back off and once we got some longer runs, the car came back to me.

For Byron, winning the Money in the Bank 150 carried some extra significance knowing that he ended up beating Pollard and Camping World Truck Series driver Ty Majeski.

The Super Late Model resumes for both Pollard and Majeski include victories in prestigious events like the Snowball Derby, All American 400 and the Oxford 250, so Byron knew that a victory on Thursday would involve defeating two of the best in the discipline.

Byron was thrilled to get the best of both Pollard and Majeski. He is confident that the win in the Money in the Bank 150 will give him some much-needed momentum in both Super Late Models and the rest of the Cup Series season.

Ive never had to beat Bubba and Ty, Byron said. Ive raced against them a lot and theyve beat me a lot, so it was nice to get one up on them and hopefully this is a sign of good things to come.

Bubba Pollard comes up short of second Money in the Bank 150 win

Bubba Pollard was the only driver who came close to challenging William Byron for the win in the Money in the Bank 150.

At the start of the race, Pollard quickly took the lead away from Byron before electing to save his car behind him for most of the 150-lap feature. Pollards efforts proved to be in vain, as he ultimately settled for a second-place finish.

Pollard believed his car was strong enough to pass Byron for the win but said that slower traffic prevented him from getting the run he needed.

The lapped cars at least cost us the chance to race and make it a show for the fans, Pollard said. It is what it is, so now we have to come back and try it again. We were still saving with around 25 to go and I would have liked to see what we had at the end.

A victory for Pollard on Thursday evening would have seen him join Brian Campbell and Carson Hocevar as two-time winners of the Money in the Bank 150.

Instead, Pollard was left to reflect on what could have been as he battled a slick track through all 150 laps that he admitted placed heavy emphasis on track position.

Despite being frustrated with how circumstances unfolded for him, Pollard departed Berlin optimistic about his chances to win the Battle at Berlin in August, which he hopes will involve more on-track passing in different track conditions.

[The track] did not really race that great, Pollard said. It was slick, hot and you couldnt move around. Thats part of it, but this place tends to race really good, so hopefully we can run better here in August.

Brian Campbell endures roller coaster evening

Brian Campbell was not happy when the checkered flag flew on Thursdays Money in the Bank 150.

After overcoming an accident on Lap 2 with Evan Shotko, Campbell patiently bided his time inside the Top 5 while his competitors used up their tires, only for his chances of a victory to abruptly end during the second competition caution, in which race control deemed he spent too much time working on his car in the pits.

Although Campbell rebounded from the penalty to finish fourth, he expressed his frustration towards race control for the penalty that sent him to the rear of the field with over 60 laps to go.

I think the tower stole the race from us, Campbell said. We had the fastest car and were pacing ourselves during the first part of the race. That call took this race from us, and Im pretty pissed about it. We had the car to win.

Having won the Money in the Bank 150 back in 2018 and 2019, Campbell had every reason to believe he could add another victory in the event despite facing a talented field that included William Byron, Bubba Pollard and Ty Majeski.

Being able to quickly climb back through the field in a short amount of time showcased the speed of the cars prepared by Johnny VanDoorn in Campbells eyes, which is why he agitated over being unable to mount a proper challenge for the win.

Campbell does not plan to linger on Thursdays outcome for long, as he is more focused on working with VanDoorn to iron out all the minor issues and start winning races at Berlin on a more regular basis again.

Weve had fast cars every week, but we need to put the whole thing together, Campbell said. This week was very similar to the previous ones, but when we do put a whole weekend together, this No. 47 car is going to be in Victory Lane a lot. Were just going to come back and be stronger.

NOTES:

Originally posted here:
Takeaways from the Money in the Bank 150 at Berlin Raceway - NASCAR

Thank you, Mr Chair and thank you to Mr. Samoilenko for briefing the Permanent Council today on the devastating consequences of Russias illegal invasion on Kherson and its people. It is with heavy hearts that we continue to hear of civilians being killed and injured; of children being left without parents, and parents losing their children. We share the sorrow of the Ukrainian people as they watch their once vibrant cities ruthlessly destroyed.

The international community has witnessed Russias brazen but futile attempts to assert its control of Ukrainian sovereign territory temporarily under the control of the Russian military.

In places such as Kherson, Russia has installed illegitimate pro-Kremlin administrations. These self-appointed proxies of the Kremlin neither represent the brave Ukrainian citizens under their assumed control nor do they act in meeting their basic needs. Instead many civilians are unable to access essential healthcare services, or fundamental necessities including electricity and water. In Mariupol, the WHO have raised the flag on infectious diseases, particularly cholera, being at risk of spreading. In Kherson, residents were left to collect the remnants of those killed from the streets, and in Skadvosk, people had to organise themselves to prevent looting, with many elderly not receiving their pensions.

We have also heard today the horrifying stories of civilians who have suffered directly at the hands of the Russian invaders. The Moscow Mechanism report of 12 April, stated that credible evidence had been discovered to suggest that violations concerning even the most fundamental human rights, namely, the right to life; prohibition of torture; and other inhuman and degrading treatment, had occurred. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine are but two bodies who have documented cases of rape, torture, false imprisonment, forced deportations, forced disappearances, and summary execution in Russian controlled areas.

Russia has embarked on a systematic policy in temporarily controlled areas to erase Ukrainian culture, history and identity. Russia has simplified the process for issuing passports for residents of the southern Ukrainian regions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. Ukrainians are being denied the right to use their own currency, with the forcible attempted replacement of the hryvnia with the Russian rouble. Teachers have been brought in from Russia to impose the Russian curriculum on schoolchildren in Kherson. This systematic attempt is not new, and follows a pattern. We know in illegally annexed Crimea, Russia forced Ukrainians to assume Russian citizenship or lose their properties, their access to health care, and their jobs.

Furthermore, Russia has implemented a severe crackdown on free speech and media freedom in these areas. Their aim is clear - to completely control the media space. In Kherson, access to Ukrainian television channels is being blocked; internet service providers are being replaced with Russian ones; and Khersons residents are being urged to listen to pro-Russian radio stations for their news. Disinformation is being spread through these channels. And this policy by the Russian government is being accompanied by one which sees the disappearance, detention and abduction of Ukrainian journalists or their relatives for daring to tell and expose the truth of Russias shameful invasion of its sovereign, democratic neighbour.

Mr Chair we stand will all the Ukrainian people who have bravely demonstrated their sovereign will to resist and remain part of Ukraine. It is the Ukrainian peoples right and the Ukrainian peoples right alone to determine their own future. It is not President Putins right. And it is increasingly clear that the Russian government and the Russian military cannot break or subjugate Ukraine. Ukraine has shown the most immense resolve, bravery and valiance over the past 106 days. Ukraine has shown the world that it will prevail in its battle for freedom. And we must be steadfast in providing international support that Ukraine both needs and deserves. The UK will be resolute and unwavering in our support - to ensure Ukraine wins its battle for self-determination and Russian forces withdraw. We will do all we can to ensure Ukraine succeeds.

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Human suffering in temporarily Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine: UK statement to the OSCE - GOV.UK