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An Offer to Sony from 2600

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Re: An Offer to Sony from 2600

#121

Post by rwallace »

jgwest wrote: post #7

Too much condescending tone in this "proposal"... I think people just want to see the film. I certainly want to see the film. It might have a crappy plot or a second-rate screenplay or subpar acting, but with this sort of publicity none of that matters. Just watching it will be an event, perhaps an even bigger event than watching The Last Temptation of Christ was way-back-when... Anyway, Sony seems to be in a defiant…

To be honest, I have no interest in seeing the film because everything I've heard about it indicates it's probably a crap film. I furthermore think it was a bad idea to make it in the first place.

However, I applaud 2600's proposal because it points in the right direction: a calm, nonviolent but assertive refusal to be intimidated, rather than the hysterical paranoia and escalation of threats we are seeing all too much of in recent years.

Re: An Offer to Sony from 2600

#122

Post by thefreeman »

zaroth wrote: post #23
jarcane wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sony owns several digital release platforms. If they want this movie out, they could make it happen tomorrow. This is just PR speak. They might cave and release anyway, but Lynton's statement is deliberately weak and duplicitous, once again attempting to deflect all blame from themselves rather than admit to any mistake on their part.

I'm not sure they are in complete control, although it's a great image of master manipulation to imagine they are. I'm waiting until I really understand the whole story to start assigning any blame. I'm more interested at this point in figuring out what this means for the future. Do we live in a world now where state-actors will target specific companies and basically try to rip them to shreds and extort them? Now I'…

The thing is that from what I can tell this attack is not even in the same order of magnitude as the state sponsored attacks you are referring to.

I haven't found a good write up on the attack, however my understanding is it was mainly due to Sony's lack of security and not the prowess of the hackers.

This was something like SQL Injection and non password protected excel files with employees social security numbers. The state-sponsored APTs you are talking about are hundreds of millions of dollars worth of custom software engineering.

However I agree with your general premise that another government essentially blackmailing one of our private companies is worrying.

Re: An Offer to Sony from 2600

#123

Post by maroonblazer »

wmeredith wrote: post #102
connie_lingus wrote: post #95

The CIA report threatens our legitimacy as a world power. no it does not...almost everyone in the world understand that under certain conditions, torture to get potentially life-saving information is just the way of things. let me put it this way...if your immediate family was going to be blown up in two hours, wouldn't you say go ahead and torture that guy who you KNOW has information on how to diffuse the bomb?

Your premise is pure fantasy. There was never a ticking time bomb scenario. And torque is NOT an effective means of extracting information. Everyone from Napoleon to Hitler to our own Military generals have aid as much. Here's a good article on the subject: http://www.theguardian.com/science/the-lay-scientist/2010/no...

>And torque is NOT an effective means of extracting information.

Then how do you explain this case in Germany where simply threatening torture resulted in the perpetrator divulging the location of his victim: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/10/world/kidnapping-has-germa...

Re: An Offer to Sony from 2600

#124

Post by peeters »

researcher88 wrote: post #119
kyledrake wrote: post #75

The last time people got this crazy about a hack, Kevin Mitnick was thrown in solitary confinement for months because they thought he could "whistle nuclear launch codes into prison telephones". 2600 made the documentary about it, Freedom Downtime, and I strongly recommend watching it if you never have. So what if North Korea did it (of course I'm skeptical of this, anyone with a computer can conduct the same activit…

And all Sony had to do was regularly back up, encrypt and delete the emails off their servers. This is the prime thing motivating their actions and driving their fear. And protect sensitive documents better but that seems secondary. Leaving an ever accumlating pile of embarassing communications for someone to steal and then extort you for is not a national security weakness.

I don't know about you, but my ability to search and retrieve emails from months or years ago is critical in my job. You make it sound like it's an obvious choice.

Re: An Offer to Sony from 2600

#125

Post by [deleted] »

coding4all wrote: post #15

I still have a hard time believing NK did this without any definitive evidence. Wasn't it last December that NK was sending fax messages to communicate with SK? Now they can download Terabytes from Sony without anyone noticing?

[deleted]

Re: An Offer to Sony from 2600

#126

Post by raldi »

junto wrote: post #77

I guess a movie about two brave maverick North Korean TV stars heading to Washington to assassinate Obama, the evil emperor of the United States could also be a 'funny' comedy movie to watch. Seriously though, while the plot of the film is both purile and offensive to the North Korean dictator personally, should NK be behind the attack on Sony (im still not convinced) then it is definitely an ulterly inappropriate re…

Is your first paragraph intended to be sarcastic? If so, could you rephrase it without the sarcasm?

Re: An Offer to Sony from 2600

#127

Post by rbobby »

connie_lingus wrote: post #95

The CIA report threatens our legitimacy as a world power. no it does not...almost everyone in the world understand that under certain conditions, torture to get potentially life-saving information is just the way of things. let me put it this way...if your immediate family was going to be blown up in two hours, wouldn't you say go ahead and torture that guy who you KNOW has information on how to diffuse the bomb?

You have 30 minutes. Do you torture the guy you KNOW has had years of high level torture resistance training or do you give in and save your FAMILY?

See... bullshit hypotheticals can prove the opposite point too.

Re: An Offer to Sony from 2600

#128

Post by geophile »

joeguilmette wrote: post #112
geophile wrote: post #106

Isn't this two not really related events being conflated? 1) Sony gets hacked. A big hack, but just a hack. 2) Sony pulls a movie because it offends a nasty dictator identified by name. Why are these connected? It's not as if they learned about the movie from the hack? I've seen the ad for that movie a few times, and I'm pretty sure that the spymasters in North Korea can watch the same Seinfeld reruns that I do. Why…

What don't you get? Sony got hacked, the hackers said if you halt release of the film we'll stop releasing your private data. The release was cancelled, the hackers stop releasing private data. It doesn't take a data scientist to put those two together.

But the movie was pulled over concerns about terrorism, not embarrassing revelations:

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/sony-north-korea-the-i...

Sony left the decision up to the theater chains, and those chains were reported to back away from the movie because of the legal liability if there were a terrorist incident.

Re: An Offer to Sony from 2600

#129

Post by peeters »

joeguilmette wrote: post #112
geophile wrote: post #106

Isn't this two not really related events being conflated? 1) Sony gets hacked. A big hack, but just a hack. 2) Sony pulls a movie because it offends a nasty dictator identified by name. Why are these connected? It's not as if they learned about the movie from the hack? I've seen the ad for that movie a few times, and I'm pretty sure that the spymasters in North Korea can watch the same Seinfeld reruns that I do. Why…

What don't you get? Sony got hacked, the hackers said if you halt release of the film we'll stop releasing your private data. The release was cancelled, the hackers stop releasing private data. It doesn't take a data scientist to put those two together.

The hackers also threatened terrorist attacks on movie theatres that showed the film. Which may or may not have influenced Sony's decision.

Re: An Offer to Sony from 2600

#130

Post by websitescenes »

This would be awesome but so very unlikely. I Suspect that Sony exaggerated the threat and cancelled the film as a publicity stunt. Was it a real attack? Sure. Is the film cancelled forever? Highly doubtful. Sony is way too profit oriented to let this opportunity pass and they certainly are not going to hand the film over to the hacker community and loose out. That said, I think that 2600 releasing the film would be AWESOME!!
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