Videoage International January 2018

4 World January 2018 V I D E O A G E (Continued on Page 6) H ackers worldwide be warned: You can enter any U.S. government server with impunity, but don’t mess around with Hollywood unless you want to pay the consequences. The Sony Pictures intrusion doesn’t count because, as many believe, it was probably an “inside job.” Instead, look at the recent hacking of the HBO series Game of Thrones as a warning. In that instance, the intruder, Iranian national Behzad Mesri (pictured at right), was quickly identified and located in Iran. “He will forever be looking over his shoulders, and if he isn’t, he should be,” said U.S. Attorney Joon Kim during a news conference in New York City last November. Last summer, Mesri managed to locate and steal several unaired episodes of HBO shows, as well as full scripts for top-secret episodes of Game of Thrones . He then demanded a large payment in bitcoin. When HBO refused to pay up, Mesri leaked the shows online. According to U.S. press reports, Mesri has worked as a hacker for the Iranian government in the past. It was confirmed by an indictment filed in U.S. District Court in New York City that Mesri is a member of the Turk Black Hat Security hacking team and has worked for the Iranian military on computer attacks against Israel. European TV Brand-Safety Advertising F ive months after four European broadcasters came together to form the European Broadcaster Exchange (EBX) as a way to compete with advertising on social media outlets, England’s Channel Four joined the venture in November. The EU consortium includes: Italy’s Mediaset/Spain’s Mediaset España,Germany’sProSiebenSat1 and France’s TF1. Set to start operation this year, EBX is located inLondon, andmanagedbyChris LeMay(picturedbelow),aformer executive at DataXu, a Boston- based company specializing in programmatic advertising. “Programmatic” ad buying is the use of software to purchase digitaladvertising(or,inlayman’s terms, using computers to buy ads). Programmatic advertising automates the decision-making process of media buying by targeting specific audiences and demographics. Ad buyers can use pro- grammatic buying to fan ads across the web in real time and evaluate what’s working best — which geographies, dayparts, audience segments, content providers, etc., are having the most success — so they only pay for highly efficient ads. Each of the four groups owns 25 percent of EBX and each will provide ad inventories from their VoD platforms, allowing it to be sold as one block to digital media buyers. This way EBX hopes to compete with similar programmatic services offered by Facebook and Google. In addition, and contrary to social media advertising, EBX offers “brand safety,” so ads will not appear next to inappropriate content. Theparticipatingbroadcasters, who represent an audience of 310 million people, are able to offer real-time, pan-European video campaigns in a brand-safe environment. EBX is expected to reach up to 160million people on its platforms. Hackers Put On Notice: Do Not Hit Hollywood 14 x 60 14 x 30 NA T P E BOO T H 6 0 8 www.grbtv.com • sales @ grbtv.com 100 x 30 33 x 30