Straight from the horse’s mouth, the chief-commander of the US of A speaking about the Sony hack: “We will respond, we will respond proportionally, and in a place and time that we choose. It’s not something that I will announce here today at this press conference.”
Weirdest hack ever. Sony cracked under the pressure and understandably so. This had nothing to do with cinemas refusing to show the movie. It was about blackmail: keep the film from the public and we will stop releasing more compromising data.
“Very wise to cancel ‘the interview’ it will be very useful for you,” read the message. “We ensure the purity of your data and as long as you make no more trouble.”
The freedom to release anal humor movies is a great good, but if every day that you hold on strong, more details of your operations, finance, your email exchanges and business practises are released, pulling a movie is the easier option.
Limiting the damages at the expense of the free word is an easy one for a corporation. Now what’s next? Cyber wars over a remake of Lawrence of Arabia?
Salman Rushdie published his Satanic Verses at a high cost to his personal life., Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was brutally killed for his work on a anti-Islam movie. Heroes of intellectual freedom.
But who wants to die for a comedy? And which company is willing to pay the price of near destruction over a holiday box office hit? The reality is that Obama is left without the means to respond in an effective way.
Sure a few extra sanctions and deleting the porn collection on Kim Jong-un’s laptop will be within the capabilities of the US, but how do you prevent the blackmailing of corporations over ideological issues?
#SonyHack #TheInterview #Blackmail #Cyberwar #Politics
Disconnect North Korea from the internet. They have shown they cannot be trusted.
+Robert Greenwalt real democratic … shows the proof it was NK … or … could it another 9/11 ? … why would NK be bothered about a shity film ? …
I don't think justice has anything to do with your form of government, but I get your point.
You clearly shouldn't do it without proof, but if we're not sure they did it we shouldn't make posts about "Now what? Kim Oba-ma to destroy all North-Korean Christmas movies?"
If we just suspect NK, then we shouldn't do anything and shouldn't even be mad at them.
I agree. Let's cut off their internet. Who's their ISP? Commiecast?
I would not be surprised if my internet service was the result of a communist bureaucracy..
Corporations aren't people, and Sony's security has been shit for years. Obama has no business intervening on their behalf.
Isn't the Obama you mention the same Obama that just today said to the gathered press:
"The — the fact of the matter is that the United States, for all our warts, is a country that abides by rule of law, that cares deeply about privacy, that cares about civil liberties, that cares about our Constitution. And as a consequence of these disclosures, we've got countries who actually do the things that Mr. Snowden says he's worried about, very explicitly — engaging in surveillance of their own citizens, targeting political dissidents, targeting and suppressing the press, who somehow are able to sit on the sidelines and act as if it's the United States that has problems when it comes to surveillance and intelligence operations. And that's a pretty distorted view of what's going on out there."
I don't think someone that makes such delusional comments should be taken too seriously.
I think if the US response to 9-11 taught us anything its that we the people should expect more transparency before we authorize (through Congress) any kind of military action. Sure it sounds plausible and I trust the FBI more than the CIA but for all I know Sony could have released the stuff themselves for political reasons. They are a Japanese company after all.
+Gijs van Dijk that quote is out of this world. Can you provide a link to the article, I need to frame it and hang it by my bed for a sarcastic laugh every morning.
+Nate Berry indeed, many also think the US staged 9-11 themselves for political reasons, so why not a mere electronics company.
I'm actually amazed how easily a company is apparently brought down. If mere publication of internal business info is so damaging does it even deserve to exist?
+Karim Younes it's in here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/running-transcript-president-obamas-december-20-news-conference/2013/12/20/1e4b82e2-69a6-11e3-8b5b-a77187b716a3_story.html
+Nate Berry if the US response to 9-11 tought us anything, in retaliation for the NK hack of Sony we can probably expect a US attack on a Polish bicycle factory. And there will be 'evidence' making the unrelated retaliation 'legit' too. 😀
What do you guys think of my argument that it was not about the theatres, but the blackmail of releasing more data?
This was digital blackmail (and effective as I argue) The element of added physical threats in the US itself just doesn't scale.
You can't just dump a bunch of North-Koreans armed with bombs in the US when you started from a digital, distance hacking operation.
It's always been about the data +Max Huijgen. But given the emails that were released from the distributors, I'm thinking Sony doesn't mind having an excuse with excellent positive publicity to scrap a movie that otherwise would probably have been written into the ground. This is great corporate win situation from what otherwise was PR disaster and technical cluster fuck. Best turnaround ever. I bet they are laughing their butts off at Sony HQ.
+Marc Roelofs , I fail to follow your logic in your statement: "I'm actually amazed how easily a company is apparently brought down. If mere publication of internal business info is so damaging does it even deserve to exist?" With this reasoning used against any company, corporation, or for that matter, any individual's data, are you saying that unless full disclosure of all data is made companies, corporations, or individuals have no right to exist? Are you totally discounting the natural desire of individuals and corporations to protect the privacy of their data? Do you think all software security products should remove themselves from the marketplace because, gracious, unless everyone's data is out there for all to examine and make use of, they've no right to existence?
+Jo Dunaway, no corporation has an inherent right to exist. Incorporation is a privilege granted by the state.
I'm well aware of that, +Matthew Graybosch , however "individuals" were included in the sentence, as well. The inherent right was for the individuals. I've incorporated 3 times before; I'm not unaware of a corporation's rights to be.
+Gijs van Dijk the only downfall to caving to the demands is that they set a precedent. The hackers can now extort them for every dollar they'll pay and then still pump the data out to embaress the group at any time. They'll never sleep soundly again..
You have got this so wrong +Max Huijgen , hard to know where to begin. Did you HEAR the SONY president's response to President Obama's simple statement, "They should have called me first." ????? It was sane. It was right. SONY did the right thing by their contracts and their responsibilities. Being responsible.
And they will release the movie, I have no doubt. But President Obama's comment? ("They should have contacted me!") And their response to that? …That interaction is the best possible combination of communications in our country that I have heard in many years.
You think we are not being threatened by VNSA's in all sorts of other venues? Not as show-worthy? You think that we (the public) KNOW who the hell is attacking us? No SMART VNSA would let anyone know that they had achieved an attack!!!!! They'd just keeping at it. (As the Nazi Enigma code was broken by the British who did not even reveal it when Coventry was bombed. (So brave!)
VNSA: Violent Non-State Actors
Think about all the stupid decisions made in anger/reactivity/terror to other actions (9/11 anyone?)
I think this entire scenario is as sane, measured, smart and will be an example of smart response going forward.
Are you calling Sony's reaction as sane or the the governments? +Meg Tufano?
From the attackers point of view I would say its a landslide victory. They achieved their goals.
did you hear the CEO of Sony Pictures on NPR? He sounded like it was out of his hands when the theater chains declined but you don't hear anyone complaining about their decisions
It was his best excuse next to admitting to caving in to blackmail +CR2 – Rock & Roll
What if the NSA stole the video from Sony or the North Korean hackers and posted it on the Voice of America's website without Sony's consent? That would preserve freedom of speech, take Sony off the hook because they didn't consent to the hack, and even give the NSA some good publicity for a change. The raw video files must be somewhere. There might even be boxes of DVDs, assuming that isn't all outsourced to China.
+Evan Brody wow, you are thinking this through!!!!
+Max Huijgen it's absolutely about blackmail.
If everyone stayed away from theaters but watched the movie on Video-on-Demand, no amount of bombs could stop us — there are too many WiFi hotspots and too many distant suburbs for anyone to affect even 1 percent of the viewers. In any state, gun owners outnumber terrorists. Even 9/11, scary as it was, only hit 3 buildings.
In a country as suburban and rural as the US, with a decentralized system like the Internet, we could be a harder target than North Korea or even China where people might be concentrated in cities and rely on mass transit, etc.
Certainly +Evan Brody but if I'm right in my strong suspicion that this is about corporate blackmail it won't happen.
+Max Huijgen I'm not holding my breath waiting for it to happen, either.
+Max Huijgen Both. I couldn't believe that that kind of conversation could exist between SONY's president and President Obama. Actually talking and listening to each other! Maybe this is the end of the world! ;')
As to NK "winning," if you don't think that movie will be the most watched movie in history???? I would NEVER have even known about that movie, but now it's going to be watched world-wide, probably on YouTube. BILLIONS of people will watch it!
Now, if, in response, NK tries to send a nuke to Germany (the point of their last exercise was to show they could reach Munich (the test was done over the ocean of course)), then this obviously is no longer a comedy (if anything to do with the tragedy of NK ever is). (And yes, America will use its Missile Defense to protect and defend Germany, so NK most probably will not exist anymore if they were to try to do that.)
I am also not convinced, despite the FBI's assurances, that this is really from NK. Not that the IP address might not be linked, but from what I learned in writing my NSA article, it is incredibly easy to fake an IP address. The possible scenarios are endless…
Whom else would this serve?
Takes the news off of Putin?
IDK.
I did see an amazingly benign "documentary" while in Moscow (in English (!)) about North Korea. In other words, Russia is their friend.
?????
+Meg Tufano One of the articles mentioned that the term "Guardians of Peace" was based on words Nixon used when visiting South Korea in the 1970's. It's not impossible for a modern-day hacker to research old speeches to dig up such cultural references, but it seems pretty difficult and arcane. Was the transcript of every Nixon speech, domestic and foreign, put in online searchable format or onto YouTube? After all, this is a guy who made but erased tapes.
By contrast, very closed societies probably find it easier to hold onto decades-old grudges than places where people freely come and go (like cities with immigrants).
On a technical level, does every intrusion need to have only one culprit? If someone knocks down an apartment's door, and 3 hours later someone else unrelated wanders by and steals a TV set, who is responsible for the burglary? The guy who stole the TV might never have had the "technical capability" to break the door, yet he's the one the cops will find with the stolen TV.
+Evan Brody Just FYI and BTW, Nixon's tapes (minus the 18 minutes) are online and if you want your hair to stand on end, you can listen to them (the f word every other minute). There are at this website: http://www.nixonlibrary.gov
And the direct link to hear the tapes is here:
http://www.nixonlibrary.gov/virtuallibrary/tapeexcerpts/index.php
Excellent point about the difficulty of finding the right source. The NSA and the FBI are pretty good at finding sources despite my sense that this time they may be wrong about the source of the SONY break in.
My understanding of the FBI and NSA's abilities is summarized in my article about the NSA here:
http://www.synaptiqplus.com/journal-winter-2013/The-Deep-Dark-Web
+Meg Tufano Your essay in synaptiqplus.com was very thoughtful, with a nice preface by +Giselle Minoli . It expressed what had been my general view, until recent news events and editorials made me question it. However, you have made me reconsider. I think in the end, many issues are not black-and-white and it becomes a matter of deciding which bad things are more tolerable, because any approach has its disadvantages and abuses.
Re the Nixon library, I thought the tapes might now be available, but I wasn't sure about his overseas speeches. Then again, he might have discussed them in the Oval Office in advance with his speechwriter(s) or Sec'y of State Kissenger to get a sense of which wording and content worked best.
Incidentally, it's interesting that despite his widely reported use of profanity, he (and others) had the restraint not to use it in public. Back in the 1970's, I remember the use of "Expletive Deleted" as a replacement phrase in many of the transcripts; today few people use the term "expletive", and profanity is sometimes published uncensored. That is a level of civility which has been lost, though it allowed Nixon to hypocritically appear nicer in public than he really was.
The Department of Homeland Security subsequently reported there was “no credible intelligence to indicate an active plot against movie theaters within the United States.”