James Franco and his LIPS !!!

huh

NK has $$$? really?

Enough to pay hackers

I don't see how NK paying lulzec types to do this is any less hard to believe that NK doing it, or "ordering" someone to do it

I find all those scenarios hard to believe

you say NK sympathizer, i say bored hacker who thinks sony's a joke, tomato, tomahto

all the government reporting is "linkage"

This is a hella lot of free publicity and notoriety, the movie's value must be skyrocketing because of it's outlaw status. Maybe this is all just a brilliant viral marketing campaign.

i think that theory was crushed by the 9/11 references

the thing is NK making sabre-rattling terrorist threats would not give any pause for even a second, the only reason this is garnering the paranoid response it has is because of the anonymity of the threat source

give anyone

that should say

looking forward to the next movie campaign from the rogen/franco crowd. 'from the guys who almost brought you world war III'

wonder if there was any pressure on sony from the gov't not to poke the NK bear in the wake of realizing who was behind it?

it's unclear who's slapping these communiques atop the files and it's not even certain they're all from the same source. if these files are out there anyone could take a few and type some gibberish atop it. but i can't blame movie theaters for not wanting call any bluffs over this in terms of liability.

Sony should just immediately leak the movie online

Has this been posted already?

http://www.wired.com/2014/12/north-korea-did-not-hack-sony-probs/

considering whoever has these files sends them to writers for mashable, i'm guessing this aspect isn't being run by NK

omg the 'free speech' arguments on FB for the Apatow bros

"first we will reveal wacky e-mails to gawker...then, if that fails, the ground war."

I sorta wish whoever is behind this hack finds a way to stop the studios from releasing even more movies each year.

Michael Moore asked as much

Judd Apatow @JuddApatow · 5h 5 hours ago
This only guarantees that this movie will be seen by more people on Earth than it would have before. Legally or illegally all will see it.

jesus christ

i like the dramatic redundancy of "on Earth"

FIGHT THE POWER
SEE THIS SHITTY MOVIE

the interview sparks La Révolution surréaliste

Good job Korea, giving Franco even more self importance was indeed something that would rile everyone up.

Legally or illegally all will see it.

chilling

didn't hear it from me, but this is all viral advertising for another movie, in which the US government, under pressure, extradites James Franco to north korea

the quote in the NYT from the nameless government official is that NK was "centrally involved"

even if they tear out my eyes!

i will cradle a laptop that's playing it in my arms as I bleed out!

apparently the other rumor is that it's a digruntled Sony IT guy who was fired

from the article

It is rare for the United States to publicly accuse countries suspected of involvement in cyberintrusions or attacks. The administration never publicly said who attacked White House and State Department computers over the past two months, or JPMorgan Chase’s systems last summer. Russia is suspected in the first two cases, but there is conflicting evidence on JPMorgan.

But in this case, there is a long forensic trail. The attackers used readily available commercial tools to wipe data off Sony’s machines. They also borrowed tools and techniques that had been used in at least two previous attacks, one in Saudi Arabia two years ago — widely attributable to Iran — and another last year in South Korea, aimed at banks and media companies.

The attacks at Sony were routed from command and control centers across the world, including a convention center in Singapore and a computer at Thammasat University in Thailand. But one of those command and control servers, a computer in Bolivia, had been used before, in a limited set of cyberattacks on South Korean targets two years ago. That suggests, but does not prove that that the same group or individuals may have been behind both attacks.

The Sony malware also shared remarkable similarities with the malware used in the destructive attacks on South Korean banks and broadcasters last year. Those attacks, which also destroyed data belonging to their victims, are believed to be the work of a cybercriminal gang known as Dark Seoul. Some experts say they cannot rule out the possibility that the Sony attack was the work of a Dark Seoul copycat.

The Sony attack also borrowed a wiping tool from an attack two years ago at Saudi Aramco, where hackers wiped out data off 30,000 Aramco computers, replacing it with an image of a burning American flag.

Security experts were never able to track down the hackers behind the attacks at Saudi Aramco, though United States officials have long said they believe the attacks emanated from Iran, using tools that are now on the black market.

In each attack, experts were never able to confirm the initial entry point. At Sony, forensics investigators are looking into the possibility that the attackers may have had some inside help. Embedded in the malicious code were the names of Sony servers and administrative credentials that allowed the malware to spread across Sony’s network.

“It’s clear that they already had access to Sony’s network before the attack,” said Jaime Blasco, a security researcher at AlienVault.

fuck's sake that's the exact same reporting as in the wired article, but *that* says "this means NK prob didn't do it"

http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/18/world/asia/us-links-north-korea-to-sony-hacking.html

damn you NK, an attack on Franco is an attack on all of america!

Just tell me who to invade.

Clearly Rogan and Franco should make a movie in which they play a pair of Hollywood stars (maybe as themselves?) who get recruited by North Korea to hack into Sony. They assemble a ragtag band of misfits - Hill, McBride, Baruchel, et al. - who get flown to NK and treated like royalty, all while desperately clinging to the ruse (under penalty of death) that they are also expert hackers. Their solution at the end is to convince a studio (Sony?) to make an intentionally shitty movie about Franco and Rogan assassinating Dear Leader, and then Sony has to cancel its release after getting "hacked" and threatened by North Korea. Rogan and Franco are hailed by heroes by North Korea and sent home. Dennis Rodman cameos.

NK won't know what hit them. It'll be a meta rope-a-dope.

Would watch

great now I guess I'll be seeing Selma on Christmas Day #thanksobama

Guy Fieri plays himself in this

come friendly bombs and fall on guy fieri

there's a fully functional McDonald's on Guy Fieri that is not open to the public

This is the End managed to have a religious plot where the Fundamnetalists were pretty much right about the rapture and Heaven and all. So maybe this one should've been from N. Korea's worldview.

except that in This is the End to get to heaven you just had to be a decent person, as opposed to confessing your sins/accepting christ as your savior. Jesus is never mentioned. Oddly the fact that Rogen and Baruchel are both Jewish is also never mentioned.

Richard Brody (SPOILERS):

"That climactic scene is the one that was at the center of controversy between the film's directors and its producers at Sony. The shell that's launched from the tank flies toward Kim's helicopter in super-slow motion. When the shell strikes, the helicopter bursts into flames (again, in slow motion). Then there's a cut to Kim, whose countdown is about to reach zero. What results is a moment of grotesque comedy that shocked me with its gory audacity: the wave of heat and shock makes Kim's face waver—then his hair, eyebrows, and even skin begin to catch fire. Apparently, Rogen and Goldberg had gone further: the New York Times reports that Kazuo Hirai, Sony's C.E.O., 'insisted over the summer that a scene in which Mr. Kim's head explodes when hit by a tank shell be toned down to remove images of flaming hair and chunks of skull.' In the cut that I saw, at a press screening last week, there was a little bit of flaming hair and even flaming flesh—but no chunks of skull or other mutilations."

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/interview-handles-assassination-kim-jong-un

i don't see why this was considered provocative by north-korea?

I'm mystified that NK had the competence/resources to successfully pull this off, it's crazy

Clearly Rogan and Franco should make a movie in which they play a pair of Hollywood stars (maybe as themselves?) who get recruited by North Korea to hack into Sony. They assemble a ragtag band of misfits - Hill, McBride, Baruchel, et al. - who get flown to NK and treated like royalty, all while desperately clinging to the ruse (under penalty of death) that they are also expert hackers. Their solution at the end is to convince a studio (Sony?) to make an intentionally shitty movie about Franco and Rogan assassinating Dear Leader, and then Sony has to cancel its release after getting "hacked" and threatened by North Korea. Rogan and Franco are hailed by heroes by North Korea and sent home. Dennis Rodman cameos.

NK won't know what hit them. It'll be a meta rope-a-dope.

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, December 17, 2014 9:36 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

With "The Interview" as a DVD extra, natch

Carrell NK movie also cancelled now

I wonder how gleeful Hitler would've been if he'd been able to stop To Be or Not to Be (not that either of these movies were gonna be as good but still)

or if Sadaam could've stopped Naked Gun