James Franco and his LIPS !!!

So we can't even mention North Korea in a movie now?

On the contrary, I just heard they gave the green light to Dennis Rodman's remake of Lost Horizon with NK as a stand-in for Shangri-La.

If Bush could've stopped Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay...

Carell starring in a paranoid spy thriller sounds like a great idea, though.

first they came for james franco, and i did nothing

what is the likelihood of this kind of thing happening more often

56%

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House says evidence shows the hack against Sony Pictures was carried out by a "sophisticated actor" with "malicious intent."

https://33.media.tumblr.com/c94fd49646ddaf1e0d03ee889a6d5da0/tumblr_mzd8g0mIHY1qft49to1_500.gif

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

Not crazy. If the NK military/science establishment can build nuclear weapons and fairly advanced missiles, they can master the intricacies of hacking Sony.

it's my understanding that their nuclear/missile capability was more or less handed to them by external actors though. I suppose the same could have happened here.

China does not want a unified Korean peninsula, so that's a reasonable conjecture.

this is fucked up

reporting on the WH presser today about the hack says they "declined to blame" (or some such phrase) NK for the attack

unwillingness to jeopardize ongoing investigations etc

how much more jeopardizeable can they be

more skepticism

http://mashable.com/2014/12/18/nortk-korea-sony-hackers-redux/

meanwhile this reuters journalist gets very sloppy

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/18/us-response-sony-hack_n_6349066.html

Hackers who said they were incensed by a film on the fictional assassination of North Korea's leader attacked Sony Corp last month, leaking documents that drew global headlines and distributing unreleased films on the Internet. It appeared to be an unprecedented victory for Pyongyang and its abilities to wage cyber warfare.

sorry to get all media critic in your franco thread

only allowed if you post requisite number of hot Franco mouth posts

the hack says they "declined to blame"

i read "the hack" as the press secretary

http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/25/7281097/sony-pictures-hackers-say-they-want-equality-worked-with-staff-to-break-in

The hackers who took down Sony Pictures' computer systems yesterday say that they are working for "equality" and suggest that their attack was assisted or carried out by Sony employees. In an email responding to inquiries from The Verge, a person identifying as one of the hackers writes, "We Want equality [sic]. Sony doesn't. It's an upward battle." The hackers' goals remain unclear, but they used the attack yesterday to specifically call out Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton, referring to him as a "criminal" in a tweet.

The hackers claim to have taken sensitive internal data from Sony. In an email from an address associated with the hack, a hacker who identified as "lena" was vague about how the attack was carried out. "Sony doesn't lock their doors, physically, so we worked with other staff with similar interests to get in," lena writes. "Im sorry I can't say more, safety for our team is important [sic]." The email address in question is an open account, which allows anyone to send mail from it without entering a password. That means it's possible the message was sent by someone with no relation to the attack itself. Still, because the address was included in the initial .zip file and lena identified as part of the group behind the attack, the message raises real questions about the political motives behind Sony's recent troubles. The account has also sent similar messages to other outlets, suggesting a consistent voice.

haven't tons of large companies/organizations/governments been hacked by lone skilled teenagers and groups of anonymous message board assholes by now? it doesn't seem like an incredibly precious and rare accomplishment anymore, just a question of whether someone who can do it has the motivation to go after a particular target.

i don't get why public sentiment on who was behind the hacks suddenly reversed course the second television reporters had anonymous "U.S. intelligence sources" saying that it's "believed to be" north korea

an extremely untrustworthy group of people

wait, reversed course from what to what? seems like NK has been the consensus culprit all along

idk from what i could tell there was a growing consensus of "it was probably not north korea" with the wired article being the crest of that wave

...the hack against Sony Pictures was carried out by a "sophisticated actor"...

...a hacker who identified as "lena"...

and we know the hacker's are in contact with entertainment news websites...

is there no end to her crimes

i support sony's decision to cancel the movie. didn't it already almost fuck up some diplomatic negotiation with japan involving the return of political prisoners?

Hackers connected to the Sony break in released a new statement on Thursday morning: ITS ABOUT ETHICS IN GAMES JOURNALISM

cryptic..

guys I just loaded the D.I. Go Pop CD into my discman and pressed play and "never gonna give you up" started playing??

Not That Kind of Jihad

He's Just Not That Into Jihad

@DennisThePerrin
When they came for Seth Rogen, I said nothing for I'm not Seth Rogen. When they came for Larry The Cable Guy, I said "He lives over there."

so dennis perrin is larry the cable guy?

it's official:
http://www.sfgate.com/business/technology/article/FBI-conclusively-links-North-Korea-to-Sony-hack-5968501.php

Clooney otm imo

from the guys that brought you the link between iraq and al qaeda comes the link between north korea and hackers who give channing tatum's e-mails to mashable

FBI did not link iraq to al qaeda but thx for playing

haha sorry if i'm being too macro

Obama slams Sony for "making a mistake"

obv i have no more of a clue than anybody but if this is the biggest smoking gun

the FBI discovered that computer Internet addresses known to be operated by North Korea were communicating directly with other computers used to deploy and control the hacking tools and collect the stolen Sony files.

there's still a lot of grey area

the smoking gun is the american govt being like "believe us this is what happened" which.... do you, i guess, if you wanna believe it

which isn't to say it's not what happened but, you know

unlike all the Iraq bullshit, I'm not really sure what ulterior motive the Obama administration would have for blaming NK for this

I wish I had not started this discussion in the Franco LIPS thread but i did not foresee presidential press conferences

the government is saying there is a "link" to nk. that they are responsible for the malware. if you want to extrapolate from that that kim jong-il was so mad about The Interview that he ordered a brazen cyberattack where they took terabytes of a multinational company's most precious information and used it to LET BLOGS KNOW THAT SCOTT RUDIN IS A DICK, fine. A wacky Pearl Harbor from the wackiest despot.

this is actually a sequel to 1941

I doubt this hack becomes a serious issue if sony didnt have comically shitty security

comically shitty security that was already attacked by the kind of goofy ass hackers that would e-mail buzzfeed and write crazy shit in faux-broken english in the past. but now the idea is that north korea's plan was to steal all the best shit, embarrass some celebrities, threaten domestic terrorism if the movie isn't pulled, and then say "thank you, watch yourself" when it is. ok.

as for why the government would prefer to put the attention on a sanctioned foreign state (who may well have paid for the hackers pizzas), history and hollywood itself have provided plenty of examples of it

and while i'm being all wag the dog, let's just note that before peace with cuba and a stand-off with north korea the hot topic was massive public protests of domestic policy