Reaction to the Sony Hack Is 'Beyond the Realm of Stupid'

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/reaction-to-the-sony-hack-is-beyond-the-realm-of-stupid?utm_source=mbtwitter

by wglb • 12 years ago

231 100 12 years ago

motherboard.vice.com

oplint• 12 years ago

"Terrorist" is probably the most destructive word in modern American vernacular. It means both anything and nothing; its only purpose is to (ironically) evoke fear in the listener and handwave away people and ideas you don't like with no evidence and no grounds for further discussion.

Forget motives and social constructs. Forget thinking about real solutions. Are they "cyberterrorists"? Are we being "terrorized"?

The answer to the latter question is of course yes, but not by the "terrorists" but by sensationalist articles like this.

scintill76• 12 years ago

I also "love" how the only thing scarier than a terrorist, is a cyberterrorist.

Dylan168073• 12 years ago

A terrorist is someone who threatens/harms bystanders for a political goal, more or less.

Hacking Sony is not an act of terrorism, threatening theaters with violence is.

nishonia3• 12 years ago

That is far too broad a definition - and still not completely correct. Terrorism falls within the spectrum of warfare, it isn't as simple as "Well I feel terrorized, so my tormentor must be a terrorist!" Also, the emotional state of terror - the word has been severely corrupted. The British were unquestionably terrorized by the German dive bombers, fitted with signature sirens, in WWII. That was clearly a terror campaign, because intent was expressed and capability demonstrated. This whole movie thing, not so much.

gtremper• 12 years ago

"terrorist" seems to be the modern equivalent of "communist" during the cold war.

leeoniya• 12 years ago

As noted elsewhere, Sony is a Japanese corp. The release - in any country - under their watch can cause retaliation against Japan and sour already touchy relations between them and North Korea, not to mention the physical proximity, smaller country size, etc.

waterlesscloud2• 12 years ago

Eh. This misses a couple of things.

One, the FBI told the theater chains that if they screen the movie, they could be targets for the hackers. I'm pretty doubtful that theater chains have good security, and they probably know it. They also don't want their internal emails spread all over the media and their business disrupted. As no company does. So I can't blame them once the FBI has scaremongered them.

Two, once the theaters said they won't screen it, Sony would lose money releasing it. It's not free to send out prints and continue advertising. If they have no hope to make money, why lose more money? And why piss off the hackers further? Where's the win?

It's nice to sit back and say Sony should release it, but honestly, what's in it for them at this point?

djrogers• 12 years ago

It was still initially Sony's call to let the theaters out of their contractural obligation to air it.

Once they all took them up on the free pass, yes - canceling the release may have been the sensible move.

spinlock• 12 years ago

Is there an obligation to show a movie on the theaters part? I always assumed they paid for the right to show a film but were independent in their opperations.

gojomo2• 12 years ago

This interviewee's criticism is not narrowly focused against Sony, but the entire reaction: theater chains, Sony, media, the American psyche, a "lose our shit" mentality.

It would take a wider cultural consensus to respond in solidarity: theaters don't cave, studios don't cave, moviegoers don't cave, media doesn't feed panics, the legal system doesn't require cowering as a liability issue. We're not there yet... but maybe we can get there, with discussion and experience.

sosuke• 12 years ago

The biggest issue to be addressed is the last one, how do you change the legal liability. If I have a shop, that is receiving public threats, I choose to remain open, you choose to visit even after hearing the threats. Something happens to you, I'm not liable, you chose to visit. Forgive me, but I think about the abortion clinics, the people working and volunteering go even in the face of threats, even though people get shot by doing what they believe in. The clinics aren't held liable for the attacks. The theaters should not be held liable.

How should that work, how can we change it?

deciplex• 12 years ago

It would take a wider cultural consensus to respond in solidarity: theaters don't cave, studios don't cave, moviegoers don't cave, media doesn't feed panics, the legal system doesn't require cowering as a liability issue. We're not there yet... but maybe we can get there, with discussion and experience.

Considering that the American public has been sprinting in the opposite direction for the last decade, I wouldn't hold my breath.

It takes a serious and abiding commitment to total cowardice in the face of adversity to make up excuses for admitted torturers and war criminals - I don't think a single person is going to find their stones now over a film that apparently no one was going to watch anyway.

jws• 12 years ago

I wonder if Sony has an insurance policy that pays if a movie can't be released? I can imagine such a thing would exist to protect them in the event of a copyright problem with the story or script. I see lots of movie industry insurance, but it appears to be geared toward filming accidents, so this may not exist.

waterlesscloud2• 12 years ago

There's Errors and Omissions insurance for things like copyright/trademark violations. But getting it requires a pretty thorough inspection of the film, and it's hard to imagine the E&O people overlooked the whole risk of North Korea. I don't know if they pay out in the case of being unable to release the film, it's mostly protection against lawsuits. It'd be interesting to know exactly how that plays out though.

anigbrowl6• 12 years ago

There's a kind of production financing insurance called a completion bond, but that is meant to hedge against the risk of running out of money during production or whatever. I don't think there's any sort of financial instrument that insures against this sort of thing - if you know or suspect an outcome like this for whatever reason, the smart move would be to hedge against a fall in the stock price by buying a put option. However, a $40m loss is pretty small in the face of Sony's ~$1.8 billion in annual revenue. Every big studio has a few big-budget bombs each year, so it's not that big a tragedy in commercial terms, (plus they'll probably make the money back with ease when the DVD comes out).

pakled_engineer• 12 years ago

India and Pakistan when various groups threaten to bomb theatres they delay the film release a few months then show it anyway. Sony is going to do the same, then shill it as a must watch in order thwart glorious victory of comrade jong-un.

nemothekid• 12 years ago

Not sure I take the reductionist view point of calling the hacking "just a Bond script release". Allegedly the hackers stole over 300TB of data, and we have already seen them mountains of private information such as SSNs. If those SSNs were then sold/used for fraud (causing even more damage), and that revenue used to by weapons, could we call it a terrorist act then?

arghnoname• 12 years ago

No.

If I rob a bank it is not a terrorist act. If I use the money to make a dirty bomb and commit a terrorist act with said bomb, that's a terrorist act, not the initial robbery.

paulhauggis3• 12 years ago

It's a terrorist act to threaten movie theaters with 9/11 style attacks for showing a movie and this is exactly what the hackers are doing.

connie_lingus• 12 years ago

sony should just release the damned thing on christmas day on netflix and let the whole world deal with it at the same time.

skuhn6• 12 years ago

It continues to baffle me that so many people are assigning substantial blame to Sony.

Yes, their executives were uncouth in their private e-mails. However, these e-mails were literally stolen from them and made available publicly in a campaign designed to embarrass them after they refused to cave to initial blackmail demands. There is no Pentagon Papers conspiracy here that the press needed to expose for the public good -- they're just airing dirty laundry and furthering the ends of criminals.

Yes, Sony had lax computer security and they made it a lot easier than it should have been to abscond with internal data. However, it is so much harder to protect against a targeted attack and (I don't believe) the method of the attack has been disclosed, if it is even completely understood yet. They should be ashamed and apologetic about their security practices, but that doesn't mean they as much as published this information themselves.

Yes, The Interview doesn't look particularly great, and I didn't plan to see it. Yet it should absolutely be allowed to exist and to be publicly released. It is a comedy. It is not "an act of war" as Sony's attackers claim. The existence of this film did not harm real people, that is entirely a result of the extreme overreaction by the people behind these attacks.

I absolutely think that Sony is being blamed for their victimization, and I don't agree with it. It would be terrible to be in their position, and I don't think any company who operates within the laws of their country should be subject to any of:

  1. A loss of over $40 million
  2. A smear campaign using their own stolen, private correspondence
  3. Release or misuse of all manner of employee personal information, SSNs, etc.
  4. And all of the other things they're dealing with right now

If you place value in free speech, privacy rights and the arts I don't see how you can side against Sony here. I don't care if it's "terrorism" or not, the people involved in these attacks are certainly criminals.

joeyh• 12 years ago

"operates within the laws of their country" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_rootkit

Doesn't excuse others illegal activities, but it certianly makes it easier to feel a certian level of schadenfreude in this case.

anigbrowl6• 12 years ago

That was a decade ago, they paid out several million to settle the matter, and the actual impact of it was virtually nil. The endless harping on this transgression has reached the point of being posturing rather than substantive criticism.

skuhn6• 12 years ago

I thought about mentioning the root kit as well, since a lot of people get schadenfreude-y over it. I greatly disliked the root kit and that whole approach to treating your customers like criminals (d/b/a DRM), but I don't see this attack as giving Sony their just desserts.

The root kit was attached to Sony BMG's products (CDs), and this current attack was against Sony Pictures. Sony is a giant conglomerate with 140,000 employees and who knows how many child companies. To top it off, Sony BMG was a 50/50 joint venture with Bertlesmann. The root kits first appeared on BMG CDs, suggesting that it originated at Bertlesmann and not Sony (although I don't know that and it doesn't excuse Sony anyway).

While it's hard to measure the impact that the root kit had on Sony BMG's customers, it's safe to assume that most of them did not have their personal data disseminated all over the Internet and in newspapers. Whereas that's the reality Sony Pictures and their employees are currently dealing with.

It also happened eight years ago. While not everyone may forget or forgive, I think it's more productive to respond to the way Sony treats me as a customer today versus a decade ago. That's how you encourage better behavior from a company, by rewarding them for doing a better job.

paulhauggis3• 12 years ago

Nobody cares about privacy anymore. The mainstream media spreads around private conversations and emails..and people are getting fired over it. I can bet if I got the private emails from some key CNN reporters and spread it around on social media, their tune would change. I would actually like to see this.

I laugh when people in the mainstream media talk about how bad it is that the government is spying on us. Why does it even matter anymore? 1984 is here. It has nothing to do with the government and everything to do with social media.

It's so easy to spread lies around as fact on social media...and people believe it. Just look at all of the false information spread around during the Ferguson protests..which people still believe to this day.

Even Obama admit to swaying public opinion using social media and data mining.

bdamm• 12 years ago

Any president that did not sway public opinion using media would not be doing their job. Manipulation of the media is a basic tool for anyone in politics, including the good guys.

Media is a tool.

skuhn6• 12 years ago

Gawker in particular has really turned my stomach with their extreme dedication to exploring every possible facet of the leaked e-mails. Yes, they're a tabloid, but rumors and tips are one thing and stolen, personal communication is another.

I don't know how they would react if every e-mail sent or received by their mail server was made public and dissected. Maybe they would just laugh it off, but I'm sure there are a few they might prefer to hold on to.

waps• 12 years ago

This sounds the lawyers argument. Something is illegal so it shouldn't be done, and you get to get to act as if it didn't happen at all. Anyone who thinks different, gets to pay restitution.

The thing to remember here is that law is a fiction, enforced by the state.

I don't think anyone is "siding against Sony", they just

1) Realize that if this is indeed a nation-state attacking, the perpetrators are beyond the reach of justice. So law really is a fiction in this case.

2) Are calling out Sony, not for being in the wrong, but for being stupid.

skuhn6• 12 years ago

I agree, law is a social construct and a fiction as you say. US laws certainly do not always agree with my own moral code. If you prefer, I find these attackers and their actions to be immoral, which is solely my own judgment.

Saying that Sony behaved stupidly isn't a problem in itself. I just feel like this is the dominant narrative and that it's been taken to the point where people are blaming Sony and not the attackers.

It's analogous to the furor over companies like Yahoo being outed as supposed PRISM participants. Yes, that sucks but the US government is the culprit there. That's where the blame rightly belongs.

I think it's easy for some people to look at this and say it just prevented the release of a not particularly exciting movie, no big deal. How would we all feel if it hit a little closer to home though? What if Putin decides that it offends him that many of the world's computers use an OS with a kernel created by a Finnish programmer and takes similar steps?

AnthonyMouse• 12 years ago

It continues to baffle me that so many people are assigning substantial blame to Sony.

The people stealing private emails are not Robin Hood but Sony is still the Sheriff of Nottingham.

Being right is not proved by being on the opposite side of a dispute with someone who is doing wrong. They can both be wrong.

byerley• 12 years ago

The North Korea link really confuses me.

How is a small country like North Korea capable of mounting such a sophisticated attack when they aren't even teaching their computer students about the Internet? - http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2014/12/07/suki-kims-exper...

Even if they specifically trained a hacking group, the talent pool would be tiny.

rjvir3• 12 years ago

They could have massively funded a group of hackers in China to carry out the attack.

chrischen• 12 years ago

Or massively funded a group of hackers in the USA.

downandout2• 12 years ago

This is pretty ridiculous. Want to clear out an entire NFL playoff game in a few weeks? Tweet out a vague threat against the game about 24 hours prior. Want several million dollars? Send emails to about 20,000 bars and restaurants demanding $5K in Bitcoins or their business will be blown to bits.

The problem isn't that Sony capitulated to a threat. It's that they capitulated to a nonsensical threat. They gave credence to every threat. Earlier in the day I was somewhat neutral on this, but now that I've had a chance to consider it I think that Sony is actually endangering our national security with this move. This is the first time in recent memory that America has been seen as caving to terrorist demands, and it can only create more disasters.

dalek_cannes• 12 years ago

Sony is Japanese.

ssalazar• 12 years ago

Sony Pictures Entertainment, who produced and marketed this movie, is based in the US (Hollywood) and run by Americans. In all likelihood this decision comes from them.

rjvir3• 12 years ago

It's not an empty threat. They completely compromised Sony's servers. Who knows what they haven't leaked yet, or what they are capable of.

The movie theaters decided to not show the movie because they couldn't implement a nationwide security system in every one of their theaters in 2 weeks. Since there is 0 security at movie theaters, I as a moviegoer would be extremely scared to go to watch this movie in it's opening week.

tdicola• 12 years ago

I as a moviegoer would be extremely scared to go to watch this movie in it's opening week.

Sadly, that's exactly the fear the hackers want you to have. You have much higher odds being hurt or killed in a car accident on the drive to the theater than from some potential terrorist act.

lotsofmangos• 12 years ago

I as a moviegoer would be extremely scared to go to watch this movie in it's opening week.

You are in vastly more danger from other traffic on the drive to the cinema. Hell, you are more likely to die through home carpentry.

michaelkeenan2• 12 years ago

I tried to roughly estimate the risk.

There are 18,000 theaters that could be targets. Let's say there are 10 showings over the opening weekend that might be bombed, so if you attend, there's a 1 in 180,000 chance you'll be in the bombed theater (assuming there's only one bombing). Let's say there's a 5% chance it's a real threat (personally I'd estimate around 1%, but let's use 5% to be conservative). That gives a 1 in 3.6 million chance of being in the bombed theater.

Compare to car accidents. There are 1.27 fatalities per 100 million miles traveled in the USA. If the movie theater is five miles away, that gives you a 1 in 7.9 million chance of dying in a car accident on the way to or from the movie.

If we stop calculating there, it looks like you'd be roughly twice as likely to be in the bombed theater than to die in a car accident on the way to the theater. (Note that this is the chance of being in the bombed theater, not of dying in the bombing. Presumably, most people in the theater would survive.) To me, that seems like an acceptably negligible risk.

More detailed calculations could include the chance of dying conditional on being in the bombed theater, and could include the chance of more than one theater being bombed, and adjust for the chance of the bomber being foiled or the bomb not working, and could adjust for which theater you're seeing it in (theaters in major cities are more likely targets than small towns).

skuhn6• 12 years ago

I think the likelihood of a physical attack being carried out at these theaters is literally zero. It's one thing to compromise servers from anywhere in the world and it's quite another to build bombs and plant them in movie theaters. This is the ultimate goal of terrorism after all, not to kill people but to make people afraid to go about their normal lives.

Part of me wishes that the American public viewed this mess as a cause to be supported, to say criminals and/or a dictator from a third world country doesn't get to decide what harmless entertainment is suitable for us. I, for one, do not want to be threatened because I watched (or made) a movie.

Imagine if ticket sales had gone through the roof for this movie, the kind of statement that would make. And whether or not anyone actually watched it is beside the point.

IvyMike• 12 years ago

Since there is 0 security at movie theaters, I as a moviegoer would be extremely scared to go to watch this movie in it's opening week.

Think about what you are saying. "There is a group capable and willing to commit acts of terror on American soil... but now that Sony has not released the movie, I am perfectly safe".

Squarel• 12 years ago

So anyone who is capable of compromising the servers of a corporation, or even a government agency is also capable of blowing up things?

Good to know.

BrandonMarc2• 12 years ago

To a lesser degree, Comedy Central did too, when they refused to fully air the South Park episode featuring, apparently, Mohammed hidden inside a bear costume.

chroma• 12 years ago

Considering reactions to cartooning of Muhammad, I'm not sure that threat was so empty. Still, it's sad the episode was censored.

anigbrowl6• 12 years ago

I think that Sony is actually endangering our national security with this move

Oh FFS, that's just as stupid as calling it an act of war.

notjackma• 12 years ago

Some people believe it is... this guy actually has a regular column at Forbes.

U.S. Should Make North Korea Pay for Sony Hack

Pyongyang has given the Obama administration no choice but to retaliate now by imposing sanctions or even an embargo.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/17/u-s-should-...

codezero2• 12 years ago

Individual theaters backed out before Sony had a choice in matter. If theaters refuse to play the film, it's moot what Sony does. Of course they could accept s limited release, but that would kill their profits. They are a business so it wouldn't make much sense to do a limited release if it's not profitable. They could still go for a digital release or something else but they probably won't.

People should really be upset at the theater owners who officially opted out. Chances are Sony may have pushed the release anyways but since they were forced by the theaters they are the ones who deserve to be balked at.

Also, Sony isn't America. It's a Japanese company, with a large presence and investment in America, but there's no reason to assume that give them any nationalistic motives or compass.

superuser2• 12 years ago

They are a business so it wouldn't make much sense to do a limited release if it's not profitable.

The movie has been produced at this point. It can't cost that much to ship some hard drives to theaters. It would make sense to try to recover at least some of their investment.

rwallace• 12 years ago

If I were the CEO of Sony, I'd put the damn movie on YouTube under a CC license and weaponize the Streisand effect.

This has turned out to be a dead loss financially for Sony either way, and when you know you've lost the current game, it's time to start thinking about the next one. Being seen to capitulate like this marks Sony as an easy target. The next time some bunch of cybercriminals wants money and is thinking about targets for some blackmail scheme, who's going to be at the top of their list?

ddingus• 12 years ago

It's a sunk cost.

SONY should release, because fuck terror.

elektronjunge• 12 years ago

The theaters backed out when Sony let them back out. Sony had contracts with the theaters that said that they would show the film. After receiving the threats Sony told the theaters that they were no longer bound by those contracts.

alexqgb2• 12 years ago

Marc Rogers makes a convincing case that North Korea was almost certainly not behind the attack, and that a disgruntled (former?) employee was. His analysis makes the terrorism threat seem even hollower.

http://marcrogers.org/2014/12/18/why-the-sony-hack-is-unlike...

VieElm• 12 years ago

They gave credence to every threat. Earlier in the day I was somewhat neutral on this, but now that I've had a chance to consider it I think that Sony is actually endangering our national security with this move. This is the first time in recent memory that America has been seen as caving to terrorist demands, and it can only create more disasters.

Of course given an article about a stupid, overblown reaction a stupid and overblown reaction would be the top comment. This craving of egos heavily immersed in the social news context for every popular news item be the Most Important Thing That Has Ever Happened And Nothing Will Ever Be The Same Again, paired with a never-ending need for everyone to be outraged about everything is just so tiring. Just get a hold of yourself and and chill out, ok, the world isn't over. Sony didn't just endanger your life. You're probably going to die of cancer in some hospital bed at 4pm in the afternoon a few decades from now after a pretty boring, normal life. You want excitement and danger go help a NGO in a war torn region. You're not going to find it on the pages of reddit and hacker news. This guy rolling his eyes in the vice article would probably roll his eyes at your response as well.

Houshalter• 12 years ago

I think you are reading far more from parent comment than he actually saying. Nowhere in his comment did he say anything to the effect of "It's significantly more likely my life will be taken in a terrorist attack." Which is what you seem to be interpreting it as.

At best he just said that this could encourage more situations like this and possibly terrorist attacks. And all he literally said was "it can only create more disasters" which isn't very specific as to how many/severe said disasters are to be. How "overblown" of him.

He's not saying that the sky is falling. He's saying that it's bad policy to cave to threats like this, even once. Which it definitely is.

As an analogy, one police force giving into a hostage taker's demands probably wouldn't lead to more criminals taking hostages. But if it happened every time, hostage taking would become much more rampant. And so giving into criminals is almost universally against policy. Even if on a case by case basis it would seem overblown and ridiculous; to not just give them what they want to save lives.

And there are possibly serious consequences of just this incident. I bet there will be many fewer movies made about North Korea now. Movie studios will censor self-censor themselves more on things that might upset powerful groups. Of course that may have happened anyway but now they've given up millions of dollars - whereas otherwise they might have actually profited from the attention of the controversy. Two movies have already been cancelled over this nonsense.

downandout2• 12 years ago

You completely misinterpreted my comment, and your response is far more over the top than you incorrectly claim mine to be. My point was that private businesses caving to threats that have no possibility of being carried out will embolden countless others to make similar threats. Thus, what Sony did will likely cause similar issues for other businesses, large and small, the thinking being that US companies are so risk averse that they will just give in.

palmer_eldritch• 12 years ago

Maybe Sony wasn't scared of real-world terrorist attacks on theaters but of some informations that the hackers might disclose to the world. Who knows what kind of dirty laundry ended up in the hackers' hands.

Did the hackers mention "the interview" before the press started speculating on the attack being from NK?

For all I know, they could be playing with the fears expressed by the medias after the hack went public. If that's the case, they're probably having a hell of a time posing as NK supporters terrorizing Americans.

spacecowboy_lon• 12 years ago

yes is I where Obama or the comerce secratery id be considering using the kiss of death words "not fit and proper persons to run a public company"

zaroth• 12 years ago

I wonder if in refusing to show the movie, are the theaters really concerned about the physical threat, or the cyber threat? The physical threat is certainly the headline, and provides an easy out for theaters who might actually be more concerned about their networks.

The cyber threat is certainly the more credible of the two. Hackers who owned Sony so completely could now turn their focus to AMC, Regal, Cinemark, and Carmike. Aside from looting data stores, they could potentially shutdown ticketing systems, hack customer databases, steal credit cards...

We know a well-funded persistent targeted attack is guaranteed to succeed against these kinds of targets. I'm not really sure what's even holding back the tides of cyber-warfare beyond perhaps governments' inefficiency at organizing the necessary task forces. Fear of enforcement or retaliation certainly isn't the gating factor on the teams who are perpetrating these hacks.

The whole thing seems beyond absurd from one angle, and at the same time portends an escalating cyberwar which will not be nearly as fun to watch as The Interview.

marcosdumay• 12 years ago

I wonder if in refusing to show the movie, are the theaters really concerned about the physical threat, or the cyber threat?

More likely, they are concerned about the economic threat. It's a great excuse to not lose exibition rooms empty with a bad movie, and yet evade any kind punishment by Sony.

pdkl95• 12 years ago

http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/dane_geld.html

    It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
      To call upon a neighbour and to say: --
    "We invaded you last night--we are quite prepared to fight,
      Unless you pay us cash to go away."

[...]

    "We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
      No matter how trifling the cost;
    For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
      And the nation that pays it is lost!"

afarrell• 12 years ago

Kipling may be an imperialist, but he is an honest one, and certainly correct about some fundamental ugly truths of international relations.

efnx• 12 years ago

I want to watch this movie more now so I hope I can at least find the version that these hackers have released. I'd rather pay and sit in th theater but one way or another.

gojomo2• 12 years ago

I've not yet seen any clear, convincing reporting of why anyone would believe that the theater-threat comes from the same person/persons who compromised Sony's servers/network.

The NYT mentioned an email sent to multiple media outlets – but did that email somehow prove inside knowledge of the hacks? Perhaps, by revealing fresh info or using a cryptographic signature associated with earlier releases or messages left behind on Sony's machine's? If so, no reports have said so.

Another site mentioned a Pastebin source for the threat, which was accompanied with links to other Sony emails. But were those new, unique emails that could have only come from the hacker(s)? And which was the first threat source – an email or a Pastebin?

These are basic questions of apparent provenance that should be answered in any coverage of internet-delivered threats.

sandstrom• 12 years ago

Now and then I discover apparently longer-running threads in the news that I've completely missed.

Sometimes I feel embarrassed that I've missed them, but mostly I'm just happy that I have. This one seems like the latter.

This essay is good (although I don't feel as strongly about it as the author).

http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews

(I still like journalists and news, I just wish it would be more long-term, less 'real-time')

scelerat• 12 years ago

Sony hasn't capitulated. This is PR gold. Just wait for them to change their minds on down the line. The pent-up demand will drive sales far beyond anything that would have happened had they ignored the "threat."

Animats• 12 years ago

Bruce Schneier: "Someone killed 12 people and shot another 70 people at the opening night of Batman: The Dark Knight [Rises]. They kept that movie in the theaters."

But that Batman movie was a good movie. (OK, not the best of the franchise, but still OK). The plot of The Interview is "a celebrity journalist and his producer land an interview with Kim Jong-un and are instructed by the CIA to assassinate him." That sounds like a good action-adventure movie. But it was made as a comedy. Dumb. Then the plan was to release it on Christmas Day, usually a day for take-the-kids movies. Dumber.

Sony may be using this as an excuse to escape from a turkey of a movie. Of course, now we all have to see it. Probably on Netflix; it's not worth a trip to a theater.

This whole affair is in the realm of stupid, on all sides.

btbuildem• 12 years ago

Yeah pretty much the only way for Sony to salvage the situation is to release this p.o.s. as a torrent..

joshstrange• 12 years ago

Please remind me again why we spend BILLIONS on Intel, let them trample our rights, and operate in complete darkness? Oh yeah it's to prevent... Oh, well, uh....

What use is the FBI/CIA/NSA/etc good for if the same attacks happen regardless of how much money we funnel their way? I couldn't care less about this movie, I might have watched it when it came out on DVD but pulling it from theatres because of threats from an unknown entity? Even if it's from NK that's an even bigger reason to ignore it.

This is a dangerous precedent we are setting when a threat can stop a movie from getting released. We are caving to terrorism (this is probably one of the first times ever "we are letting the terrorists win" actually fits the situation) of an unknown entity.

S_A_P• 12 years ago

The terrorists(or fake terrorists) won here, plain and simple. I honestly cant believe we are even having this conversation, or that pulling the plug was even an option here. However, to play devils advocate, I wonder what would happen if say, China were to make a movie about assassinating the president of the US, what sort of reaction our government would have. Just because North Korea is a small country with few means to really get at us doesn't make it a good idea to write a film with a plot about killing their leader.

That said knowing Seth Rogen movies, Im sure it ended up with them smoking weed with KJU and having a party out of it, so he shouldn't be that upset...

talmand2• 12 years ago

If China made such a movie, I would expect the government reaction to be a sternly written statement saying something.

"Death of a President" is movie about solving the assassination of George W. Bush with British production companies, so it's been done. I don't recall going to war over it or anything.

Personally, if I were President and a foreign country made a raunchy comedy about assassinating me, I'd give it a try before condemning it with a low review score.

justanother• 12 years ago

The situation as analyzed in this article highlights the misgivings I have always harbored about the term 'terrorism'. Once we classify a particular set of criminal behavior as being so much more heinous than ordinary crime, we pretty much invite everything, over a long enough time scale, to slide down the slippery slope into this new classification. When I was much younger, this word referred to organized groups whose sole aim was murder and destruction. Now it is applied to children who point fingers at each other and say "bang!" as well as whistleblowers and (apparently) people who hack movie studios. Is it time to retire 'terrorism' yet?

personZ• 12 years ago

This is a pandering article where someone acts outraged to pander to an audience.

Firstly, "cyberterrorism" has forever been defined as attacks on computer resources, not attacks on people. If a nation state crippled a business to coerce their actions, that is pretty much spot on with the definition of cyberterrorism.

Secondly, who ever said that such a theater attack would have to simultaneously hit 18,000 theaters? The threat seemed to be that any theater could be at risk. I mean, is ten theater attacks okay? Five? Two? One? Sony and theaters are not the US military or the government. They're a risk abatement private enterprise.

This is a terribly weak article. He redefines existing terminology and then strikes down absurd strawmen to get the cheering crowd to nod along.

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