Bizarre Twist In Sony / NK Situation: Was The Sony Attack Internal - Made To Look Like NK Did It???

'Tho I'm not totally sold on the "inside job" of Sony hacking itself, I'm finding bits and pieces to suggest that North Korea stood to lose more than it could potentially gain by hacking Sony. Here are some tidbits:

variety.com...
BILL RICHARDSON SAYS HE'S SURPRISED AT POTENTIAL NORTH KOREAN LINK TO SONY HACK ATTACK
"Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who made multiple visits to North Korea on diplomatic missions and as a private citizen, says that he is surprised at reports of North Korea’s potential involvement in the massive attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment.

"On his most recent trip, Richardson went to North Korea last year with a delegation that included Google’s Eric Schmidt. At the time, Richardson said, he heard from government officials that they were interested in having a “digital relationship” with some of the American studios. The country has a movie industry that “is quite advanced, believe it or not,” he said.

(NOTE: To me, this makes it even less likely that N. Korea was behind the attack. If they so desperately wanted a "digital relationship" with Hollywood studios, why do something this toxic to Sony?)

www.vox.com...
THE SONY HACK - WHAT WE'VE LEARNED
"The hackers also leaked thousands of confidential documents — everything from private correspondence among Sony executives to salary and performance data about Sony employees. Those documents were password protected, and whoever is behind the hack provided said password only to journalists."

(NOTE: So instead of a feeding-frenzy type of "download everything," which most Wikileaks-type hackers perform, these hackers were somewhat careful and selective. Possibly trying to protect some people at Sony, and/or set up a legal defense of "I only gave away the password - go talk to the journalists" who did the actual downloading. Again, a rather sophisticated outlook that doesn't match the hackers' initial juvenile threats.)

deadline.com...
MPAA HITS "SHAMEFUL" GOOGLE OVER SONY HACKING REVELATIONS
"The Motion Picture Association of America tonight struck back at accusations from the tech giant that it was seeking to “censor” the Internet and suppress free speech based on information from emails leaked in the Sony hacking. “Google’s effort to position itself as a defender of free speech is shameful,” an MPAA spokesperson said in a statement to Deadline tonight.

“We are deeply concerned about recent reports that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) led a secret, coordinated campaign to revive the failed SOPA legislation through other means, and helped manufacture legal arguments in connection with an investigation by Mississippi State Attorney General Jim Hood,” Google’s SVP and General Counsel Kent Walker said in a blog post Thursday."

fortune.com...
GOOGLE SUES TO BLOCK MISSISSIPPI'S ATTORNEY GENERAL
"AG Jim Hood has asserted that his office has probable cause to believe that Google is violating the Mississippi Consumer Protection Act, and served Google with a broad 79-page document subpoena last October. The responses will be due in January, unless Google wins the temporary restraining order it is seeking in today’s suit.

"Hood cited, for instance, the fact that in August 2011 Google entered into a non-prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors and agreed to forfeit $500 million for “allowing online Canadian pharmacies to place advertisements through its AdWords program targeting consumers in the United States,” as a Justice Department press release described the deal.

"Google maintains, however, that the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which regulates the behavior of Internet publishers and search engines, as well as other federal laws relating to copyright and drug importation, are meant to preempt the field into which Hood is intruding."

(NOTE: Could SOPA be at the root of this? Stranger things have happened in Hollywood ...)

a reply to: Hefficide
What we need here is another Snowden, this is not only hacking Sony and X-Box, it is hacking millions and millions of GAMERS that right now are a little upset to say the least.

Gaming has produced some of the best computer geeks in the world, they will find who is doing this and expose these "Lizard Licks" to the world...no matter who they are...you can count on it.

I don't trust the Norse/IPViking stats really.

Every time you look on their site it looks like that most attacks go to St. Louis.

Now, by "coincidence" Norse IS LOCATED IN ST. LOUIS. I guess this may explain why it looks like most attacks are targeting St. Louis, otherwise this doesn't really make sense.

a reply to: NoRulesAllowed



Related

a reply to: IShotMyLastMuse
Well said..

Its amazing that there are still so many people with strong feelings of pride and nationalism for the U.S. despite being duped by the gov't all the time.

Not to say many of the people here do not have good qualities also; because many do.

Sounding more and more to me like a deal between Sony and Youtube/Google Play went down(obviously, but it seems like that might have been the initial intention). A ploy, and a genius one if you think about it. The 'hacked' messages were slightly off grammatically...to portray a non-english-speaking source--something DPRK agents would not likely do. Of course this is all speculation but in retrospect it could easily be the case. I don't know as much about hacking as you guys seem to but as someone looking from the outside in...even Occam's razor seems to point to it all being a PR stunt to make money. It'll be interesting to find out the profit numbers in couple weeks and compare them to a high-grossing theatrical release...

Not even an extremely successful movie (which this movie likely is NOT!) would make good for the insane amount of damage this hack did. I simply can't see this as being a PR stunt.

a reply to: humanityrising

The leaked internal memo's will most likely cause Sony to suffer several large lawsuits ( major, major money ) - and also opens the door to several of their most well-known stars having cause to terminate contract with them ( the internal memo's show corporate persons saying exceptionally hateful and negative things about a number of huge actors ).

So there is that.

Then there are the leaked movies ( not The Interview but several others ) that will suffer drastically at the box office as they're already plastered all over the internet. Hundreds of millions lost there.

Then there is The Interview. I've seen half of it and the half I saw was hilarious. It could have made a lot at the box office had none of this happened. But, again, now the odds of that are nil because it's easier to find online than a picture of Kim Kardashians buttox.

Who is that woman and what exactly was her job? Does she have any experience as a hacker? Not everything computing is hacking and networks. I had a stalker ex boyfriend once and the police was able to track down from where he accessed his computer with precision. So unless the government is straight up lying there should have been a trial of the attack originating from NK .

a reply to: sosobad

How do we know Norse and the real time web monitor aren't just more sources manipulated by our government? It's once again getting ridiculous. The ones with the most money and power win. That leaves me out.

ETA, I'm not saying it's anything relevant but:

investing.businessweek.com...

Norse Wins $1.9 Million Department of Energy Contract

Nov 7 14

Norse Corp. was named the sole recipient of a U.S. Department of Energy contract that will have the company protecting critical infrastructure within the United States. The contract will last two years and is worth $1.9 million. Specifically, Norse will work to provide services for the government's Cybersecurity Risk Information Sharing Program (CRISP), a risk scoring system used by the DOE to confirm threats to energy-related critical infrastructure outlined in Presidential Policy Directive 21 and Executive Order 13636.

ETA2:

Brian Contos Chief Security Strategist and Senior Vice President at Norse.

Brian has published two books including Enemy at the Water Cooler—Real-Life Stories of Insider Threats and Physical and Logical Security Convergence, which he co-authored with former NSA Deputy Director William Crowell.

www.csoonline.com...

So Norse was founded in 2010, In Sept 2014 they hire Brian Contos, two months later, they're awarded a contract, the sole recipient of a U.S. Department of Energy contract that will have the company protecting critical infrastructure within the United States.

Yeah, I'm suspicious

There are (at least) two things which stand out looking at this hack closer:

How the hackers refer to their target as "Sony Pictures Entertainment" and use the abbreviation SPE.

Someone who would hack out of boredom, or simply pick the "first best company" where they can hack in would likely not make this distinction between "SONY" and "SONY Pictures Entertainment". I myself call them SONY and don't refer to them as "SONY Pictures Entertainment", although of course the latter is correct. But imho, that this distinction is made is noteworthy.

The outright hate, if not rage, by whoever hacked them. This is not only evidenced by the way what and how they hacked. It goes so far as how they did protected their files with passwords like SPEdie123 etc. Small things, but noteworthy as well.
This just doesn't really fit with the idea that the hack was some Elite hacker group operating for the NK government, all small puzzle pieces which to me make it more look like a rage-hack by someone who has/had a relationship with SONY.

a reply to: NoRulesAllowed

The "SPE" abbreviation reeks of someone who worked at SPE.

NVM

a reply to: StoutBroux

I've mentioned and discussed this in other threads - NK was knocked offline for two solid days. But that is a very complicated issue - as tracing the source of that attack is like trying to work out the trajectory of Kennedy's magic bullet. It might have been the US Cybercommand... but Sony has also publicly admitted to hiring hackers to attack anyone in possession of their intellectual property - an illegal act of war given the semblance of legitimacy by the fact that Sony is part of Infragard.

a reply to: Hefficide

Heff, I hear ya and try to keep up but sometimes I miss stuff. I'll delete my post. I did see that it was out today but it's obviously old news since so much stuff is repeated from site to site.

But now I'll say what I came here to say and I know people aren't going to like it. The US knows NK is mentally unstable and we all know war makes the world go 'round. I can't help but think that the US is pushing buttons for a purpose. The fact that NK's internet was down makes me wonder.

New Development: It appears that CNN is about a week behind but supporting the theories that have been presented on ATS...

Please read.

Great article but it flipped flop a bit. Saying NK isn't suicidal so they wouldn't do anything radical. But here's what they have done with no repercussions:

Look, in 1976, North Korean soldiers crossed the demarcation line at Panmunjon, killed two Americans with axes, and we didn't go to war.

In 2010, the North Koreans sank a South Korean ship, killing dozens of South Korean sailors, we didn't go to war.

In 2010 when they shelled Yeonpyong island and killed South Koreans, we didn't go to war.

We're going to go to war because they hacked a movie production company? I mean, you know, let's have a little bit of perspective about it.

That being said, this has created a kind of perfect storm of a real threat with cyberattacks, with implications in terms of what else might happen.

www.cnn.com...

Things could get very interesting.

a reply to: Hefficide

I see. Well then it does appear that Sony does not have anything to gain from this...

In your opinion, what are the chances that someone directly or indirectly involved in The Interview could have pulled this off or hired someone to? Unlikely I guess though because they would also have had to set up the streaming deal as well...although a rogue collaboration of traitors from The Interview, Sony, and Google might have the motivation...I'm trailing off now, I should probably go to sleep. But interesting to think about nonetheless!

So I've been thinking and reading all day and researching my brains out - literally! I will give very few sources because the facts are already known or much is from speculation. I wondered when Sony decided to make this controversial movie and it was in 2000. (I did get this info from Wiki and I don't care if anyone considers it a valid source because I doubt some of the information on this topic which I'll explain later.) Evidently the movie was put on the back burner because Kim Jong il died in December 2011. Now why would it take 11 years to produce a low budget satire on Kim jong il? The link from Wiki which I used is: en.wikipedia.org...(2014_film), all quotes will be from that link. Trust me, I read many other links prior to wiki but it answered some of my questions and left me with others.

Rogen and Goldberg developed the idea for The Interview in the late 2000s, joking about what would happen if a journalist was required to assassinate a world leader. They picked North Korea leader Kim Jong-il, but put the project on hold upon when Jong-il died and his son Kim Jong-un assumed power in 2011.[10] Development resumed when Rogen and Goldberg realized that Jong-un is closer to their own age, which they felt would be funnier.

That's a long time to make this level of movie considering it apparently took only two months to film it.

Principal photography began on October 10, 2013, in Vancouver,[13] and concluded on December 20, 2013

I have a difficult time believing some of the timing on the thought and creation of the movie. Especially since 9/11 occurred in the interim.

My next thought is why was this movie created? Apparently, when NK found out about this movie in June 2014 they responded thusly:

On June 20, 2014, Kim Myong-chol, an unofficial spokesman for the North Korean government, said The Interview "shows the desperation of the US government and American society ... a film about the assassination of a foreign leader mirrors what the US has done in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Ukraine."[15] On June 25, 2014, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the state-run news agency of North Korea, reported that the government promised "stern" and "merciless" retaliation if the film were released, stating that "making and releasing a film that portrays an attack on our top-level leadership is the most blatant act of terrorism and war and will absolutely not be tolerated".[16][17] The British newspaper The Guardian wrote that the film premise "touched a nerve inside the regime, which takes a dim view of satirical treatment of its leaders and is notoriously paranoid about perceived threats to their safety"[18] and that North Korea had a "long history of sabre-rattling and of issuing harsh threats that it does not act upon."[19]

On July 11, 2014, North Korea's United Nations ambassador Ja Song-nam condemned The Interview, saying that "the production and distribution of such a film on the assassination of an incumbent head of a sovereign state should be regarded as the most undisguised sponsoring of terrorism as well as an act of war".[20] The Guardian remarked that his comments were "all perfect publicity for the movie".[20] On July 17, 2014, the KCNA wrote to U.S. president Barack Obama, asking to have the film pulled.

I'm no fan of NK but there are some valid points made and if anyone in the US made a movie about assassination the POTUS, they would be arrested and locked up for quite some time and I believe I can state that as a fact. So why was the US so supportive about the movie?

I believe their weren't any hacks on Sony and if there were, it was from the US. Why??? Because here it is:

Rogen predicted that the film would make its way to North Korea, stating that "we were told one of the reasons they're so against the movie is that they're afraid it'll actually get into North Korea. They do have bootlegs and stuff. Maybe the tapes will make their way to North Korea and cause a revolution."[10] Fighters for a Free North Korea and Human Rights Foundation—both human rights organizations—have plans to get DVD copies of The Interview across the border and into North Korea via balloon drops.[23] Airdrops by these organizations have previously included offline copies of the Korean Wikipedia on a bootable USB memory device.[24]

The US won't directly war with NK but they are trying to cause a revolution from within. Sadly, the North Korean people will once again be the ones who suffer IMHO, because the insane wrath of Kim Jong Un is far reaching and if he can assassinate those in high places as he already has, the little people will be a piece of cake.

What does the rest of ATS think?

I did want to toss this out there since it shows a bit of hypocrisy in how this movie is acceptable:

Nothing funny about 'The Interview'

By David Rogers
12/28/14 8:45 AM EST

Just when did assassination become a subject for American humor? This is a nation that still mourns Abraham Lincoln, John Kennedy and Martin Luther King — all assassinated. It is living through a period of renewed racial violence in which young black men have been killed by police and two New York City officers were assassinated in the past week.

But on Christmas Day no less, the big new movie release — “The Interview” — is a lampoon built around a plot to assassinate Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea.

Read more: www.politico.com...