[Chi-Town]

Originally the movie Olympus Has Fallen was about a Chinese attack on the White House but was changed to a North Korean attack. I guess the studio didn't want to offend the Chinese. The North Koreans were portrayed as brutal murderers, and I don't remember any blow back from that.

[graciegirl]

Originally Posted by Chi-Town

Originally the movie Olympus Has Fallen was about a Chinese attack on the White House but was changed to a North Korean attack. I guess the studio didn't want to offend the Chinese. The North Koreans were portrayed as brutal murderers, and I don't remember any nlo8w back from that.

It doesn't matter what something is about. Movies are fiction usually. This was meant as a satire, but even if it were a documentary, No foreign power has a right to tell us, the people of the U.S., what we can see at the movies.

[Chi-Town]

Originally Posted by graciegirl

It doesn't matter what something is about. Movies are fiction usually. This was meant as a satire, but even if it were a documentary, No foreign power has a right to tell us, the people of the U.S., what we can see at the movies.

Remember Innocence Of Muslims? Just the trailer on YouTube caused an uproar (please no Benghazi rants).

[The Buckeyes]

Originally Posted by Sandtrap328

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

Sony should put the movie out on the internet....would like to see North Korea hack the world! Stamp out a million dvds and have drones drop them over North Korea.

[graciegirl]

Originally Posted by Chi-Town

Remember Innocence Of Muslims? Just the trailer on YouTube caused an uproar (please no Benghazi rants).

No. I don't know that movie. What was the uproar about?



EDITED....I found this information on Wikipedia about the TRAILER to Innocence of Muslims and the rioting in Egypt over it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innocence_of_Muslims

Chi town...you often drop comments and don't say how you feel about things. What do you think about the issue of this movie, The Interview, and the hacking and the threats? I don't think I would go see a movie like this, but I don't want to be told by another country I can't.

[gomoho]

Originally Posted by janmcn

Sony Statement At Obama: Interview Release On Other Platforms - Business Insider


An excerpt from Sony's statement: "The decision not to move forward with the December 25 theatrical release of 'The Interview' was made as a result of the majority of the nation's theater owners choosing not to screen the film. This was their decision".

Read the statement in its entirety in the above link.

I stand corrected - it appears the finger pointing has begun.

[ziggie]

I just hope they don't hack into our banking system

[TexaninVA]

Originally Posted by The Buckeyes

Sony should put the movie out on the internet....would like to see North Korea hack the world! Stamp out a million dvds and have drones drop them over North Korea.

Actually, the NK leadership is quite concerned about one item you note ... dropping DVDs of the movie into NK, strange as that may sound. We here in America sometimes have a tough time understanding how truly wacko the NKs really are, but they are brought up from birth taught that the Dear Leader is a God. Secular atheism is pretty much standard procedure for progressive regimes, but NK takes it to a world class extreme, plus couples it with a communist hereditary monarchy (an interesting oxymoron in its own right)

The NK regime is concerned that, if people who are oppressed and starving in most cases, see the Dear Leader being blown to pieces in a movie, that it might cause them to doubt his divinity and thus his legitimacy and ... so forth, such that the whole house of cards unravels. I have seen a bootleg copy of the ending and it’s hilarious … to the tune of some rock music, and in slo-mo, Kim’s helicopter is hit with a missile, he meets his Maker and the last scene is his hair on fire.

Which leads me to think … dropping DVDs of this movie all over NK is indeed a great idea.

[TexaninVA]

Originally Posted by blueash

Let me see if I have this right. You agree that the US was directly involved with a cyber attack against an Iranian government project, a top secret Iranian government project. But because we are the good guys and they are the bad guys, Iran deserved it and should just not respond, or perhaps they should respond by bending to our will. NK attacks a Japanese company with a US division and you belief this is a more serious issue requiring a significant governmental response? Now we know China hacks into our corporations stealing their work, and likely lots of other nations are targets of the Chinese. These are much more important thefts than a movie and releasing embarrassing emails. Yet we continue to talk with China, trade with China, expect China to buy our bonds. We certainly have options with China, cut off trade, block their financial institutions from interacting with ours, prohibit US tourism, bomb bomb bombs away. Instead we have expressed our outrage, told our companies to strengthen their defenses, and likely increased our own cyber espionage.

http://csis.org/files/publication/14...Since_2006.pdf

So given the serious intrusions into our government's and our infrastructure's computers so often in the past and that we certainly are doing the same, I am not really outraged enough by Sony being targeted by either N Korea or someone else with N Korea's blessing to start a shooting war. I am more surprised by Americans being so afraid that Sony actually took these threats seriously and shut down the film. Maybe it was so bad that this saved them money on a looser.

As soon as air traffic opened after 911, Mrs. Blueash and I got on a jet and flew to Europe despite all the dire warnings of friends and the bloviators. Sometimes the way to deal with a bully is to just carry on and don't give him the satisfaction of seeing you react. How do you propose we

"intimidate the evil actors"

and are you certain they are rational enough to not retaliate to our intimidation with a major escalation.

Yes, you have that (i.e. US hack into Iranian nukes) exactly right. You see, I really do believe that by and large the US is, and has been, a force for good in the world since its Founding, and especially so since WWII. I thus ascribe to the view that we need to win, and the bad guys need to lose. It’s a simple but effective overarching strategy that has worked in the past.

I also know you likely cringe at that term evil as corny etc. but is it in fact true so I’m just calling it what it is. If you have difficulty putting the Iranian and/or North Korean regimes into the evil category, I’m looking forward to hearing your reasoning.

I also think it’s interesting that several posters have used the term “shooting war”. No one has advocated that, unless in response to a direct terror attack on the homeland and I think it that case, no one would disagree with the need for a military response

But, I think what we can see interspersed throughout this thread is the phenomenon that makes it so difficult for democracies (actually a republic) such as ours to respond to organized, state sponsored “evil,” threats, intimidation and so forth –to wit, fear.

Given the current state of our culture, most in the US simply want to be left alone to focus on jobs, family and doing our best to live the good life. Thus, when something like the Sony hack occurs, I think many people are indeed fearful. So, before proceeding, I want to set the table once more.

A communist wacko regime destroyed a US company (i.e. subsidiary) via a hack. (at this point, given Sony’s hypocrisy and making racial jokes amongst top execs etc., I personally have zero sympathy for them.) But, when NK says “ you must not show that movie or I will blow up your theaters” THAT is when it changes for me. So, my position is we simply cannot let it stand. We have to do something. (I outlined my approach on page 2 of this thread so won’t repeat it again)

Since some people are fearful, they tend to react in several ways:
• Blame the victim … i.e. it was Sony’s fault for making this horrible movie
• Sony is not really a US corporation … what’s the big deal? Plus this was their corporate decision.
• The movie was inappropriate … its’ horrible to make a movie about killing the NK dictator and it would probably lose money anyway so just as well it did not show
• Ridicule some who say we need to stand up to the NK … what do you want to do, start a shooting war? Do you want your kid going? Etc.
• We are just as bad … i.e. we hack too, so why do we get upset when the NK hack (i.e. moral equivalency)

A key lesson of history is (Chamberlain being one of the better examples) … we are better off confronting evil early on, vs waiting until we get boxed into a corner whereby we either surrender or have no choice but to get involved in a shooting war … and on a big time scale.

I’m glad the President criticized Sony for pulling the movie. That’s a start. But, I think it’s essential the Sony find a way to release the movie and on a wide scale. I also think POTUS’s call (in effect) for covert countermeasure against NK at a time and place of our choosing is exactly the correct course to take in that regard.

One final note … good for you and Mrs. Blueash getting on the plane after 9/11 … that’s another way of making my point and where you / I agree … you never give in to a bully. That’s what we have with NK now.

So to summarize: Sony … release and find a way to distribute / show the movie worldwide!!

[tomwed]

The tech show I am watching is discussing the story. The on-line station is called This Week in Technology and has a number of technology shows. These people talk about the Politics of the situation less then the tech side.

So if you click here and read this story and then click on the links within the story and the suggested stories at the end of the story you can get a pretty good background on this story and security risks in general.

I learned from the geeks of this network the general lack of security of major companies means more of this is coming unless it is tightened. It's a new world.

Couldn't anyone with enough wealth hire Korean programmers who write code in Korean to spring the attack for them? Who knows what is true anymore? or Who did what?

[Sandtrap328]

Originally Posted by tomwed

The tech show I am watching is discussing the story. The on-line station is called This Week in Technology and has a number of technology shows. These people talk about the Politics of the situation less then the tech side.

Couldn't anyone with enough wealth hire Korean programmers who write code in Korean to spring the attack for them? Who knows what is true anymore? or Who did what?

Doesn't Sony have this kind of wealth?

This has all the trappings of the largest hoax pulled off of all times in order to create the biggest block buster of all time.

Of course, this is just a "what-if" but think of the possibility.

Yum, those brownies fresh from Colorado sure are tasty!