IF HE'S NOT SAFE, ARE YOU ?

US Intelligence chief has his phone account hacked, calls forwarded to Free Palestine Movement.

Normally when you see a headline referring to intelligence agencies and phone accounts being hacked, you expect in this day and age that it’s law enforcement that is doing the hacking.

But  not in this case.

Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper appears to have become the latest to fall foul of hackers, after a teenage hacker called “Cracka” broke into a number of online accounts belonging to the spy chief.

Cracka told reported that the accounts accessed included Clapper’s home telephone and internet, his personal email, and his wife Susan’s Yahoo account.

Having allegedly broken into Clapper’s Verizon account, Motherboard reports that the hacker changed its settings to forward all calls to the Free Palestine Movement.

To further back up his claims, the hacker shared with Motherboard a screenshot of what appears to be Susan Clapper’s Verizon account, as well as a list of call logs made to James Clapper’s house.

It’s not entirely clear why Clapper was targeted by the hackers, but it’s true to say that he became notorious in March 2013 when he was questioned by a United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing about whether the NSA “collected any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans”.

If the details of the security breach are true, then it is obviously a concern that the hacker was not only able to reroute calls made to Clapper’s home, but also view the phone numbers of people calling him and access personal email accounts.

For that reason, it’s perhaps a relief that those behind the hack were more interested in simply pranking the Director of National Intelligence rather than having something more menacing in mind.

Last October, a group calling itself “Crackas With Attitude” or “CWA” managed to break into the AOL email account of CIA Director John Brennan, and claimed to have gained access to the Comcast account of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson.

At the time, Clapper was said to have been “outraged” by the hacks. No doubt he is feeling even more apoplectic now the hackers have struck closer to home.

This is an excerpt from Tripwire's  "The State of Security".

 

ADVERTISING'S BEST KEPT SECRETS

As we begin to assess the upfront TV market we are watchful of the new entries at the kiddie table .... online video networks.  Notwithstanding the embarrassment of a $30,000 Mustang give-away (AOL's grandstanding) we nee to keep things in perspective.

The video that follows was produced by none other than Bob Hoffman (Hoffman Lewis Advertising) and says it better than I can. 

Watch and learn. Sources credited here.

AOL - FROM PATCH TO FULL BODY CAST

Patch, a hyper local division of AOL just announced a course correction that will attempt to hire 8000 unpaid local blog contributors by May 4th. HA!

Patch is quilt work of 800 sites dedicated to local community news. But the cost of paying each of the 800 editors and staff is a losing proposition for AOL.

Arianna Huffington to the rescue! Replicate the HuffPost model! No need to pay for content when they can offer writers what?.....Nothing!

This is a train wreck waiting to happen and yet another example of the folly that has become AOL.

This parting shot from Mediabistro's Fishbowl LA ...

"In other words, if you have any ethical qualms about demanding free content from your writers, better get over them now–or the only thing you’ll have to worry about is the door hitting your ass on the way out."

AOL AMERICA'S ONLINE LUNACY

When AOL and The Huffington Post teamed up last month it sparked controversy that is now spilling over into the investment world.

AOL stock is being shorted by investors betting that the company will tank. Not far from its all time low of $18.51 on March 16th, it may only be a matter of time before it, like MySpace, begins to drift towards the Bermuda Triangle.

Further complicated by a class action suit instituted by one of Huffington Post's contributors, the complaint charges that none of the $315 million paid by AOL for the news and opinion website co-founded by Arianna Huffington and Kenneth Lerer was shared with the writers and other creators of the site’s content. The suit seeks class-action, or group, status.

The complaint claims that 9000 writers provided the site with free content worth as much as $105 million, which “should be returned” to the plaintiff and the class. Huffington Post derives revenue from advertising on the site.

Adding insult to injury, the majority of the contributors who supported Arianna's site as a more liberal platform are now taking a back seat to the more conservative AOL.

Did AOL not believe that a site whose content, driven by 9000 freelance, unpaid writers, would not create a backlash? It is so very obvious that AOL's CEO and largest shareholder, Tim Armstrong, is desperately rearranging deck chairs on a sinking ship.

Watching and waiting.


Click on the chart to enlarge it

AOL or AWOL ?

Can AOL be fixed or is it time for the company execs to fold the tent and go AWOL?

As an outside observer, internal memos and external "off the record" quips seem to position the company as one grasping at straws, exasperated by bad, very bad, ad sales and earnings.

Tim Armstrong, AOL's CEO, wants to turn the company around with a manifesto of "wants" that reads like a child's tantrum.

This link to SAI's Business Insider puts it all into perspective with a peek into the AOL Master Plan.

The most recent broadside follows with a chart that illustrates how bad display sales really are.

Click on the chart to enlarge it

Where AOL goes from here remains to be seen. It is hard to argue, however, that this once high flying media company will survive in its current form.

AOL: AMERICA OFF LINE

Once the focal point of social networking and a former stepchild of Time Warner, AOL may be writing its final chapter as a viable business. Spun off buy Time Warner in the fourth quarter of last year and declaring it's IPO status the same day, AOL (NYSE) is facing a tenuous future.

The chart that follows illustrates its revenue declines over the past few years. As subscribers leave (who needs a middleman to connect with the net?), ad dollars are sure to decline as well.

Click on the chart to enlarge.

What went wrong?

Is Time Warner to blame? Since its merger with the company in 2001, a decline of the value of the company was set in motion. Controversy concerning operations, billing disputes, account cancellation "scams" and subsequent investigations did not help its cause.

AOL was becoming a company in search of a purpose.

AOL is a matured company in a failed marriage that has not been able to keep pace with the shifting dynamics of a digital landscape. Its management is likely to blame, taking their eyes off the real prize ..... people.

Building a huge following with little regard for the followers (are you listening Facebook?) is a perfect recipe for failure.

It was fun while it lasted ....

AOL's stock graph since its IPO follows ....

Click image to enlarge

I'M AGAINST IT !

Lately, some of my readers suggested that I often take a contrarian position on new developments in the ad business. I accept those observations as generally true with a need to explain why.

Our industry is hurtling forward at breakneck speed trying to desperately keep up with the technology that precedes it. Since the explosive growth of the Internet in the late nineties, the bubble that burst in 2001 and the rise of the venture capitalists out of the ashes, the movers and shakers of our industry are at it again.

I smell a land grab of sorts. MySpace, Facebook and, God forgive us, Twitter all attempting to make something out of nothing more than a conversation. None of them have yet to yield a return to their investors.... not a penny!

Ad exchanges and ad networks are popping up like ducks in a shooting gallery ... most of them simply replicating one another, offering identical inventory that has been dumped into them by publishers.

Skeptical? Yes. Let's set the record straight. Many of these ideas are very bad ideas and will lose money and jobs as we have recently witnessed by MySpace and soon, AOL.

It's the skeptic in me that keeps my strategic focus on the reality and business of our business in tow. It also often keeps clients that will listen and learn from making dreadful mistakes.

There are many advances in our business that make both traditional and digital media exciting, productive and return valuable insights and actionable results.

And while I am skeptical of many new "toys", I am also playing with them to see if I can keep from breaking them.

So thanks for the feedback. The video that closes this posting was found on Bob Hoffman's great blog, The Ad Contrarian. Bob is the CEO of Hoffman/Lewis in San Francisco and St. Louis.