Slashdot Mirror
Reaction To the Sony Hack Is 'Beyond the Realm of Stupid'
rossgneumann writes North Korea may really be behind the Sony hack, but we're still acting like idiots. Peter W. Singer, one of the nations foremost experts on cybersecurity, says Sony's reaction has been abysmal. "Here, we need to distinguish between threat and capability—the ability to steal gossipy emails from a not-so-great protected computer network is not the same thing as being able to carry out physical, 9/11-style attacks in 18,000 locations simultaneously. I can't believe I'm saying this. I can't believe I have to say this."
I just have to wonder if it's not just a PR stunt.
These kind of threats from hackers does indeed sound unbelievable. Hacking a pc and setting up a terrorist strike are quite different skill sets.
Am i the only one wondering if this is just a hoax from Sony/the authorities to make people change their stance on the hacks? In the beginning everybody was like "serves them right". Now everybody is like "Omg, poor Sony, i would watch the movie if i could".
These threats seem like the best thing that could happen to them after the hack. I'm kind of wondering if it isn't a bit too convenient.
I heard it once said to never let a serious crisis go to waste.
Here's your main reason:
If ONE person is injured/killed within a 10 mile radius of a theater and the person doing the killing proclaims any notion of it being done because of the release of the movie, the relatives of the one shot will sue Sony for millions of dollars due to the release of the film that Sony KNEW could unleash terrorism. Imagine if it happened at 5 locations? What about one nutjob in one theater ala the Batman movie a few years ago? Sony would be put at fault for blatantly disregarding public safety by knowingly releasing a film. It's the same reason newspapers won't print an image of Mohammed or that South Park had to pull an episode that was going to show Mohammed.
Hyper-sensitivity to everything for fear of litigation.
Nothing else would feed the 24 hour news cycle.
Either that or the hackers have far more damaging data on Sony exec's. Evidence that could land them in jail perhaps?
Personally I vote for it being a PR ploy by Sony to bolster ticket sales of what was otherwise sure to be a box-office flop
I think, if you actually read what the GP wrote, you'll see that he is expressing the same opinion. But let me tell you about how it is in my home country, Denmark:
- Nobody carries fire arms, except some criminals. In fact, most police officers aren't armed either.
- Gun shots are being fired so rarely that it makes the headlines when it happens. I don't actually recall last time that happened.
- School massacres? What is that?
In fact, one can argue that since nobody carries firearms, even the criminals don't feel they have to; they are not likely to be shot when they are 'at work'. You know, it isn't because Danes are particularly good-natured, or because we are a homogenous society; it's just that no firearms means less risk of gun related violence. It may be that you prefer to pay the price for everybody having high-powered guns, but if you argue that it somehow makes your country safer, you'll just end up looking silly. Again, you may prefer looking silly to the truth, but hey, that's your call.
In the article, the Peter Singer states, "Someone killed 12 people and shot another 70 people at the opening night of Batman: The Dark Knight [Rises]. They kept that movie in the theaters. You issue an anonymous cyber threat that you do not have the capability to carry out? We pulled a movie from 18,000 theaters."
In some ways, the comparison between the response to this current threat against movie theaters and the rampage that happened 2012 shooting in Aurora, Colorado is appropriate. Both target movie theaters and the people in them. But that's where it ends.
The Aurora shooting has gone down in history as an unforeseeable tragedy the fault of which lay entirely with the shooter. Everyone said, "This was very sad," and no one's expecting any victims' civil suits to win anything.
In fairly extreme contrast, ***IF*** Sony were to allow the movie to be shown in theaters and ***IF*** someone attacked a movie theater for any reason relating to the showing of the movie, then Sony would be very publicly acknowledged as having fault in the harm done to theater-goers and would be sued out of existence.
Everything in this decision has to do with LIABILITY. Even if the probability is extremely low, the potential liability is astronomical. It doesn't make financial sense for Sony to allow the movie to be shown.
Aside: Notice who the puppets and the puppet-masters are here. Those making the threats hold the strings, but they're not playing Sony. They're playing the American public. They know that the American public are so unhappy with their opportunities to be super-rich that they see legal liability as one of their few chances to get MILLIONS! As such, the nation is extremely risk-averse thus thoroughly negating out espoused resolve to not be susceptible to terroristic threats.
To be cliche, the enemy is us.
They killed North Korea in a previous movie
Team America: World Police
They impaled Kim Jong Il
And revealed it was a cockroach inside his head
And that Kim Jong Il hired the Muslims to do 9/11. And Kim got false info to Hans Blix to lie to UN that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
Yet no backlash
This isn't North Korea hacks at all. Arin.net last info was NK has 32 non firewalled IPS in NK.
On torchat, tor hacked forums, its old antisec/remnants of lulsec anons having fun. Some of the same that dropped PlayStation network for almost a month and got everyone's user/pass and name/dox. They left backdoors and such.
Plus one way in was an unlatched older version of sshd. Even a script kiddy can get root on old sshd.
Its trolling. Even encyclopediadramatica article and forums are laughing at anonymous got Sony to stop a movie premiere.
BTW the entire script along with 15 other movies in future were copied and on torrent now. Plus 3 movies and screeners.
They also have the move the interview screener, they are releasing on Christmas.