North Korea Denies Involvement In "Righteous" Sony Hack 85
angry tapir writes North Korea's government has denied any involvement in the attack on Sony Pictures, but in a statement indicated that it's not necessarily unhappy that it happened. In a statement, the country's powerful National Defence Commission, which controls North Korea's armed forces, said it had no knowledge of the attack. The latest reports indicate that the hackers worked from a hotel in Thailand.
I'd be curious about the consequences. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Yakuza
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A nation literally cannot attack a multi-national company in the way these attacks have happened. That's because these attacks now include physical threats against the citizens of other nation states. Those threats make no sense coming from a nation state, and just about have to be from some third party if North Korea is involved in even the 'cyber' part of the attacks. That's because the nation doesn't want to find itself in a war with other nation states and not just the corporation, or to get boxed in by
Re:I'd be curious about the consequences. (Score:5, Insightful)
A nation literally cannot attack a multi-national company in the way these attacks have happened. That's because these attacks now include physical threats against the citizens of other nation states. Those threats make no sense coming from a nation state, and just about have to be from some third party if North Korea is involved in even the 'cyber' part of the attacks. That's because the nation doesn't want to find itself in a war with other nation states and not just the corporation, or to get boxed in by making a threat they don't intend to follow through on and lose face. Bluffs are for when you are already desperately losing, not beginning.
We're talking about North Korea. They are not bound by the rules of what a nation state "can" and "cannot" do. I agree, this would make no sense, but again... North Korea.
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There was an initial round of finger-pointing towards North Korea, and now a bunch of people saying, hold up, this doesn't really make sense for North Korea to be behind the attacks. OK, it's not logical, but as as the previous poster argues, 1) North Korea isn't logical (or rather, they are logical but employ something rather different than the logic found outside of North Korea) and 2) what's the alternative?
Internet security experts are of the opinion that this was launched by a large and well-organize
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Yes. They have shown themselves willing to do stuff like kidnapping film directors because the dictator liked them [wikipedia.org], kidnapping random japanese people [wikipedia.org] for amazingly little in the way of reasons.
Well, North Korea is, in most meaningful senses. But it's not so much bluffing, as it is giving the impression that you're crazy and could do anything. Same str
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There's not much left that can be done to North Korea, but there are some options.
South Korea could shut down their part of Kaesong, and the handful of other cross-border joint ventures. That would mildly inconvenience the South Korean companies, but would seriously hurt the North Korean economy. South Korea doesn't really have any dogs in this fight, though, so unlikely.
China could stop their trade. It's a drop in the bucket for them, but would basically destroy North Korea (particularly if they have farm
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Regardless of "good-guy-bad-guy" propaganda, the remark that the South could clean up the North before the allies even got their act together is interesting - even more so with your comment about Northern infantry.
It really doesn't take that much effort to do a quick web search of relatively recent discussions on the matter.
There are likely many reasons the South doesn't want to start a war. But the threat of waves of infantry almost certainly is not one of them. The troop strength disparity simply isn't
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This is not a case of Korea invading the Southern Provinces.
This is a question of how to sanction Korea.
And aside from a direct attack, there is nothing left the West can FORCE upon the Korean state.
Without the threat of an invasion or military assault (and we know better than to do this to a nuclear armed state, right?) they have nothing to lose by making life miserable for the people they loathe, ie. Capitalists.
So, try again.
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Legal Experts: Stuxnet Attack on Iran Was Illegal ‘Act of Force’ (03.25.13 )
http://www.wired.com/2013/03/s... [wired.com]
It depends on the experts asked, who funded what and why.
Think of Sputnik. Nations thought airspace went up. Sputnik went over many nations but not much was said as spy satellites where going to be used.
A lot of different nations now have offensive cyber-operations funding and contractors. No much is been done to question that new c
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North Korea is already sanctioned pretty hard. I'm curious what happens when a nation state attacks a multinational company. Do the nations that said company is registered in team up to respond? Do they elect a body to deal with it? And if so, how large does a multinational have to be to elicit such a response?
NK can do whatever they want because they're stuck to China.
Wasn't long ago that they were threatening to nuke American interests and they got away with that cold.
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But this is about hacking a large multinational corporation, largely funded via the use of copyright law, so obviously it is reasonable to use nuclear weapons on any person or group suspected of being involved in attacking them.
Poor Sony... (Score:3, Insightful)
Using North Korea as a scapegoat was a perfect strategy for Sony. Blaming the attack on a nation state is way better than admitting its poor security practices. But North Korea has now denied the involvement, I wonder what they are going to do...
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Blaming the attack on a nation state is way better than admitting its poor security practices.
Those aren't contradictory, both can be true.
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but the mass media spin can be used to make north korea the perfect target. for sony it is not about the truth it is about the spin and damage control. their employees are all going to need lifelock until they can change their social security numbers and possibly names. at least the lesser folk might and the upper folk will need new telephone numbers. sony has a credit card company too.
i have already seen the mass media jumping on the 'n korea' has uber hackers who get everything they want etc. these peopl
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Oh, that's OK then.
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The messages from the hackers contain some grammatical errors. These grammatical errors provide a clue as to the hacker's native language. My guess is Eastern European.
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I think that particular (group) of employee is probably Korean. Based on the current flippant attitude of North Korea, it is the easiest to blame everything on North Korea, which is perceived as evil.
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Murray Head, is that you?
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(Disclaimer - Sony has a rather well deserved lousy reputation in this area for their past actions here, so I'm not likely to give them the benefit of the doubt for much of anything.)
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Sony was sued over the PS3 hacking. The judge ruled Sony owes their customers nothing.
Leak, not Hack (Score:5, Insightful)
If anyone has more details, please share. Especially the confirmed ones, not the rumors.
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TFA (second link) says the Sony attack used similar components as the 2013 "DarkSeoul" attacks on S. Korean banks and government sites. Those were confirmed as originating from N. Korea.
Add to that the other circumstantial evidence and it's looking more and more like the Norks are responsible.
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You really must be totally naive to take these reports as "evidence".
It's not as if your department of disinformation hasn't been caught lying numerous times before...
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It also bears resemblance to the Saudi Arabia hack generally attributed to those well-adjusted Iranians. It appears likely that the Iran and N. Korea cooperate on cyber war. They already cooperate on missile technology.
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Or the hackers are for sale, and sold a new targeted attack to a new buyer, DPRK was just the previous buyer.
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A wise man once told me, always suspect ladyboy. Then, is only mild surprise when find you right!
It's never been applicable before, and I hope to God now's the time, instead of yesterday evening.
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North Korea is unlikely, but South Korea seems an obvious choice since they have the most to gain from Sony's market share.
That's the stupidest thing I've heard in quite a while. It's like saying Apple would hack Nokia to gain market share.
Sony (the electronics firm) is in death throes and the last time they turned a decent profit is when Dubya was pumped for a Middle East invasion. Samsung alone makes more profit in a quarter than Sony made in the last decade.
Sony the Hollywood studio is doing fine but there's no equivalent South Korean competitor that would try to steal market share from it. And even if there was one, destroy
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Sony (the electronics firm) is in death throes and the last time they turned a decent profit is when Dubya was pumped for a Middle East invasion. Samsung alone makes more profit in a quarter than Sony made in the last decade.
My point exactly.
Sorry to be obtuse, but my writing lacks the sardonic tone insinuated in the subtext. This is a response juxtaposed to the stupidity of accusing North Korea of the attack. If we're going to accuse a Korean rival of Japan, South seems more apropos because they in fact are beneficiaries of Sony's ebbing market dominance.
And yes, this too is stupid. Just like the other stupid. Stupid jokes for stupid folks. Geez, that went over like a lead balloon.
My sense of humor was way more appreciated
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Unless it is just the S. Koreans still pissed off about Japanese aggression in the 20th century and the repeated insults like visits to the war shrine by Japanese PMs. Hate dies hard.
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generally speaking, legitimate businesses that earn good money don't go around hacking into competitors' networks
Yes, there is no such thing as industrial espionage. Also, Santa Claus is real.
Does anyone know what GoP's demands actually are? (Score:3)
Kim Il Sung getting even (Score:2, Funny)
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Karma's a bitch, so is payback.
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Actually, Kim Il Sung was Little Kim's grandfather.
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In a bizarre twist of relativity, it turns that Little Kim is Kim Il Sung's grandfather. This prevents the chestnuts from falling very far from the tree, and given the size of the Kim family's chestnuts, extreme care must taken lest they get overlooked and lost forever.
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They're not threatening anyone. Their English is bad enough, you need to put some effort into reading the message.
The real message reads more like "We don't know what to do. Sony doesn't feel threatened enough to pay us, now we're clueless how to proceed".
I don't know how good North Korean intelligence is, but I hope they are better than the writers of that message. And even if it's been drawn up to look like it does, what would be the use?
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GoP isn't making those threats, nor have they posted any demands that those threats allude to.
The threats are bullshit concocted in order to make people sympathetic to Sony and its poor, victimized employees.
The allegations of it being North Korea (over a fucking Seth Rogen movie) are also bullshit, intended to distract from the fact that Sony had basically no security.
I get it (Score:1)
imagine... (Score:3)
...how more they could have got if they stayed at a Holiday Inn Express.
The hack fits North Korean psychology (Score:3)
There seem to be two general styles of politically motivated hacking. One is the NSA/CIA style: the goal is to get as much information as quietly as possible. One of the things that the Snowden/Manning leaks revealed is how extensively the NSA was able to do this.
The other style is the highly visible attack. This is the kind of thing that the Syrian Electronic Army [wikipedia.org] engages in. Much of what they do is intended to be high profile whether they claim responsibility or not.
Despotic leaders like Assad and Kim Jong-il want to see damage and humiliation inflicted on their enemies. It's fundamental to their political strategy. They do this internally to victims of their regimes and externally to their foes.
Rationally it doesn't make much sense for North Korea to waste this kind of capability on a single company. That kind of activity would be better used on a strategic target, say a western defense company or infrastructure in South Korea. (There have been attacks on South Korean banks that fit this description.) But Kim Jong-il is not a rational leader. Atacking Sony because of a perceived personal insult seem just like the kind of thing he would do.
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The Kim family is particularly obsessed with movies, propaganda videos and generally controlling every single cultural product - songs, books, publicly visible pictures and statues.
It's an autocracy, necrocracy, militarocracy (I hope that's not too terrible of a word) but also much a TVcracy with a level of control (domestically and what gets out) that you basically can't get anywhere else on the planet (or maybe in Taliban-style areas, where they have to resort to banning all music and all pictures with hu
Publicity stunt? (Score:1)
Possibility: Is this attack staged to gain traction on public's mind for the movie? Did they incur much explicit loss due to this? Just a hunch.
If North Korea "were" responsible... (Score:2)
... Sony should be deeply ashamed of themselves. This is like getting your ass handed to you by a drunk cripple. The guy might be crazy... correct that, we know he's crazy... but he has no legs and he keeps bumping into walls. If you can't deal with that... then take the Russian FSB's solution and just go back to type writers.
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Well, they're also insane so if that is what the environment is on the net, then you had better fucking cover your shit up. Because the NK regime has always been a chimp with a hand grenade. And no, that isn't racist. If they were all white and behaving the way they do... I'd say the same fucking thing. Suggesting it is racist is actually what is racist because it assumes racial inferiority. You made no such claims... but I'm so fucking tired of getting the PC shit thrown around that I'm just preemptively s
It puzzles me (Score:2)
How North Korea, a nation with what is one of the worlds most primitive computing/ internet facilities, has the ability to carry out what appears to be a sophisticated attack that walks away with almost every drop of data Sony has in its possession. Even a couple of random sympathisers should not have been able to do the job.
Sony has not got many friends in the world, mainly due to restrictive copyright practices and DRM. It would surprise me less if some groups who were opposed to this had over a long peri
It puzzles me (Score:1)
does ANYONE believe ANY of this SLOP ANYMORE? (Score:1)
link [hollywoodreporter.com]
From a hotel in Thailand (Score:2)
The latest reports indicate that the hackers worked from a hotel in Thailand.
I hope they weren't being charged by the gigabyte for using the hotel's WiFi.
The better question is (Score:2)
Hotel that can suck 100TB? (Score:1)
official statement (Score:2)
The North Korean statement itself is here [kcna.co.jp]:
Fracture the Internet (Score:1)
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Disconnect China, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Cuba, and the "former USSR" from the internet. 90% of the Internet's problems solved.
You omitted Wales.