variety.com/2014/film/news/sony- … 201382032/
Lots of whining by Sony about how evil this is. I’m pretty sure the Norks don’t care. What they care about is: IT WORKED. That means it will probably happen again. Lots of times.
We’re entering a new era. Antivirus won’t save you.
Also, I saw somewhere someone slipped language into a bill to let the US gov’t snoop on everyone without a warrant. Hoping that’s an exaggeration.
Yup, fixed that for you Sony.
Bit daft not to beef up security. They might have known a movie like that would provoke backlash.
No? Really?
I bet the North Koreans are behind that one too. TrustNo1.
I understand cinemas’ concerns not to screen the film. Unless they set up metal detectors and guards at each theater, they wouldn’t be able to ensure the safety of their patrons. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was the responsible thing to do, but it’s certainly understandable.
Sony’s response is the one that surprises me. They could have allowed cinema operators willing to show the movie to go ahead. Instead they have basically said: you got me!
It was kind of tasteless for them to approve this movie in the first place though. I don’t think they really thought it through. Regardless, they should have been well aware there would be a backlash and should have made preparations for it.
Maybe the North Koreans have a sense of humor after all and thought it would be funnier to see Sony hacked AGAIN instead of watching a Seth Rogen movie.
“The world will be full of fear,” the message reads. “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.)”
The world is not full of fear. The world thinks North Korea is funny. Silly arses!
I guess what did it was the mention of another 9/11. SONY wouldn’t want to be saddled with the lawsuit if that threat came through… over a silly movie that is obviously not that good. However, it does set a bad precedent.
I read some really positive reviews of it after it premiered in LA last week. Too bad I’ll never get to see it.
Frankly I find Seth Rogen intensely irritating. I can’t exactly blame the NKs.
Maybe Sony should refuse to sell His Royal Blobbiness any more Playstations in retaliation.
Maybe North Korea, maybe not. Wired magazine thinks the evidence for N. Korea is very flimsy and suggests a mix of various actors with various motives acting together. China, needless to say is in the mix.
wired.com/2014/12/evidence-o … k-is-thin/
Tech journo Leo Laporte speculates that it’s enraged hacktivists who post the 2005 Sony rootkit disaster have been exacting revenge in an ongoing series of attacks.
twit.tv/show/this-week-in-tech/488
schneier.com/blog/archives/ … rootk.html
The FBI/US government have not offered any conclusive evidence in support of their claims that it was the North Ks.
Drat , i wanted to see this movie.
But Sony is afraid if just one nutjob causes trouble at one theatre in America, people are going to sue Sony.
Its all a matter of money.
Quick responses:
Maybe Disney did it, in order to get back the rights to Spider-Man!
New Zealand should have done something like this when the Hobbit movies came out.
So, it’s not showing in the USA. Is it showing here?
SONY should rejoice at the prospect of a minor comedy getting all this free publicity, thus positioning itself to clean up with the DVD version.
The South Park guys sure did get off lucky. (Team America: World Police)
Imagine that somebody made a comedy about the assassination of Obama. How do you suppose the US government would have reacted?
Some crappy art can’t bring down something of substance. Why would any government respond?
[quote=“Zla’od”]
6. Imagine that somebody made a comedy about the assassination of Obama. How do you suppose the US government would have reacted?[/quote]
That’s not a valid comparison. At least I hope it isn’t.
These ‘sophisticated’ hack attacks usually result from your standard, naive employee using the standard corporate Windows (registered trademark) operating system. An email arrives saying ‘Happy Birthday’, or some such nonsense, and ‘click to see your birthday card’.
And they click.
[quote=“rowland”][quote=“Zla’od”]
6. Imagine that somebody made a comedy about the assassination of Obama. How do you suppose the US government would have reacted?[/quote]
That’s not a valid comparison. At least I hope it isn’t.[/quote]
It’s not exactly, but I get his point. Chaplain’s Great Dictator was a fictional character even though it was clearly based on Hitler, and the story was never about assassinating him. Any government in the world would be angry about a long-term “enemy” making a film on the killing of their leader. Imagine how China would react to “Operation: Kill Xi” or Russia to “The Assassination of Vlad.” It would have been much less tasteless if the filmmakers had come up with some sort of thinly veiled representation of Kim Jung Un rather than make it clearly about him. I don’t blame North Korea for feeling insulted.
[quote=“Hokwongwei”][quote=“rowland”][quote=“Zla’od”]
6. Imagine that somebody made a comedy about the assassination of Obama. How do you suppose the US government would have reacted?[/quote]
That’s not a valid comparison. At least I hope it isn’t.[/quote]
It’s not exactly, but I get his point. Chaplain’s Great Dictator was a fictional character even though it was clearly based on Hitler, and the story was never about assassinating him. Any government in the world would be angry about a long-term “enemy” making a film on the killing of their leader. Imagine how China would react to “Operation: Kill Xi” or Russia to “The Assassination of Vlad.” It would have been much less tasteless if the filmmakers had come up with some sort of thinly veiled representation of Kim Jung Un rather than make it clearly about him. I don’t blame North Korea for feeling insulted.[/quote]
One can hardly blame North Korea for feeling insulted: then again, one can hardly credit North Koreans for actually knowing what is happening outside their border; let alone coordinating a hack-attack from within their Internetless nation.
[quote]“As the United States is spreading groundless allegations and slandering us, we propose a joint investigation with it into this incident,” said a spokesman for the North’s foreign ministry.
“Without resorting to such tortures as were used by the U.S. CIA, we have means to prove that this incident has nothing to do with us,” the spokesman was quoted as saying by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).[/quote]
lol…that’s actually a pretty good one. Touche, North Korea…Touche…