Sony's "The Interview"
 

It looks as though Sony will not be releasing The Interview.

Personally, I think that a movie, even a comedy, about the assignation of the leader of any country is in extremely poor taste and should have turned down as a studio project.

Is it right for a foreign country to hack into the studio files? Of course not.

Is this possibly a huge scheme by Sony to make this movie the biggest block buster of all time?

Was this an act of blackmail, terrorism, or marketing?

NBC News reported tonight that the FBI says that North Korea is definitely behind the hacking, so doubt that it is a marketing gimmick. A big announcement on who is behind this could come as early as tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Among other things it was an act of cowardice and abject wimpiness by Sony ... release the movie!! I want to see it. Hollywood bleats about free speech yadda except when it counts.

At the same time, it's hard to feel sympathetic for Sony given their complete hypocrisy as evidenced by their conversations about certain people in the news

However, and more importantly, the lack of a US response to North Korea is also *certain* to embolden hackers worldwide ...why not, if no consequences? Weakness, as always, is provocative.

Perhaps it's better to wait until the investigation is complete before talking about the punishment.

Sorry, but no need for an "investigation" ... this hack is obviously the work of the North Korean government and most likely instantiated by their intelligence service. Some of the code was written in Korean and similar to the hack against South Korean banks last year.

Thus, the question is not who did it but what we will, or should, do about it.

Don Quixote is alive and well !

Precisely what "response" or action should be taken on North Korea?

As is Neville Chamberlain I see ...

I agree that a screenplay about the assassination of a sitting leader of a country, no matter how inept or objectionable, should have been turned away at the door. I would probably find it amusing as I like good satire, but still I found it he entire concept to be a bit disturbing. Now, giving in to the hackers threats is also objectionable to me so I struggle with the whole situation.

Clever as that statement may (or may not) be, it does not answer precisely what response should be taken on North Korea.

I recommend the appropriate punishment would be forcing their military leaders to look at The Kardashians and Bruce Jenner.

I would be quite happy to recommend a course of action ... I have some ideas in mind and will provide them.

However, I'd first like to get a sense from other posters as to how they see this. Do you think we should take some type of retaliatory action (details tbd) or opt instead to make a few nervous jokes and ignore it?

To recap, a hostile foreign power reached into the US, essentially destroyed a US corporation, and threatened terrorist violence unless a movie critical of the Dear Leader was shelved.

Do people from all points on the spectrum essentially agree that this act cannot go unanswered?

By bullying the movie out of the theaters for the big premier by instilling fear of 911 style attacks, N. Korea has accomplished censorship in this country, by cyberterrorist attacks and fear of rattling the cage where the N. Korean leader's finger is on the nuclear weaponry button.

As always, nobody explains the real threat to our freedom of speech like Prof. Alan Dershowitz:

"If the North Korean government is in fact behind the hacking of Sony and the threats of violence directed against theaters that planned to show The Interview, then the United States has been a victim of warfare directed against our most basic right—free expression. Those who hacked and threatened violence succeeded in doing something the U.S. government could not do: namely censor a movie based on its content.

North Korea’s apparent victory over this film is but a coming attraction of things to come. If hacking and threats can shut down a poorly reviewed comedy, they can also shut down newspapers, magazines, television stations, and other media. This then was the Pearl Harbor of a war that is just beginning.

Like all wars, there were preludes. The prelude for this one came in an unlikely location: Yale University. Several years ago, the Yale University Press published a book on the controversy surrounding the cartoons of Mohammad that had appeared in several Scandinavian newspapers and provoked violent responses. Naturally, the book, as submitted, included the cartoons that were at the center of the dispute. But Yale University Press decided to censor these cartoons out of fear that their inclusion might endanger the lives of Yale students and faculty. Yale’s understandable decision set an unfortunate precedent that has now been followed by Sony and by the theaters that pressured Sony into canceling The Interview…."

Full Story:
Capitulating to Terrorists Will Only Make Things Worse -- by Alan Dershowitz
http://time.com/3640164/sony-hack-th...p-north-korea/

What happened to NOT negotiating with terrorists?
We as a country are now established as in a position of weakness. A very dangerous position to be in with the likes of NKorean savage regard for life.

If we know the source and do not retaliate insome meaningful way we as a nation in the future of cyber war are doomed.

It has been proven time and again that rhetoric or playing nice does not work with enemies whose purpose is to destroy our way of life.

we no longer have what was of comfort in the past for many years......the battles, the danger, the threats and killings of war were always somewhere else.
That comfort is gone. We are being tested here at home. A freedom has just been attacked and we yielded. The enemy sensing and or experiencing no retaliation from the strongest country on earth isONLY emboldened to go for more.

Nuclear war has been avoided all these years due to the fear of retaliation and mutual self destruction. Achieved by demonstrated capability to be able to annihilate the enemy.

We have just been attacked. What we do or do not do in response will determine future events. And we know from experience sanctions do not win the wars.

What will the emboldened enemy demand we do next....or else?

The government did not negotiate nor was the government a target. A private company was hacked. That private company made a corporate decision to not release this film. The Obama administration made no decision nor did they tell Sony what to do.

Sony likely felt that the threat of violence would keep people from going to see the movie. Some theaters had already cancelled screenings.

Should the investigation by the several governmental agencies involved unequivocally point to N Korea as the source of this cyber attack, then and only then, there will be a proportional response.

The best known cyber attack which was directed at Iran, was produced by the US and Israel to cripple Iran's nuclear program. While I agree with the goal, it is best to understand that the US cannot with a straight face claim that a cyber attack is equivalent to an act of war requiring a military response unless you feel that Iran would be justified in attacking US interests and in fact that their failure to militarily respond to our cyber attack is appeasement and shows the cowardice of their leadership. Or maybe Iran did this and is making it look like it came from North Korea.

Sony's "The Interview"
 

For the record, Sony is a Japanese company. How then do we know that the hackers' attack is directed solely at the United States?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony