In this corner “The impossible made possible”, wearing black and white trunks Coca Cola Zeroooooooo! In the other corner, the step counter and music gadget, wearing red and white trunks the Nike Plusssssssssss! (Actually is Men vs Women and the winner takes on Zero).

Yesterday I was walking and I saw this two ads, one from  Coca Cola Zero and the other from Nike Plus. The two companies are monsters and can spend big bucks on ads. However they have a long history a providing us with remarkable advertisements, which are fun to watch and may tip the balance their way when buying products from their category (soft drinks and sports).

Coca Cola Zero “Impossible Made Possible”

The Zero commercial (“Mourning After”) is targeted at Men to communicate that Zero is “Men’s Drink”. That just because you care about calories, that doesn’t make you less of a Man. The ad  uses sex, action and special effects to deliver the message. Although is a minute long, there is a story with a bad guy (The Daddy) the cute girl and the boyfriend as the “hero”. At the end he made look freaking awesome by living in a helicopter, which kind of make us men say “he is the man”. The  “look and fee” of the commercial is from the movies made popular in the 70s that use the “Exploitation” promotion. Exploitations Films

is one which relies heavily on the lurid advertising of its contents, rather than the intrinsic quality of the film. the “exploit” are such as a big star, special effects, sex, violence, romance, etc.

Which were brought back to life, thanks to the double feature “Grindhouse” (2007) by Rodriguez and Tarentino. Although many may criticized the use of sex to sell soft drinks, if you complain or rave about it, Coca Cola just got what they wanted: you remembering the brand.

The Nike Plus ad is not about gender, even if “Men vs Women” is all over the place. No, this ad is about running and competition, and those who enjoy it.

Nike Plus One Minute Version

Nike took Nike Plus and made it social. Not many companies in the world are able to make their products social and successful as Nike did. Instead of sharing pictures, status updates or links, here you share your running data and music. The commercial grabs competition and music, wraps it into a race and tights it up with a punch line (men having the last laugh).

Yeah they use some professional athletes and Eva to do so, if you can why not, however when you see it and feel the music you just have fun. And maybe you get that itch of going out an run and join the competition. Although it will have been nice if they could had mixed up and not show fit and thin (especially girls) runners. Think about it, do people that don’t look that fit will feel unmotivated ? What about the elder? Maybe nike doesn’t care about that, they just want those that are passionate about running, because their products are not that cheap.

Nike Plus Extended Version

Apparently researchers at the (apparently Swedish) security company Outpost24 found a vulnerability in the TCP stack, The Register reports:

“If you use the Internet and you serve a TCP-based service that you value the availability for, then this affects you,” Robert E. Lee, chief security officer for Sweden-based Outpost24… “That may not be every Internet user, but that’s certainly any IT manager, that’s certainly any website operator, mail server operator, or router operator.”[1]

Apparently Outpost24 found the vulnerability on 2005, keeping it a secret because they wanted to find a fix to it. Apparently they couldn’t find a fix, so now they are politely asking for help. This action by Outpost24 intrigues me, on they state of mind when finding it. What was there reaction and still wonder…

Now I ask, is this a good practice, to wait 3 years to disclose a mayor vulnerability? Should reseraches be paid for this? Do you have the right to do what ever you want with a vulnerability you find? This questions has been discussed before and will be discussed for a long time.

Last question: Is this a way of saying we don’t trust the security community or we want all the credit. Who knows, but what I know is that there was, a couple of months a go, another “major” vulnerability, that time on the DNS. (for a refresh read it here), and the Internet is still running and we can still chat, log into facebook, watch videos and download torrents. It will be interesting to think what will the world without secure Internet.

You can listen to the podcast of Outpost24’s Senior Security Researcher, Jack C. Louis here.

In another security news apparently there was a major cross scripting exploit found in major sites like YouTube, MetaFilter, New York Times and ING Direct site (which is Financial Service Company).

[1]Full article of the register here.