CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF HACKING

What do Apple, Amazon and Microsoft have in common? 

The answer: All three technology giants, considered the gold standard among cloud computing providers, have suffered the ignominy of being breached by hackers.

Apple’s “celebgate” incident exposed personal photos of its celebrity iCloud users and made unwelcome news headlines last year. 

UK technology provider Code Spaces was forced out of business last year after hackers tried to blackmail it and subsequently deleted crucial data from its Amazon Web Services-hosted cloud storage. 

In 2013, an expired SSL certificate in Microsoft’s Azure cloud service gave hackers the chance to bring down the Xbox Live and a raft of other cloud-hosted services.

Cloud security risks are rising, with attacks growing at 45% year-on-year globally, according to cloud security firm Alert Logic. In the next five years, $2 billion will be spent by enterprises to shore up their cloud defenses, according to Forrester Research. 

First time cloud users can be most at risk, simply because of unfamiliarity with the new environment and the added burden of having to grapple with a new way of managing users, data and security.

Credit:Rajesh Maurya, Fortinet / Financial Express

I KNOW WHO YOU ARE

If you’re reading this I know your IP address, the state and city you live in, where you came from on the web, how much time you spent reading my blog and what you read.  If you replied to my email linking to my blog I could easily spend a few minutes knowing if you are visiting as an individual or through a company location.  I can even find your address via coordinates and do a Google Earth search and catch a bird’s eye view of your home or office.

I am not a hacker.  I am not a data scientist. I have no interest in spying on visitors or circumventing privacy acts.  But simple, often free, third party application tools allow anyone to venture into this nefarious world of invasive spying, leading to data collection on a deeper, much deeper, level.

Once data is collected, it can be harvested.  Yet as we allow this practice to continue, Adobe notes that “82% of global consumers believe that companies collect too much information on consumers.”

It is no longer a paranoid minority that is freaking out.  GFK and Microsoft found that 93% of email users believe that users should be able to opt-out if they don't want the content of their emails to be scanned in order to target ads.  And the Pew Research Center confirms that 86% of U.S. internet users have attempted to remove or mask their online activities.

As an offshoot to this paranoia, ad blocking patches for web surfing have been slowly nipping away at ad based revenue streams for publishers.  It is estimated that 20% of U.S. surfers have installed ad blockers. The number in the Euro zone is a whopping 40%.

Now the brands and data companies are freaking out.

Data thirsty brands and media may be killing the goose laying the golden data egg.  Tables are slowly turning on the data hunters/gatherers as privacy laws and special interest groups begin to educate the consumer that Big Brother, on the government and enterprise level, is watching. The backlash will hurt.

In the coming months this blog will monitor privacy issues with commentary on both benefits and cautions on the state of the business.

Feel free to reply.

THE DISRUPTER OF THE NEXT CENTURY

We are sitting on the brink of a new and huge industrial revolution that has been slowly gaining momentum over the last 25 years.

Additive Manufacturing, also known as 3D Printing, has crept along as the technology that drives it moved from a primitive stage to a more sophisticated base.

The potential applications to manufacturing, medicine, media, hobbyists and yes marketing are mind-bending.

The use of 3D printing takes virtual designs from computer aided design and transforms them into thin, virtual, horizontal cross-sections and then creates successive layers until the model is complete. It is a process where the virtual model and the physical model are almost identical.

Think like The Jetson’s.  The 1962 animated sit-com family popped a couple of buttons on what looked like today’s microwave oven and presto! the item they ordered appeared.  The reality of that futuristic animation has come to roost on our doorstep.

A personal 3D Printer can be had today for as little as $400 in kit form. More professional models start at about $1600.  Even Amazon sells them!

Today’s 3D printers have “printed” guitars, model planes with a 6 foot wingspan, human organs for clinical trials and are currently producing parts for jet fighters.  Limited only by our imagination, as these printers become more sophisticated and as common as a TV set in our home, you can bet that distribution and delivery channels will go through enormous upheaval.

Be prepared.  Everything in manufacturing will change as we know it today.

While the impact on marketing has yet to be determined, imagine the distribution of sampling through this new channel.

 That new toy for your child is only a few buttons away. Order the Computer Animated Design (CAD) specs for that toy online, download it to your 3D Printer and wait a few minutes.  Need a replacement part for a broken taillight on a classic 1957 Chevy?  Print it!

Investments in 3D Printing companies today will become the equivalent of Microsoft, Apple, IBM, etc. when they emerged as new businesses.

In 1439 the Gutenberg Press laid the basis for today’s knowledge-based economy and the spread of learning to the masses.  The 3D Printer is the disrupter that will revolutionize global economies through access to a world of product needs.  This will especially be the case for third world countries representing huge growth markets.

If you would like to explore the potential for 3D Printing as it relates to our marketing landscape, feel free to reach out to me at pbenjou@gmail.com.

WHAT IF??

Many pieces make up the whole.

There is much buzz concerning Microsoft's intentions when it announced that IE10 would default to a Do Not Track option for advertising.  What that would do to its ad business (and that of advertiser's ability to target ads) is a concern for many marketers.

Who benefits from such a move? 

It appears that  Microsoft, if it indeed is exiting the ad business, as might also be reflected in its shrinking business staff, is looking to ultimately move users away from Google Chrome, and its tracking default, to a "friendlier" Do Not Track platform.

But let's look under the covers.

What would Microsoft do with its ad business?  The recent announcement by Yahoo's Marissa Mayer to rethink the use of cash from its Alibaba deal (about $7 Billion) leads me to assume a bigger deal is at hand. 

Reverse engineering the merger between Yahoo and Bing, Yahoo could use the cash to buy out the Microsoft ad business, bolstering display and, more importantly Search.  Given Marissa's oversight of Search while at Google, it's not a far fetched scenario.

What do you think?

CYBER ATTACK ON GOOGLE?

At 12:01 AM (CST) today, April 1, in Taiwan, it is believed the Chinese government, angered by Google’s decision to circumvent internet censorship rules, launched a global cyber attack on the company effectively hampering its ability to operate.

Initial denial of service attacks and shut downs in Europe and Asia are expected to spread to the Americas sometime today as Google scrambles to prevent further service cuts and begins to restore operations in affected regions.

Chinese authorities deny involvement in the attack.

Google’s vulnerability has been compromised and its stock price is expected to crash, losing as much as 75% of its current market price.

Google representatives are meeting with President Obama’s advisors as a security breach for the world’s largest search engine is also raising concerns for national security breaches across government and financial sectors.

The US Government is on full alert providing assistance to Google in an effort to identify the origin of the attack, determined to be centered in Asia.

Other search engines including Yahoo! and Microsoft appear unaffected but are nonetheless taking precautions. Baidu, China’s largest search engine and benefactor of Google’s exit from the country, is also unaffected.

Please note that it is already April 1st in Taiwan.

So, rather than appear foolish afterward, I renounce seeming clever now.

…William of Baskerville in “The Name of the Rose”.

Happy April Fools Day!

LET'S MAKE A DEAL

As the dust settles on the Publicis / Razorfish deal one overriding question remains concerning the "strategic alliance" between Publicis and Microsoft.

As part of the deal, Publicis is committed to spend hundreds of millions on Microsoft search and display ad inventory, over a five year term, at favorable rates. It is unlikely that details concerning favored nation rates will be made public.

As an advertiser I might question the inclusion of Microsoft's media on a buy as a potential conflict of interest, stemming from the commitment Publicis made to Microsoft. According to David Kenny, managing partner at Publicis, the "deal presents no conflict". It is not, however, Kenny's call to make. That's for the advertiser to decide.

The alliance seems to miss the growing participation of advertisers in ad exchanges, developed to provide a bidding platform that can take advantage of hyper-targeting, leveraging a huge data pool for optimal returns. How does stepping out of that framework work to the advantage of Publicis' clients? Was this an oversight?

If search and display rates for Microsoft are below par, will Publicis be allowed to dump the inventory into the exchanges as a broker? Will Microsoft allow it and risk setting rate precedents?

This was a good deal for Microsoft. It remains to be seen if Publicis will fare nearly as well.