Should Sony Yield to Threats?

Posted on Wednesday, December 17, 2014 by Post Scripts

by Jack Lee

Several large movie chains in the U.S. have decided not play Sony’s new comedy movie “The Interview” because hackers that stole Sony’s digitized script and other data have made threats to attack the theaters where it is playing.

The Sony hackers have threatened a 9/11-like attack on movie theaters that screen Seth Rogen and James Franco’s North Korean comedy “The Interview,” substantially escalating the stakes surrounding the release of the movie.

The attackers also released the promised “Christmas gift” of files. The contents of the files are unknown but it’s called “Michael Lynton,” who is the CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Question: What would you do if you were Sony?

Here’s the actual threat and by reading it you get the idea that English is not their first language. My guess is they speak Korean.

“Warning

We will clearly show it to you at the very time and places “The Interview” be shown, including the premiere, how bitter fate those who seek fun in terror should be doomed to.
Soon all the world will see what an awful movie Sony Pictures Entertainment has made.
The world will be full of fear.
Remember the 11th of September 2001.
We recommend you to keep yourself distant from the places at that time.
(If your house is nearby, you’d better leave.)
Whatever comes in the coming days is called by the greed of Sony Pictures Entertainment.
All the world will denounce the SONY.

More to come…”

Sounds just like the bluster we’ve come to know only too well from North Korean propagandists. Hmmm…lets see they have the ability, opportunity and motive to hack Sony and threaten them, but who else would? Gee… uh,… nobody? Unless, you believe 9/11 was an inside job, then you can probably find reason to blame this on George Bush.

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10 Responses to Should Sony Yield to Threats?

  1. Chris says:
    Wednesday, December 17, 2014 at 11:50 am

    “Sounds just like the bluster we’ve come to know only too well from North Korean propagandists.”

    Agreed.

  2. Jim says:
    Wednesday, December 17, 2014 at 1:07 pm

    I think all Seth Rogen movies should be banned. Believe me, the hackers are doing us a favor here.

  3. J. Soden says:
    Wednesday, December 17, 2014 at 2:26 pm

    Dear SONY: A way of telling N. Korea to “pound sand” would be to release the movie for viewing on the Internet.
    Adding a single-finger salute would be optional . . . .

  4. Post Scripts says:
    Wednesday, December 17, 2014 at 6:22 pm

    Nobody should be hacked, but Sony has been hacked several times and they never took steps to improve their security. Once all their customer’s ID and credit card numbers were stolen on their Play Station site. Sony has never made a move to protect their customers, much less their secure data. Management has been negligent and stupid.

  6. More Common Sense says:
    Wednesday, December 17, 2014 at 9:07 pm

    “Shoot the hostage”! This is an artifact from the first “Speed” movie. Sony has already categorized this movie a total loss. If I was in charge I would put a digital copy of the movie on the internet free for download as a gift from Sony. Up yours North Korea!

  7. Tina says:
    Wednesday, December 17, 2014 at 9:16 pm

    Several possibilities are discussed at Engaget:

    …the Guardians of Peace, whoever they may be, have also been demanding equality at the company, leading some to believe that employees could very well be involved with the attack. Another message by the group stated the following: “We want equality. Sony doesn’t. It’s an upward battle. Sony left their doors unlocked, and it bit them.” It added, “They don’t do physical security anymore. Sony doesn’t lock their doors, physically, so we worked with other staff with similar interests to get in.”

    “We see operational and malware similarities that tie it to the previous DarkSeoul campaigns on South Korea, which were run by Korean-speaking attackers,” Baumgartner told me. “Those campaigns are tied further back to a years-long operation targeting military and government organizations, which suggest a North Korean actor.”

    Meanwhile, the FBI has said there’s no confirmation that North Korea was culpable for the attack. “There is no attribution to North Korea at this point,” Joe Demarest, an assistant director at the bureau’s cyber division, commented during a cybersecurity conference in Washington, DC.

    Forbes:

    North Korea has denied any involvement in the massive hacking attack last month on Sony Pictures Entertainment, and absent evidence clearly pinning the deed on Pyongyang, it may be fair to keep an open mind. With investigators still digging into the case, it’s too soon to rule out a role in the attack by some of North Korea’s closest friends — for instance, Iran.

    When Sony’s computers were breached on Nov. 24, North Korea became an immediate suspect due to its bellicose protests and threats issued earlier this year over a Sony film, “The Interview,” scheduled for release this Christmas. The movie is a burlesque, mocking North Korean tyrant Kim Jong Un with a plot in which two buffoonish TV journalists land an exclusive interview with Kim, and are asked by the CIA to assassinate him (“Take him out,” says the CIA agent; “For coffee?” they ask).

    In June, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry released a statement that distribution of this movie would be “the most undisguised terrorism and an act of war,” and “will invite a strong and merciless countermeasure.” North Korea’s ambassador to the United Nations, Ja Song Nam, wrote a letter to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, repeating the charges, and demanding that the U.S. government ban the movie.

    Following the attack on Sony, North Korean authorities released a statement, on Dec. 7, in which they denied that North Korea had done the hacking — but they went on at some length to gloat over it. Carried by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency, which refers to North Korea as the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea), the statement included the speculation that “The hacking into the SONY pictures might be a righteous deed of the supporters and sympathizers with the DPRK in response to its appeal.” The statement included a warning of the “anti-U.S. sacred war to be staged all over the world.”

    The mention of a sacred war could be simply a reference to North Korea’s own ventures under the totalitarian rule of its supreme leader Kim. But the reference to North Korea’s supporters and sympathizers easily brings to mind Iran’s Islamic Republic, which since its inception in 1979 has been waging its own version of holy war against the U.S. This is an endeavor in which Islamic Tehran for more than three decades has made common cause with the infidels of Pyongyang, including a brisk trade in conventional arms, increasingly sophisticated missiles and related technology.

    As it happens, a number of recent reports on cyber security have noted the likelihood that North Korea and Iran may be working together on cyber warfare. Among them is a 75-page briefing by Hewlett-Packard’s security research unit, released this past August under the title “Profiling an enigma: The mystery of North Korea’s cyber threat landscape.” (continues)

    Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy knowing that the administration cow tows to Iran and men like Ayers is now criticizing the US in Tehran.

    One of the bad things about computer hacks, as soon as you fix a problem they already have a way around it. This is tough stuff.

  8. Tina says:
    Wednesday, December 17, 2014 at 9:44 pm

    In defense of free speech a Texas town will show “Team America” in place of “The Interview”

    Don’t mess with Texas!

  9. Libby says:
    Wednesday, December 17, 2014 at 10:10 pm

    Well, I am glad to see that some of you are embarrassed, but we need to see that manifested … politically. Your infatuation with the likes of Cruz and Perry do not meet the test.

    I highly recommend the entire piece, however …

    From ANDREW O’HEHIR @ Salon.com …

    I guess the answer was foreordained, but like so much that happens in America these days, it’s an answer that reveals our tremendous weakness and spectacular cowardice, our hilarious and pathetic tendency to resemble the proverbial elephant cringing before a mouse. … You could argue that all of this is excessive but understandable caution, and that no theater owner or movie studio wants to run the 0.01 percent risk that its reputation will be destroyed by a murderous attack. But that isn’t the answer, because I don’t think any real people think the risks are even that high. Sony and the theater owners don’t want to run the 100 percent risk that they will be pilloried by Fox News talking heads and deranged Internet commentators for not keeping Americans safe, and for inviting Ebola-carrying Mexican-Muslim-Communist terror-drones to attack the very shopping malls that represent the zenith of American freedom and the American way of life.

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