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August 2020
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Brew Dog, Aldi Get Into Brand Battle With Good Nature, Not Cease And Desists

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It's been quite a brief but impactful journey for Brewdog, a self-styled "punk brewery." The history starts with Brewdog first going after a pub in the UK over trademarks, getting a fair amount of backlash for it, and then having Brewdog ownership not only rescinding all the threats, but inviting the pub to collaborate on a gin together. As part of that whole episode, Brewdog promised to "do better" when it came to IP enforcement and even covered the pub's legal costs. It was a nice story.One which the brewery has by all accounts lived up to. Subsequent stories about them here dealt only with a strange attempt by the Estate of Elvis Presley trying to stop the brewery from trademarking a craft brew entitled Elvis Juice. Brewdog won that one, by the way.And now again Brewdog is making news for itself by poking at a larger entity, but has once again managed to do it in such a human and awesome way that Aldi of all companies appears to be a willing participant in the fun. The whole thing started with Brewdog putting out an on-brand IPA beer entitled "Punk IPA." From there, Brendan Palfreyman, an IP attorney that specifically focuses on the craft brew industry and is a fantastic follow on Twitter, picks up the back and forth when Aldi decided to poke the Brewdog.

Yeah, this is actually happening. Consider the back and forth here for a moment. Brewdog makes a Punk IPA in a blue can. Aldi decides to release a Establishment IPA in a blue can, one that harkens specifically to Brewdog's. Rather than go full IP lawyer-rage, Brewdog takes the whole thing in stride and announces the release of an IPA called Yaldi, which mimicks Aldi's branding. The whole thing is enough to make an IP maximilist keel over and die from an embolism.And, yet, no trademark threats. The only mention of a cease and desist comes from a third party that has a Yaldi brand beer. Aldi never gets in on the threats. Instead, the game continues.
Take notice: this is a major brand basically showing a brewery a better way to create an homage to its own brand. IP maximilists they are not. And, because the folks at Brewdog are apparently made of that old craft brewing DNA, where you treat this business with equal amounts reverence and irreverence, all while maintaining a sense of humor... they did as Aldi requested.
Aldi's response? It said it's looking forward to getting a case of ALD IPA and might even clear some aisle space for it. In other words, there might actually end up being a lucrative business deal coming out of this whole thing.And what's really striking in all of this is just how easily this whole thing could have gone ass up if anyone on either side had decided to play IP fun-police rather than act so human and cool about this whole thing. Brewdog could have gotten pissed at an obvious knockoff beer at Aldi and tried to threaten the grocery chain. It didn't. Aldi could have decided that Brewdog's retort was a bridge too far and tried to threaten the brewery. It didn't.Instead, we might have a business deal in the works. One wonders if this will get the rest of the craft beer industry to pay the slightest bit of attention so it can go back to its old, better ways.

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posted at: 12:00am on 25-Aug-2020
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Consumer Reports Study Shows Many 'Smart' Doorbells Are Dumb, Lack Basic Security

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Like most internet of broken things products, we've noted how "smart" devices quite often aren't all that smart. More than a few times we've written about smart lock consumers getting locked out of their own homes without much recourse. Other times we've noted how the devices simply aren't that secure, with one study finding that 12 of 16 smart locks they tested could be relatively easily hacked thanks to flimsy security standards, something that's the primary feature of many internet of broken things devices."Smart" doorbells aren't much better. A new study by Consumer Reports studied 24 different popular smart doorbell brands, and found substantial security problems with at least five of the models. Many of these flaws exposed user account information, WiFi network information, or, even in some cases, user passwords. Consumer Reports avoids getting too specific as to avoid advertising the flaws while vendors try to fix them:

"Since the manufacturers have yet to fix all but one of the 11 vulnerabilities we discovered, we can't fully describe the issues since we want to avoid supplying information to potential hackers. However, we can tell you which models are affected, some of the risks facing consumers, and how the manufacturers responded to our findings."
The report also found that most models of smart doorbells collect way more data than is actually needed to function (Amazon/Ring's relationship with law enforcement has been well documented by Tim Cushing). Beyond that, barely a quarter of the brands could be bothered to implement two-factor authentication, considered a fairly basic necessity to prevent your account from being compromised:
"Our tests also revealed that most video doorbells lack two-factor authentication, a widely used security feature that sends users a temporary, onetime passcode typically via text message, email, phone, or mobile app to use in addition to their password for logging into their accounts. With this feature enabled, a hacker can't log in to your video doorbell account even if they have your password. In fact, barely a quarter of the brands we tested have two-factor authentication. The only ones that have it are Arlo, August, Google Nest, Ring, and SimpliSafe."
As some security analysts like Bruce Schneier have long noted, there's market failure here in that consumers can't be bothered to research what they buy, manufacturers can't be bothered to properly secure their gear before moving on to hype the next model, and government guidance or punishment for lax security is inconsistent at best. Most of these products are advertised as smarter alternatives to older, dumber tech. But they inadvertently advertise how, in many instances, dumb technology (like a deadbolt, traditional doorbell, or a dog) is consistently the smarter option.

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posted at: 12:00am on 25-Aug-2020
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