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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."
Home of the brave.
Nobody's hacking, noob. You just suck!
What can be explained as a propaganda campaign. Expect this controversial piece of fine art to reach you a way or the other.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
surely now we should all be afraid enough to allow the MPAA to take control of the internet - only THEY can protect us from TERRORISM, while we're at it lets give the NSA even more access, they can catch the TERRORISTS then they can lock up those filthy movie pirates too....see everyone wins!
They were forced to. And not by the hackers, by the five largest movie chains pulling out. At that point it was best to not show it at all.
I'm sure Sony will release it on DVD/BluRay/streaming once they get their shit together and beef up their security. Right now though, no, it makes no sense to release the movie to a few small theaters.
And it doesn't have to be NK that does it... some crazy nut job could... and Sony would be on the hook for liability.
How?
Watch this Heartland Institute video
North Korea has nuclear weapons
And no long distance delivery system
and a million soldier army.
And no navy and airforce large enough to protect it as they make their way across the pacific.
South Korea might have a problem, but elsewhere?
Watch this Heartland Institute video
My guess is they are more afraid of what is in those emails that hasn't been released yet. Especially if it has something the feds might be interested in or might wreck someone's marriage. Losing 20mil on a movie isn't much compared to that, for an exec that makes millions a year.
If Sony really wanted to make a statement they could release it on dvd or free with ads on any of the many streaming services.
If they bow to hacker pressure now, they just painted a larger target on themselves for future hacker groups.
"It's win-win. We avoid the risk of bad publicity from someone blowing up a theatre showing the movie, and with all the attention from the threat combined with the fact that it can't be seen in theatres, home media sales will be through the roof! People will be lining up to buy the movie that was 'too dangerous to be shown in theatres' while thumbing their noses at the terrorists who don't want them to see it."
When someone says, "Any fool can see
As soon as I heard this story, I realized it's not Sony Pictures giving in to threats to an AMC in Des Moines - It's likely Sony Pictures execs giving in to threats to themselves and their families: "If you release this movie we'll kill your children."
Of course I doubt NK has the reach to pull off those threats, but pretty chilling nonetheless...
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.
I've been saying this from the get-go, Sony should not be coddled like they are the victim. This hack went on for months and probably for years they've been hiring the cheapest sysadmins overseas and buying 'solutions' from companies "well reviewed" in NetworkWorld (or whatever sponsored magazines middle management gets) to implement on their network that in the end didn't do squat.
Instead of being coddled, they should be fined for aiding and abetting and breaking privacy laws.
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So, you're saying this is a false flag operation by the shadow government to instill more fear in people, and to allow the passing of additional laws which expands their power and further justifies their abuse of the law and our rights?
I like your ideas, and would like to subscribe to your news letter.
The really scary thing is no matter how paranoid the scenario you come up with these days, reality might be trying even harder. What was batshit crazy stuff a decade ago is pretty much commonplace now after Snowden told us about it.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
There's no way Sony would be liable for an act of war or terrorist attack due to their decision to air a movie. We can't even hold them responsible for the financial loss and emotional damages that most of their movies already cause, and that is absolutely through their own negligence!
I have posted that yesterday : the feedback I read from people having watched the film in preview told that it was horribly bad. Now they have made sure that for the next days or maybe even week they made the film "unforgettable". Maybe I am paranoid but I would bet that it is a PR coup on Sony side.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
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One local theater chain is doing something about this:
They replaced the scheduled times of The Interview with a Team America sing-along.
Sony and the other theater chains have really screwed the US (and the West in general.) They caved in. NK doesn't have a monopoly on hacking, and in the future, this has emboldened every blackhat group worldwide because they know that they can not just breach a company, but actively control what that company does.
Going into tinfoil hat territory, I wonder if one of the hackers got some dirt on someone high up at Sony (and/or the theater chains) and was blackmailing them with it, so Sony used the NK thing as a way to pull the movie.
If North Korea got this information and threatened to reveal it, that would definitely explain why Sony caved quicker than the Iraqian army when first attacked by Isis.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
It's not a concern about maniacs hitting 18,000 theaters simultaneously, its about hitting one. Even if a single theater is attacked by one moron doing a copy cat attack, the people injured could sue the living bejesus out of Sony, and an the PR spin would be even worse than it is now. Personally, I think it should be leaked to the internet, so about a billion people can see what only a few million would have seen otherwise, and then release and uncut directors version on DVD 6 months from now after all this insanity has died down.
Regal Cinema et al. are not really worried about terror strikes. Muslim terrorists have made threats against various movies for decades and it hasn't stopped anything from being shown, and this is from groups that have proven experience blowing things up.
What these companies are in fact scared shitless is the kind of cyberattack that Sony suffered. As bad as Sony security might have been, I guarantee it was heads and shoulders above what any of these theater chains have in place. Sony was able to shrug off millions in damages, but for AMC it could be lights out. At the very least it would beat out the profits of showing a mediocre comedy. This is why they're scared to show the interview - concerns about "terror attacks" are a smokescreen.
The OP has it wrong. The theaters would be liable.
Remember the shooting that occurred at a screening of Batman: the Dark Knight? Well, some families of victims are suing the theater and the case is still ongoing. Because there's a chance that the theater may be found liable of not having "enough security" for a random shooting, and because it can be argued that the theaters in this case were "warned ahead of time of a potential attack," they could potentially be found liable should anything happen.
Keep in mind that Sony is only pulling the release after the five largest theater chains refused to show it. And the reason they refused to show it is because they could potentially be liable should anything happen anywhere in any of their theaters. Given the poor reviews the movie is getting they presumably decided that it just wasn't worth any risk as they're probably not going to make much anything off showing it anyway.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
The dialogue pinning the attack on DPRK serves many purposes, and it's been quite fun to watch this event transform from "Fuck Sony" to our ever present "Oh Noez! A bogey man" dialectic. We already have politicians claiming that the DPRK made an act of war (Newt Gingrich) and according to at least FOX and ABC the US is officially blaming the DPRK for the cyber attack (though neither have specified what agency this is). Even though evidence is weak at best.
Anyone believing the "terrorist" propaganda must somehow also believe that the DPRK has millions of bomb strapping terrorists stationed in the US ready to flock into Star and AMC to bomb people for watching a comedy.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Not so much, if you are a corporation. The terrorists win. Not a shot fired. Behavior is changed, events are cancelled, angst pervades. Not with a gun or a bomb, but with a torrent this battle was won. Who'd a thunk? Outlook spools as shock and awe. OTH, maybe this better? No actual physical harm ITRW. Still for those corporate execs, light, heat and fallout and the same instinct to duck under their desk. If you can disrupt the infotainment ecosphere, can you cause wide spread mayhem in the real world? Perhaps understandable for MegaPlex execs after Colorado. But for Sony, hard to be sympathetic to serial incompetence. Whatever David Bois is charging them, it isn't enough.
That's just silly to act like someone would need to attack 18,000 theatres simultaneously for it to be bad. ONE pipe bomb in ONE theater would be a problem. The capability to do so? I made pyrotechnic devices in 6th grade. I knew, in 6th grade, that if I used a metal pipe as the casing instead of a cardboard tube I'd have a bomb. This guy is pretending bad guys don't or can't do what many of us could do in elementary school.
If I see this guy at a cybersecurity conference I may have to call him out on his BS.
I think this video sums it up pretty well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
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.
is not the same thing as being able to carry out physical, 9/11-style attacks in 18,000 locations simultaneously.
Who said anything about them having to hit 18,000 locations simultaneously. That isn't how terrorism works. The 911 guys did not have have to hit thousands of targets, they only tried for three, managed only two (counting the WTC complex as a single target) and look at all the trouble they caused!
A coordinated attack on only a handful of movie theaters the same night would be plenty to cause an economically significant portion of this countries population spend the holiday Christmas - New Years stretch cowering in their homes rather than going out and spending money. It would almost certainly lead to all kinds of wild ill considered national security response.
Hell look at the Batman Shooting a few years ago. It takes one suicide attacker to "hit" a theater with essentially no real resources. A few thousand in counterfeit notes (which DPRK has produced in the past) would allow would be assailants to put together the arsenal they need. Its perfectly plausible even DPRK could get three or four people into this country with limited fake credentials and no access to anything privileged enough to do even a basic background check.
I am not saying "OMG we all going to die here" but you can't completely dismiss the threat either here. Having hit Sony they have already demonstrated some capability.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Has anyone, including some nebulous North Korean hacking team, actually threatened yours?
Someone, identity unknown, claiming to be part of a group that hacked Sony, sent an email saying we'd have another 9/11 if a movie is shown. Call me naive but I don't think anyone should take that seriously. Even Homeland Security, the agency that loves to play up every whisper as ominous, has come out and said there's no credible threat. The President went on TV and his advice to Americans was not "exercise caution," not "if you see something, say something," but "go to the movies." There's every opportunity for the security behemoth to capitalize on this, crank the terror alert color up to fuchsia, and Keep America Fearful. They aren't even bothering. There is no threat.
I'm statistically far more likely to die in a car wreck on the way to a movie theater. That threat is credible, the risk is proven, and it exists every time I get on the road. I still drive every day.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
Keep in mind that Sony is only pulling the release after the five largest theater chains refused to show it. And the reason they refused to show it is because they could potentially be liable should anything happen anywhere in any of their theaters. Given the poor reviews the movie is getting they presumably decided that it just wasn't worth any risk as they're probably not going to make much anything off showing it anyway.
I propose a much simpler reason aside from potential liability that they are pulling it. Looking strictly at the bottom-line (and setting aside the idea that Sony might actually have a corporate conscience, somewhere..). The rule-of-thumb is that the opening weekend box office numbers are the best indicator of which movies are hot and which are stinkers. Ticket sales usually taper off week by week, and never surpass the numbers at the opening. If a movie has a weak opening weekend, everyone assumes that the movie is crap and even fewer people go to see it the next week. By not having an opening weekend in the top 5 chains, Sony would pretty much guarantee they have a flop on their hands, never mind the fact that all signs point to a crappy movie to start with.
The theaters are contractually obligated to play the movie. Sony can claim publicly that they don't have to play the movie, but those legally binding contracts are still in place, and remember, the theaters still want to play the movie. That's cash in their pockets and the threats are likely fake. So they show the movie anyways, and if a real attack happens, the first thing they are going to do is point at that contract and say Sony forced them to show the movie, they had no choice. Viola, Sony is now liable.
First up. Sony voluntarily suspended enforcement of the contract clause. The theaters would have real difficulty arguing in the court that "Sony forced them to show the movie" when Sony publicly declared they did not.
Second. Are you trained in contract law? I would be quite surprised to learn that if both parties in a normal two-party contract agree to temporarily suspend enforcement of one clause in a contract they are "breaking the law" in some way. What would be the aggrieved party that would bring suit? Who would have standing? Or are you saying this a criminal act? Cite a statute please?
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
And yet the last temptation of christ never had that problem despite reams of threat, and at least ONE REAL theater being burned down with molotov cocktail.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
They replaced the scheduled times of The Interview with a Team America sing-along.
Not anymore. Paramount nixed it:
http://popcultureblog.dallasne...
-- I have monkeys in my pants.
Have you seen people drive? Road rage? Now think many of these same people with guns.
Target range practice is a very powerful biofeedback mechanism for teaching the suppression of the production of adrenaline and of all symptoms of excitement. Aligning gun sights - a pair of visual targets separated by about the length of the gun barrel (inches, a foot, or several feet), aligning them with a target (at tens of feet), and holding the alignment, gives visibility to even microscopic tremors and movement. Getting the image right and stable means drastically suppressing this movement. Over a number of range sessions, this leads to learning how to be icy calm, as a reflex, in the midst of a very stressful environment (full of intermittent explosions, bright lights, acrid smells, and odd-temperature winds).
(The effect is extreme. It was discovered that good target shooters, thinking they were just controlling their breath, had actually learned to "stop their heartbeat" - compressing the time between the pairs of beats before and after firing a shot and doubling the time between beats during the trigger pull.)
The result is that, after just a few good sessions, this becomes imprinted. Even in a rage, putting your hand on a gun drops you into that icy calm state.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way