The last time people got this crazy about a hack, Kevin Mitnick was thrown in solitary confinement for months because they thought he could "whistle nuclear launch codes into prison telephones". 2600 made the documentary about it, Freedom Downtime, and I strongly recommend watching it if you never have.
So what if North Korea did it (of course I'm skeptical of this, anyone with a computer can conduct the same activities, with the motivator of trolling the entire world for fun). It's not a big deal, it's not something that requires US presidential intervention. It's not even remotely as big of a deal as the CIA torture report that just came out. The CIA report threatens our legitimacy as a world power. The Sony hack just costs a corporation some money, maybe (free publicity FTW). Big. Deal.
If this is the worst a hacker can do, I'd love to see all future wars replaced with hacking. I'll take that over agent orange and torture any day.
This sad, sick notion that hackers are terrorist enemy #1 and this is the most important thing governments should be working on is, like this movie will probably be, shitty fiction, a self-fulfilling prophecy perpetuated by Hollywood in movies like War Games that make it look like we're all going to be nuked thousands of times if we don't stop the Hacker menace. Help me change the media's perception of hacking before we start throwing more whistleblowers and e-graffiti artists in prison.
TLDR: Sony got hacked, too bad, learn a lesson and fix your computer security, let's not start WW3 over it shall we?
>The CIA report threatens our legitimacy as a world power. The Sony hack just costs a corporation some money, maybe (free publicity FTW). Big. Deal.
It is a big deal actually. Sony and these movie theaters taught the world that US businesses are so risk averse that they will give into any threat - credible or not. The crazies will now come out of the woodwork. Not every business will give in, but the volume of threats and the disruption they cause will vastly increase.
A foreign dictator just told the US population that it isn't allowed to see a movie he doesn't like (false flag conspiracy theories aside - sometimes things are exactly what they appear to be). I am not sure how anyone can think this isn't a big deal worthy of presidential intervention.
I don't think script kiddies could do this size of a hack, especially considering the amount of data involved and stay under the radar this long. If this is what a script kiddie is capable of... then what is a real hacker capable of?
No one was saying that this was done by script kiddies, but IIRC there were monitors on Sony's network for suspicious activity, and they did flag some of the activity, but the relevant people were told to ignore it by Sony's 'security' team. (I imagine this means that they get lots of false-positives and were just too used to ignore the alerts?)
It seems like Sony did a lot of stuff wrong in the end but instead of owning up to the mistakes are going to claim that it was a terrorist attack on their syste .
Yeah of course because who cares if people get tortured, mass raped, cluster bombed and starved as long as we get to keep running our little startups, right?
Wars vs more script kiddies and you'd really choose the wars? I'm disgusted.
Although you've answered twice, you're still avoiding the question.
He asked you if you prefer war over script kiddies, and said he's disgusted that you seem to. I agree.
Do you or don't you prefer actual war (including torture, rape, cluster bombs, starvation, etc) over "cyber warfare" (including script kiddies, copyright violation, web site graffiti and defacement, leaked email and photos, cyber bullying, doxing, inappropriate use of apostrophes, etc)?
I wouldn't put doxing in the same category as "web site graffiti and defacement". It has the potential to be psychologically every bit as damaging as rape...
I'm sure Alfreda Bikowsky was psychologically damaged by being doxed as the key apologist and senior officer at the center of the CIA's torture scandals. But not as badly as the people who were physically damaged and killed by the torture she ordered and flew to witness because "She thought it would be cool to be in the room".
There is going to be no real war over this hacking that is pure fucking fantasy. This is all just shit threading so we can talk about torture and continue the reddit like circle jerk.
And all Sony had to do was regularly back up, encrypt and delete the emails off their servers. This is the prime thing motivating their actions and driving their fear. And protect sensitive documents better but that seems secondary.
Leaving an ever accumlating pile of embarassing communications for someone to steal and then extort you for is not a national security weakness.
I don't know about you, but my ability to search and retrieve emails from months or years ago is critical in my job. You make it sound like it's an obvious choice.
As peeters said, most organizations rely upon the historical volume of emails to operate effectively. This isn't a simple solution.
Add that a narrative around this story is that the hackers "spear phished" an IT admin. This is incredibly difficult to defend against for any organization (seriously -- for all of the browbeating against Sony on here -- it's all so simple -- I would argue that there are zero organizations that would withstand a concerted, targeted attack. Most would fall in a day). Not only did they purportedly co-opt a privileged account, they then sat on it for months.
Over months they could have changed policies, retrieved backups, and on and on.
When blaming Sony, everyone needs to remember that Snowden, a Dell contractor working at the NSA with limited access, took the King's Ransom from what is assumed to be the pinnacle of computer security and awareness.
Sony CEO Michael Lynton says Sony still wants The Interview to be seen and is considering their options. Those include DVD and Blu-ray home video, YouTube, VOD, and other digital platforms but “there has not been one major VOD distributor, one major e-commerce site that has stepped forward and said they are willing to distribute this movie for us.” [1]
Hackers to Sony: We'll stand down if you never release the movie.... "Now we want you never let the movie released, distributed or leaked in any form of, for instance, DVD or piracy. And we want everything related to the movie, including its trailers, as well as its full version down from any website hosting them immediately." [They] warn the studio executives that, "we still have your private and sensitive data" and claims that they will "ensure the security of your data unless you make additional trouble." [2]
Imagine Sony putting it on BitTorrent with a pre-roll asking viewers to donate money to a charity of their choice through a micro-site they setup to track how much has been given. Or something.... This is actually a moment in history where Sony could truly shine.
But back in reality, whatever is in those held-back stolen docs, they probably need time to prepare for the fallout. If they can stall the remaining doc release by stalling the movie release, they can buy themselves some time. In the meantime, the audience for the film is growing daily, but I think will peak and fall if they wait too long.
If they want this movie out, they could make it happen tomorrow.
This is just PR speak. They might cave and release anyway, but Lynton's statement is deliberately weak and duplicitous, once again attempting to deflect all blame from themselves rather than admit to any mistake on their part.
I'm not sure they are in complete control, although it's a great image of master manipulation to imagine they are. I'm waiting until I really understand the whole story to start assigning any blame.
I'm more interested at this point in figuring out what this means for the future. Do we live in a world now where state-actors will target specific companies and basically try to rip them to shreds and extort them? Now I'm supposed to personally defend my company and my network against state-sponsored targeted persistent threats?
It should be possible to lock down individual machines which aren't ever supposed to be networked. That's hard enough. I'm personally of the belief that any networked device is ultimately hack-able up to the physical constraints of the network. It's all about how much it will cost an attacker to gain access, and how much they can steal once they get it.
If governments start routinely sponsoring these attacks, I'm very concerned the cost-levels we impose today are 5 - 6 orders of magnitude too low, and the network bandwidth 5 - 6 orders of magnitude too high, to deter these types of attack.
The state has targeted lots of private conpanies for decades, offering the advice to American companies as a competitive advantage.
This is different from states trying to explicitly destroy another company, but the bottom line is the same: you need to include state actors in your list of potentially hostile attackers, same as any black hat.
For probably most nations the "state-actors" part is irrelevant as they have no magic hacking method not afforded to anyone else. The exceptions are nations host to companies that supply hardware and software to be backdoored.
This whole thing has been blown out of proportion.
The thing is that from what I can tell this attack is not even in the same order of magnitude as the state sponsored attacks you are referring to.
I haven't found a good write up on the attack, however my understanding is it was mainly due to Sony's lack of security and not the prowess of the hackers.
This was something like SQL Injection and non password protected excel files with employees social security numbers. The state-sponsored APTs you are talking about are hundreds of millions of dollars worth of custom software engineering.
However I agree with your general premise that another government essentially blackmailing one of our private companies is worrying.
I'm assuming there's all sorts of dirt in that stolen data. Whoever has it, has Sony by the balls.
I'm not blaming Sony for bad security, because as was stated elsewhere, spear-fishing of IT-admins is incredibly hard to protect against. However, depending on how bad the dirt is (and every big corporation probably has a bunch of rather smelly skeletons in the closet), some of that blame may lie with Sony. But if that is so, getting hacked just means they didn't get away with whatever incriminating stuff is in that data.
Agreed; an official announcement from Sony to the major news outlets that it would be released on Crackle and nearly as many people would have that installed as iTunes :)
I heard a Sony executive on NPR today say "If and when this movie is released... Let me stop, when this movie is released..." Sony Pictures clearly intends for the film to be seen, but they need a distribution partner.
I'd interpret that exactly to the opposite: They're not sure if they're going to release it, but they want to put on a brave face and say that they will.
In reality, they're probably all scared shitless. If all of their employees' personal info has been compromised as reported, I can understand that they'd be worried about the possibility of someone getting hurt. Even a minor, harmless event could lead to bad press. Of course, no one believes that NK actually has the ability to inflict physical harm outside of their own country, but I can understand the Sony executives' hesitance to put that to the test.
> Of course, no one believes that NK actually has the ability to inflict physical harm outside of their own country
I wish. They're definitely capable of inflicting physical harm outside of NK. Just the first link that comes to my mind that has already been shared here:
It's not so unusual for a Korean to be in Japan, and NK can surely provide falsified documents to "prove" their agent is actually from SK (NK and SK, aside from minor differencies, even speak the same language, so how would you tell them apart?)
Granted, their ability to move in the US might be severely smaller than their ability to move inside Japan. But you only need a person or two with an handgun to scare the living hell out of the media/country/people who worry about such things
North Korean and South Korean dialects are very different, but you are correct in that they are adept at sneaking agents into Japan. But they threatened "9/11 style" attacks on movie theaters, of which they are certainly not capable, especially if the movie goes straight to VOD.
I think there's an argument going on between Sony Pictures and Sony Japan over the release, and that right now everyone is sitting on their hands waiting to see how the U.S. government responds. But since there's already screener copies out there, I would put money on the movie seeing the light of day.
Why doesn't 2600 defuse the threat by hacking the hackers? I realize this is just a publicity stunt for them but if they're serious about demonstrating that not all hackers are evil as they say then they could try to substantiate the other group's claim regarding Sony's data. It would be a pretty good stunt a-la Sneakers if they did.
Doesn't the assumption that the movie release even matters assume North Korean culpability in the attack (debated in other threads?)
If NK is not responsible, it really doesn't matter whether the movie is released. In this scenario, the hackers could easily leak the movie themselves under someone else's guise, providing an excellent excuse to continue their campaign of pure damage toward Sony Pictures. (Assuming they even bother.)
No, it assumes that the the persons behind the attack cares whether or not the movie is released.
While you wouldn't think so, the North Korean regime does actually have (a few) supporters outside of North Korea. There are always someone who wants to believe that all the bad stuff is invented by regime opponents, regardless which regime you're talking about.
I don't think so. There have been explicit threats against the cinemas if it's released. As such, it's pretty much beholden on the U.S. gov and Sony to assume it's a terrorist threat and act accordingly.
That's somewhat orthogonal to whether or not NK is behind it but the possibility of a nation state being involved must affect their calculations.
If all it takes is anonymous vague threats on the Internet to stifle free speech, then we may as well just give that right up. We no longer deserve it.
"Now we want you never let the movie released, distributed or leaked in any form of, for instance, DVD or piracy. And we want everything related to the movie, including its trailers, as well as its full version down from any website hosting them immediately."
If only we had passed SOPA and CISPA, we'd be so much safer right now.
If anything I think this shows how poorly the US Gov is prepared for cyber-warfare. The last decade was no cake walk, but the next decade will truly be eye opening.
The FBI told Sony they didn't know if the theaters were safe. Seriously, WTF are we paying them for if they can't tell us, with absolute certainty, that our theaters are safe from terrorist attacks on Christmas. That's not very comforting...
So what I'm hearing is, we have no confidence in our national defense, and no ability to prevent, mitigate, or even simply deter these increasingly brutal cyber-attacks... Yeah, actually the last thing I'm worried about right now is CISPA. Like it or not, network defense just became a national security prerogative.
OK, so that's the counter-argument right? So this has been very well played and I don't see how you derail it now.
The FBI told Sony they didn't know if the theaters were safe. Seriously, WTF are we paying them for if they can't tell us, with absolute certainty, that our theaters are safe from terrorist attacks on Christmas.
Are you kidding me? You expect that if the FBI can't say with absolute certainty that all 40K screens in the US are absolutely safe from terrorist attack on Christmas that they've somehow failed us?
They'd have failed us if they could state that with certainty, IMO. Because either they don't know what certainty means, or they'd have frivolously wasted such a massive amount of money securing a soft and nearly useless target. What's next? Food courts? Mall parking lots?
Society simply cannot afford to provide absolute certainty, nor would I want to live in a world where that was the goal. Imagine the surveillance effort and intrusion into your personal life that would be needed to prevent you from carrying out an attack at a time and place of your choosing that the media would call terrorism. Now multiply that by 300 million people. You'd likely need over half of the population to be trusted and in law enforcement and you still wouldn't have certainty...
You're right. The bit about 'absolute certainty' was hyperbolic on my part. How about this though;
You think it's too much to ask for the FBI to be able to stand up and say that this particular threat of violence, which feels like little more than chest-pounding script kiddies, is not credible?
My initial reaction was the physical threat was little more than a joke. The FBI and Homeland Security do need to be able to give proper guidance on credible and non-credible threats, and I think in this case in particular, it's a good example of something which I really would have hoped they could have explicitly labeled as non-credible.
Or to state it another way, if the accepted reaction is that we actually have to treat threats like this as credible, if attackers start spamming these threats are we just supposed to shut it all down?
What companies are looking for is a liability shield, and a public reassurance that they can use as a backstop for disregarding the threat. Otherwise they have no choice but to cave-in. So I think we depend on the FBI in specifically these cases to provide that level of assurance.
I somewhat feel for many of the theater owners in this case. After the Dark Knight, some tried to sue the theater because they "didn't prevent it" from happening, so something like that. The theater's defense was that they had no prior knowledge. With our litigious nature here in the US, having a vague threat that the theater might be attacked, they could lose that defense.
I agree with your premise though: there is no possible way for society to have absolute certainty of the validity of something so vague as the threats issued. To cave to those demands is absurd.
(full disclosure: I work for a company that owns a large number of theater screens, though not within that department. These are my personal views.)
This is an argument that frustrates me. I don't mean to directly imply that parent feels this way, but there is this idea that our government can provide true assurances of our safety. But in a free society (or any) that's just not true.
This idea isn't helped at all by the government pushing that they can, if we just hand over one more freedom, or give up one more bit of privacy.
There is nothing that can guarantee safety from violence. Nothing. The FBI, NSA, etc., when not spying on us for no reason do seem to keep us safer than we might be without a degree of diligence. Police forces do seem to, in general, care for public safety. But of course the FBI can't guarantee that tens of thousands of theaters are completely safe from violence - and to think otherwise is to be permanently afraid, and to always be looking to Big Brother to assail your fear.
Ehhh I'm not sure I agree. I think Cyber-warfare could be called "silent War", or at least "War with a lag". It's certainly possible, given what we know re Snowden about the capabilities of the NSA et al, that we've responded already and we haven't (or won't) see the results, at least not in the near term and probably not as spectacular as a successful Drone strike on a military compound.
Having spent time deployed, I think a lot of Americans might be conditioned to seeing immediate(ish) responses to threats via Drones, SEAL team 6, Ranger Regiment, whatever. The nature, and future, of Cyberwar is something that's fundamentally different from what we've seen broadcast on CNN over the last 13 (soon to be 14...15...) years. A response to North Korea (though I'm not truly convinced that they're the lone perpetrators) might not be something that pops up in The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer or trends on Twitter.
"Administration officials said President Obama’s national security team is considering a range of options to retaliate against those responsible for the cyberattack on the movie studio" [1]
I agree it's very early days. I think what I'm fixating on is that we now live in a world where the US government needs to formulate a response to a business hacking. I mean, not a civil but actual military response.
I think this is a reality that even the Top 1% of commercial networks are simply not prepared for. There won't be any lag when more crucial services come under attack.
White House homeland security and counterterrorism adviser Lisa Monaco: As the volume, frequency and intensity of cyberthreats increase, Monaco’s biggest fear is intrusive threats turning destructive. She called cyber “one of the gravest national and economic security threats we face.” [2]
I think that attacking businesses and commercial services is fundamentally different from attacking, say, the DOD intranet. But these are philosophical discussions that the American public (not to mention, ugh, Congress) hasn't really thought through critically. It's so difficult to articulate what an appropriate "military" response could/should be. Should we simply reinforce our Cyber defensive capabilities and not respond at all offensively? If the North Korean military (I want to deliberately draw the distinction here between the people of North Korea and the North Korean Regime) launched a physical attack against a US commercial interest how would we respond? I doubt it would be a huge investment in star wars missile defense tech.
So I guess to touch back on the parent thread, it's not that we're not capable of responding...it's that we haven't invested the intellectual capital to formulate what an appropriate response should be.
A big military response would just escalate this whole issue and probably encourage more of the same. I don't like how everything gets framed as a military problem these days. I hope that this incident only inspires new standards for business and new shared goals for engineering. We could approach this like the Apollo landing or the cure for cancer and hopefully not like the War on Terror.
An attack, a malicious attack by a state actor, is an attack, cyber or otherwise. What if they hacked a hospital and somehow shut down life support systems, there's little moral difference than if they sent soldiers into the hospital. Whether we like it being framed militarily or not, this IS a military issue (if it's a state actor) as that's the point of the military to defend life liberty and property. However, that being said, this whole situation feels like a false flag to me, so I would suggest a highly considered response. If it is, in fact NK, then a military response is appropriate -- sanctions haven't done a damned thing ever. I am not suggesting carpet bombing the country, but certainly their must be real consequences -- otherwise what's the disincentive to do it again? However, I must reiterate, this smells like a wag the dog or a Gulf of Tonkin type situation. So I honestly feel like the best response now is no response until there is more information. Ultimately though, it's potentially a disgruntled employee, in which case it's a criminal matter as opposed to a national security one.
OT, but have you read what's going on in Russian this last week? It's unbelievable how hard the sanctions have hit them, and how quickly. It's a huge story which has been drowned out in all this other noise. NK is obviously not Russia, being more insular makes it harder to sanction them.
The escalation of cyber warfare, the possibility of it all being a false flag, the idea of a military response to defend, exactly as you say, life liberty and property, the idea of a necessary response if sufficiently proven to be a state-sponsored attack... the idea of the network as a battle zone with governments playing offense and defense... it all gives me shivers.
As @unclebucknasty says, the drum beat has started. This is going to take us somewhere very interesting in 2015.
I don't know what American news say, but from what I've gathered from Finnish news, the Russian troubles are mostly due to oil prices, and the sanctions have had very little effect.
I was reading an article on telegraph.co.uk [1] which very much pins the Russian collapse on sanctions;
After years of bluster and suggestions by Mr Putin that the US is a paper
tiger, the Kremlin is now coming face to face with the cataclysmic
consequences of what it has done by invading Ukraine and changing
Europe's borders by force. By the same token, Washington needs to move
with care since it would be a geostrategic miscalculation of the first
order to push a nuclear-armed Russia too far into a corner, or to
perpetuatue a cycle of grievance.
Oh, it's coming. The drumbeat has started and harrowing possibilities are being offered. The media will be in full panic mode and billions of dollars in contracts will be awarded soon enough.
There's too much money to be made to resist treating it like the "War on ____".
The notion that a computer hacking threat and the threat of physical harm are somehow in the same ballpark is completely without merit and absurd. There's not the slightest evidence that the hackers could physically harm someone beyond the capabilities that any person in this world possesses.
Further the actual damage in this case is quite minor. Some of Sony's private business dealings were made public and some employees were embarrassed, but what other harm could you possibly see? Businesses have been online for 10-15 years now and computer security has improved dramatically over that time. We're not in any new era of capability, though with the amount of hysteria over this we may be in a new one mentally.
The only real threat is in our government marching towards totalitarianism by enacting invasive laws and spying on its populace in bulk. Unwarranted fear likes yours is what enables that.
I'm sure this will be the argument in Congress for 2015.
I think these attacks could be reduced by holding companies financially responsible. First, insurers shouldn't be allowed to exclude terrorist attacks in their policies. Second, forcing arbitration or excluding class-action should be unenforceable in a contract. Third, we could establish clearer standards for what constitutes negligence in IT.
edit: And this might be a good time to discuss making software engineers actual licensed professionals and forcing companies to use them.
It's hard to grapple with, but our systems--our entire network infrastructure--is simply not designed to withstand these types of attacks. It's very safe to assume that you literally cannot protect yourself from this kind of network intrusion. I know it's fun to rail on Sony, and surely they didn't make the hackers job particularly difficult, but victim blaming isn't useful.
I think it's likely that fallout cost from this breach will cost Sony hundreds of millions of dollars. It's almost an existential crisis the amount of damage this hack has done. The information disclosure was complete. The hackers took a scorched-earth policy on the way out. They got hit mind-blowingly hard. I do have sympathy with the house of pain they are in, and I don't think they need any more financial incentive than what they are already looking square in the face.
I don't think the story here is about negligence in IT. Even Google has been hacked very badly in its time. There are two kinds of companies, the ones who have been publicly hacked, and the ones that just haven't discovered it yet.
The real story here is we are seeing an escalation in cyber-warfare. This is not "hacking" in any sense. This is extortion, humiliation, and subjugation. It's very sad to watch.
The FBI told Sony they didn't know if the theaters were safe. Seriously, WTF are we paying them for if they can't tell us, with absolute certainty, that our theaters are safe from terrorist attacks on Christmas. That's not very comforting...
uhhh terrorist attacks and terrorism are, by definition, "not very comforting" and in many ways are impossible to stop, thus the word "terror" that is used so prominently in their constructions.
I think people just want to see the film. I certainly want to see the film. It might have a crappy plot or a second-rate screenplay or subpar acting, but with this sort of publicity none of that matters. Just watching it will be an event, perhaps an even bigger event than watching The Last Temptation of Christ was way-back-when...
Anyway, Sony seems to be in a defiant stance. It doesn't seem like Sony is going to yield; it seems like they are going to just find an alternative distribution path: "No thanks, 2600. We got this. After all, this is the sort of hype that we'd... uhh... kill for.... uh..."
To be honest, I have no interest in seeing the film because everything I've heard about it indicates it's probably a crap film. I furthermore think it was a bad idea to make it in the first place.
However, I applaud 2600's proposal because it points in the right direction: a calm, nonviolent but assertive refusal to be intimidated, rather than the hysterical paranoia and escalation of threats we are seeing all too much of in recent years.
That brings up a good point. Perhaps Sony should even consider using the controversy in its marketing, then later make claims about how much more successful the film was than projected, thanks to the added publicity (which will almost certainly be true).
Not only would it show defiance, it would underscore the paradoxical effect of trying to stifle free speech in this manner. And, that might provide the biggest disincentive of all for future prevention: demonstration of ineffectivness.
What has lead you to believe that free speech is any consideration in Sony's dealings? This is the company that has (and still does) push for SOPA and CISPA-like abilities to take down websites with the most minor effort!
It's unclear why the release was canceled. Maybe Sony wants to just put this whole thing behind them. Maybe they want to curtail any further leaks that they feel may be worse. Perhaps the executives feel that being a victim of a foreign nation absolves them of any culpability and they're playing that card to the greatest extent they can. But I highly doubt they're going to make any about face on a policy issue and are still very much against free speech as far as the internet is concerned. If anything this incident will be used to bolster their arguments and to that end maybe it has worked out better for them than "The Interview" ever could.
>What has lead you to believe that free speech is any consideration in Sony's dealings?
Call it artistic freedom if you'd prefer. It's all a form of free speech and I'm not sure that Sony has ever come out against artistic expression.
Regardless, I think it's pretty clear that the shoe is on the other foot now. That point, of course, is essentially the main premise of the article on which we are commenting, and it's what makes the situation so sweetly ironic to its author(s).
But, you know, it's all P.R. and all about messaging (from both sides). Sony doesn't have to really believe in free speech for everyone in order to make a stand on that premise. They are surely aware that standing on their right to make a profit probably wouldn't engender as much support or be as effective as standing for artistic freedom, free speech, etc.
And, of course, all of this discussion about what to call it is pedantic, because my bigger point was that they have an opportunity to turn this on its head and have it completely backfire on the attackers, thus providing strong disincentive for future attacks.
>It's unclear why the release was canceled.
I think it's pretty clear that, at least in part, they were tired of having their asses handed to them. In short, they were punked.
This. Not only for the technical capabilities (they could have hired someone else, yada yada), but especially for the chronology of the Interview/NK link. The first communications from the hackers addressed Sony execs while referring to "their demands", without naming them.
The NK/Interview link came out of nowhere and the group seemed to just go along with it. If this isn't Media Hyping, I don't know what is. Sony hacked for the nth time - barely newsworthy by now. Sony cyberattacked by cyberterrorists and your real-world-kids possibly in very grave danger from a cyberbomb in a theater - NewsGold(tm).
Can everyone stop using the NK link as a fact in this case? Thanks.
PS: In case you missed it, NK denied involvement in this early on. Usually this wouldn't mean much (a state's denials? please) but remember who we're talking about here! When has NK passed up an opportunity to display their superiority?
Early evidence suggested that one of the data dumps was carried out from a hotel in Thailand, so cutting off NK's internet wouldn't help protect from that much.
That was a thoughtful offer from the folks over at 2600. I had this little internal dialog beginning, "what a conundrum would Sony find itself in had it it instead been a threat?" I thought it was a silly thought, but then, I really started to wonder what the Sony response would be. It would have a group threatening them--supposedly--if they do release the film, and another threatening the same consequence if they don't. To whom do you yield, Sony?
I don't get it. Doesn't sonny have the money to hire people like Spender, D. Hartmeier, etc. To secure their network?! To they need a hacker community to secure their network?!
I mean it's obvious that they don't care about security or that they do care but they value flexibility more, than tight security. Either way I don't understand the nature of the offer, maybe it's pure irony and I missed it.
I guess a movie about two brave maverick North Korean TV stars heading to Washington to assassinate Obama, the evil emperor of the United States could also be a 'funny' comedy movie to watch.
Seriously though, while the plot of the film is both purile and offensive to the North Korean dictator personally, should NK be behind the attack on Sony (im still not convinced) then it is definitely an ulterly inappropriate response.
Problem is, and this is a genuine question, how should they have responded? Is the western media, specifically the US media going to publish a written complaint from NK? Probably not right. I'm not justifying their response in any way, but would be curious to know if they have any way at all to complain.
I'm playing devil's advocate here before anyone starts assuming I'm some NK sympathiser. I too would like to see the NK people freed from the tyranny and death camps they currently live under the constant threat of.
> I guess a movie about two brave maverick North Korean TV stars heading to Washington to assassinate Obama, the evil emperor of the United States could also be a 'funny' comedy movie to watch.
Except from the fact that it's a boring script, I don't see nothing wrong with it and I'm pretty sure that you an do a movie like that anytime you'd like in the US. I'm pretty sure the government will not send hackers to attack the studio... For making fun of any figure. In the late night show the host makes fun of virtually everyone and anything. Satire shows pretty much the level of a democracy.
ps. Consider that I'm very critical of the US gov. But it's absolutely nowhere near N. Korea if that was your point.
Well, there are a few ways to parse 'should', and they really all boil down to what the hell NK even wants to do.
If they want to stop as many people from seeing the film as possible, then they should have done nothing. If they wanted to send a message that NK has the technical abilities to fuck up American (/Western) businesses, then they did the 'right' thing. If they wanted to score a less aggressive propaganda win, then they probably should have incorporated it into their next round of talks or something.
Death of a President and Vantage Point come to mind. There're many many films that talk about killing the president of the US of A, some using real presidents and in at least one case already mentioned, while that president was in office. You can find it tactless, and I this case painfully unfunny, but that should never stop anyone from doing anything. Specially bit a film. Otherwise there're large swaths of our public libraries that would have to be burned.
I'm merely making point that Sony chose NK because they don't matter. A movie about killing David Cameron might have set some red telephones ringing.
Scene. Oval Office. Red telephone rings. Ring ring...
Obama: Hey David, what's up dude?
Cameron: um, you know, this new film about me being blown
up in my Prime Ministerial helicopter by some of your
special agents, because I'm an evil dictator?
Obama: Oh, yes. Funny. Got a sneak preview of that. They
got you and your Eton homies down bro
Cameron: hmm, yes. You know, could you ask them to stop
it? You know, or I'll let the GCHQ boys loose on the old
reservation if you know what I mean...
Yeah, it isn't believable, but that's the point. NK are the western's 'devil incarnate'. We can say whatever we want to about them, even make a movie just about killing their nepotistic dictatorial family, but it doesn't matter if it offends, because diplomatically NK are like a turd under the world's proverbial shoe.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why they are such a perfect scapegoat, and more importantly, that is why I find it so suspicious.
N.B. If it isn't obvious, my 'script' above is offensive. Whether or not I like or support David Cameron policies is irrelevant, but he's still my Prime Minister and he's a real person with a wife and child. Similarly Barack Obama is not some gangbanger, he's a smart man with noble beliefs (albeit a button that got pushed to make him flip flop on the NSA but who wouldn't), but still both British people and American people might find that script offensive. And just to be absolutely crystal clear, David Cameron having GCHQ hack a US film studio is of course an incredibly imbalanced response.
Very little content here. Seems more like self-promotion and a silly offer that Sony would be stupid to take. Why let someone distribute the movie for free when they spent over $40m making it and can (worst case scenario) put it on a website they build and charge $10 to everyone that wants to watch it?
im still hoping its a very genius marketing campaign...but either way, setting the movie free (not as in beer) would send a powerfull message. cant think of a better xmas gift to humanity right now...
>> "cant think of a better xmas gift to humanity right now..."
Saving people who want to see a movie $10 is the best gift to humanity you can think of? (jk) It would definitely send a message but considering the loses they've already made from this + the hack they need to exploit the situation and make as much money as possible.
Sony is a major player in anti-piracy. If they did this, their position would be weakened when they next take a few John Schmoes to court for bittorrenting.
If Sony can't find a distributor they should start taking Visa on their site and offer direct downloads, watch the dollars start rolling in, and get their first exposure to a business model they should have been pioneering 10 years ago.
This would be awesome but so very unlikely. I Suspect that Sony exaggerated the threat and cancelled the film as a publicity stunt. Was it a real attack? Sure. Is the film cancelled forever? Highly doubtful. Sony is way too profit oriented to let this opportunity pass and they certainly are not going to hand the film over to the hacker community and loose out. That said, I think that 2600 releasing the film would be AWESOME!!
So, the threat is to expose private and sensitive data retrieved in the hack when The Interview is leaked? Who says The Interview wasn't obtained during the hack, and will be leaked by the same party issuing the threat?
The goal, which is working so far, is to prevent the release of the movie. The movie should be released because fuck whoever did this. Sony may be hated for good reason but not releasing only encourages this type of thing.
Isn't this two not really related events being conflated?
1) Sony gets hacked. A big hack, but just a hack.
2) Sony pulls a movie because it offends a nasty dictator identified by name.
Why are these connected? It's not as if they learned about the movie from the hack? I've seen the ad for that movie a few times, and I'm pretty sure that the spymasters in North Korea can watch the same Seinfeld reruns that I do.
Why is the ridiculousness over Sony pulling the picture (PR stunt or not) at all related to the hack?
Sony left the decision up to the theater chains, and those chains were reported to back away from the movie because of the legal liability if there were a terrorist incident.
I won't be adding much to the conversation but I really feel I need to say this. If Sony doesn't release this film I am not buying a Sony product ever again.
how much money have they spent on this movie? If people pitch in world wide...how much money does HN think it would take for Sony to "sell" this movie to the public.
Funny how the U.S. government goes nuts over an offensive YouTube video or Koran burning video, but suddenly Obama's administration calls out Sony for "making a mistake" for caving to (allegedly) North Korea? Does anyone else find this to be a double standard? We can "offend" North Korea, but if we "offend" Islam, then somehow that's different? I say let's offend everyone. That's what free speech means.
I think Terry Jones burning a Koran is starting to get into the "you're putting peoples lives in danger just to prove what a ridiculously pompous ass you are" camp.
There is a fairly well defined limit to free speech, e.g. yelling "fire!" in a theater. Burning a Koran, just to fuck with people, is probably in "yelling fire" territory.
But as far as Obama's quip against Sony goes... I was really surprised to read that. I think it's tone-deaf for Obama to call out Sony. First of all, it was the theaters not Sony who refused to show it. Second of all, it was the FBI who told the theaters they couldn't guarantee they weren't going to get hit by terrorists on Christmas. What?!
Yes, the capitulation is absolutely shocking and terrible. That's what Obama should be saying. But victim blaming? It's like blaming the kidnapping victim for doing what they're told so they don't get hurt. Sony still has a gun to their head, they are still being actively extorted!
Burning a Koran, just to fuck with people, is probably in "yelling fire" territory.
No, no it's not. It's an insensitive, assholish and petty action, but it does not constitute an incitation to immediate violation of the law, including but not exclusively because it was announced beforehand.
Incitement to crime -- speech that spurs another to commit a crime -- is just one of 6 categories of speech which are not protected.
The other five main exceptions to free speech protection include; Defamation, Obscenity, Sedition, and...
Fighting words: As defined by the Supreme Court, fighting words are "those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace."
Causing panic: The classic example of speech causing panic is someone yelling "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater. Speech may be suppressed where a reasonable person would know that his speech is likely to cause panic and/or harm to others.
The government also has the right to restrict speech in order to promote a "compelling government interest," such as national security. This standard is extraordinarily strict and hard to prove, making it a rather narrow exception to free speech.
I thought that the courts would look at it under this 6-part framework and they might possibly decide, under the facts and circumstances of Terry Jones for example, that it falls under "fighting words" or maybe some kind of hate speech.
But now I've read up more on Terry Jones and what actually happened, and, you're right, the consensus was it was protected speech.
Pulling an Obama quote from Wikipedia;
President Barack Obama was asked on September 9, 2010, on ABC's "Good Morning America" about the Quran burning controversy. He said, "You could have serious violence in places like Pakistan or Afghanistan. This could increase the recruitment of individuals who would be willing to blow themselves up in American cities or European cities." He said, "I just want him to understand that this stunt that he is talking about pulling could greatly endanger our young men and women in uniform who are in Iraq, who are in Afghanistan. We're already seeing protests against Americans just by the mere threat that he's making." "I just hope he understands that what he is proposing to do is completely contrary to our values as Americans, that this country has been built on the notions of religious freedom and religious tolerance," Obama said. "He says he's someone who is motivated by his faith ... I hope he listens to those better angels and understands that this is a destructive act that he's engaging in.” Asked if the event could be stopped, Obama replied, "My understanding is that he can be cited for public burning … but that's the extent of the laws that we have available to us."[42]
"Burning a Koran, just to fuck with people, is probably in "yelling fire" territory."
I hope not. Making capitulation to a threat, implied or explicit would be the exact opposite of freedom of speech. You would not be able to speak out against... anything.
Well… The difference is the implied meaning of burning a book.
Making a movie about the assassination of the NK leader doesn't imply hate. I'm pretty sure making the movie wasn't about the hate against NK per se, but rather a comedy about the situation in an oppressed country.
If you burn a koran/bible I'm pretty sure we all know what that means: You hate the religion and wan't it to die.
As you can see the difference is that the first one falls under free- and the other under hate-speech.
Now if you ask me, it's still wrong to hate against those who burn "holy books" or whatever. In my opinion hate speech is integral to having free spech, even if it should be watched carefully (I really don't wan't a third reich here in germany) - something that has been lost in the past couple years. But it's important to differenciate between both.
So when Pakistanis and other folks from the region burn US flags, THAT'S ok, but burning a Koran isn't? They're almost one and the same. I can't be responsible for the actions of others based on their own irrational and disproportionate response to a book burning. If burning a Koran is "yelling fire" territory, then that reveals more about the offended rather than serving as a condemnation of the offender. A rational response to someone yelling fire is for people to run and take appropriate life-preserving action because of the thought that there is imminent danger. Burning someone's book (or flag) is an expression of an idea, not a call to any particular, expected rational action. Of course if burning a Koran is the same as yelling fire, then that offended community is the problem, not the person committing the act. If you burn a bible, I have yet the hear of Christians partaking in retaliatory bombings, maybe in the 12th century, but not now. Funny because if we accept the official U.S. government premise that Benghazi was the result of a YouTube video, then, in my opinion the whole lot of that subset of the Religion of Peace are beyond redemption and should be marginalized savages.
As far as hate speech, in the U.S. hate speech is legal -- as it should be. Being able to express ideas, no matter how repugnant, is the very foundation of the United States. Besides, who determines hate speech? If I say white people are less intelligent than Asians-- is that hate, or my own (distorted) view of the world? It's a very slippery slope to start classifying ideas and banning ideas based in some social norm or the moment.
In the case of the movie, the audience was American moviegoers, with the producers solely intending to amuse the audience.
In the case of the Koran burning, the audience was Muslims worldwide, with full knowledge that the act was under intense media scrutiny, and with forewarning that it would likely result in riots and violence. He chose to act in a way that he knew would result in riots and violence. It wasn't "hate speech." It was an act that was engaged in consciously with knowledge that it would likely provoke a violent response engaged in out of pure malice.
I'm not sure I understand your point. I accept that both the Bible and Koran contain sections that condone slavery, but how does that affect the question of whether burning the Koran is 'hate speech'?
The CIA report threatens our legitimacy as a world power.
no it does not...almost everyone in the world understand that under certain conditions, torture to get potentially life-saving information is just the way of things.
let me put it this way...if your immediate family was going to be blown up in two hours, wouldn't you say go ahead and torture that guy who you KNOW has information on how to diffuse the bomb?
Your premise is pure fantasy. There was never a ticking time bomb scenario. And torque is NOT an effective means of extracting information. Everyone from Napoleon to Hitler to our own Military generals have aid as much.
The key distinction is that in this case it was a matter of
simply threatening torture
Torture would not have produced more useful results, and may have actually produced less useful results. Threatening it, on the other hand, seems to have worked.
The issue with the CIA torture scandal is that you have a bunch of guys who may or may not know anything. These guys are interrogated, and, probably, disclose everything they know. Then, the higher ups at the CIA, acting on the authority of Cheney[1] and Bush[2] required that the guys being held—who may or may not know anything more or at all—be tortured to extract more information.
At this point, the guys being held who may or may not know anything are going to start telling their 'enhanced' interrogators anything they can in order to stop what's happening to them. It doesn't matter if it's real or fake.
Maybe, but consider: instead of someone like the person in the article, the perpetrator is a member of a radical fundamentalist organization who believes that death is better than life and is not so put off by the prospect of some discomfort, at least in theory. It's conceivable that once theory is put into practice he might rethink his position.
The Senate report has a revealing passage saying that
the statement of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed ("KSM")
"during his first day in CIA custody included an
accurate description of a Pakistani/British operative,
which was dismissed as having been provided during the
initial 'throwaway stage' of information collection
when the CIA believed detainees provided false or
worthless information". KSM was later water-boarded
(simulated drowning) 183 times, leading him to make
frequent confessions that later turned out to be false.
Another section of the report says that "KSM fabrications
led the CIA to capture and detain suspected terrorists
who were later found to be innocent".
This is the case where there is without a doubt a definitive 'ticking time bomb'. Torture is usually used to illicit confessions, and in the case of the CIA they used it as a method to garner further information without knowing if the subject had more information to give. Say the guy in the article was just a suspect and didn't actually know where the person was, is it prudent to torture him because he might know something?
Right, I wasn't arguing that torture was necessarily called for in situations where we don't know if someone has the desired information. I was more making the point that the idea that "torture never works" isn't borne out by the facts.
One could imagine a situation where, like this one, we DO know the person has the information. Add to that the 'ticking time-bomb' context and it's difficult to argue against torture.
Just to be clear, I think torture is horrendous and should be outlawed. But to say it should never be used is to fail to grapple more broadly with the complexities of collateral damage.
I see what you are saying, but I would have to guess that it's so very rare that the authorities know for sure that a suspect has information to give, that it is almost irrelevant to debate the scenario.
Not to mention, the use of the ticking-time bomb scenarios were used to justify use of torture by the CIA. Which entity determines if a suspect has usable information, to stave off 'improper' use of torture? If you can't trust the CIA to make a definitive call in that regards, why even consider torture as an option in any form?
They happened to have the perpetrator there, if they had caught the wrong guy and threatened torture, they could well have got a confession and a load of false information. Also, there are plenty of situations where you have the right guy and they still feed you bullshit, like in the example of John McCain.
The thing isn't that threatening torture occasionally works, it is that it generates false information just as readily. It is extremely unreliable and in the process it also turns you into something despicable. Nietzsche had it right when he said: Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
But his concrete argument (while being factually correct) is irrelevant. No one was tortured, but was threatened with torture
In the case of Abu Zubaydah, in his first 2 months of capture he provided more information than at any other time. The "enhanced" torture techniques didn't start until about his 3rd month of detention.
In both cases, the threat of torture, among other future conditions that don't fall under the "enhanced" umbrella (simple solitary confinement, life in prison, unable to see family, etc) were enough to extract valuable information. Subjecting them to humiliating and physically brutal conditions did nothing. tl;dr: threatening torture can motivate people to divulge information, but performing it does nothing further.
Threats mean nothing if there is no possibility that they'll be followed up on. As unfortunate and dark as it is, we have to be willing to torture for the threat to be effective.
i'm sorry, but this simply flies in face of logic.
it is absolutely morally wrong, but it certainly can be effective and has been used throughout history. usually, things that don't work don't last anywhere near that long.
there are all sorts of reasons to oppose it, which of course I do, but saying it cannot be effective just isn't one of them.
Clearly torture is an effective way of getting useless information, you have no way to tell if the info is correct or not, and the prisoner has no incentive to give you the correct information.
People who were cooperating were still tortured, for no apparent reason!
(See the section on Rectal Feeding And Hydration:)
There is only one justification, and it does happen to be the ticking time bomb scenario, only when you've exhausted all other (effective) investigation methods. But that's so rare that if it ever did happen in human history, the bomb would have probably detonated anyway. So it's practically useless and counterproductive.
The bottom line is if you have to resort to torture, too many systems have failed, and you have to seriously question the values you're trying to preserve.
> you have no way to tell if the info is correct or not, and the prisoner has no incentive to give you the correct information
(In the following, I'm trying to just discuss the technical aspects of this. When I ask if or suggest that something would be effective, it is not meant to imply that if torture can be made effective then it is OK to do it. The ineffectiveness of torture as currently practiced is just one argument against torture, and so if it can be made effective that still leaves the other anti-torture arguments intact).
Wouldn't this largely depend on what type of information you are trying to get and how much you already know? If you already have information that I know that you are not supposed to know, and I don't know you already have it, you can ask about that while interrogating me in addition to asking about whatever it is you are really trying to get. That should give you some feedback on whether or not I'm giving correct info.
Wouldn't it also depend on how many other people you are interrogating over the same subjects? If you are questioning me and several other people about a particular thing, and I make up something on the fly to get you to stop torturing me, my made up story might not be the same as the made up stories of other people, whereas the stories of the people who tell the truth will agree. Of course, we could all have been trained to expect to be interrogated over this, and all have consistent prepared lies to give. Your counter to that would be to try to capture and interrogate lower level people or people who were less directly involved so that they are less likely to have prepared stories to give.
I can believe that torture as currently practiced is almost always ineffective, but I suspect that this may be due to them relying on psychologists to figure out how to do it rather than bringing in engineers, scientists, and mathematicians and treating it as some kind of noisy and unreliable channel problem.
Many were tortured for years. That fact alone argues against the existence of a ticking time bomb scenario.
Dozens of others were held for no reason at all, later released as having been found innocent.
If the US did torture someone in a scenario where the public was in imminent danger they would likely be exonerated in (at least) the court of public opinion. That's not what happened here, though.
The most damning aspect of the CIA report is that none of what you're claiming was true. There was no ticking time bomb scenario, and there was no critical information extracted. In fact, the information the CIA did obtain from prisoners was later shown to be false.
Except a) that torture in the report didn't last for a few minutes and b) that it's less effective than other methods and more likely to obtain false information.
So if I only had a couple hours and actually wanted to save my family, I'd probably try to do something that would actually make a difference.
Would you allow your parents or children to be misidentified and wrongly tortured out of the false view that torture is the most effective interrogation/investigation approach?
Note also that the CIA had to really claim some kind of permanent unknown ticking time bomb of unknown nature, but after they used that justification, held a suspect they ignored for 40 days before torturing them.
A false sense of urgency at an unknown threat is not a rational justification for torture (I'd argue that if we were rational we'd never justify it), but once you permit torture, it opens the door to all kinds of terrible, immoral, and ineffective tactics.
That's funny, because you sound exactly like somebody who watches Fox News religiously.
So if it wasn't TV, please explain to us where you ever got the idea that there was a "ticking time bomb" scenario, and how that justified the CIA's torture and war crimes that you're trying to justify by unwittingly parroting the exact same lies that Fox News is broadcasting?
You certainly have already lost the argument when you have to make that kind of a ridiculous emotional implausible supposition, trying to whip everyone up into a patriotic frenzy, in your sociopathic attempt to justify torture.
There was NO ticking time bomb. And even if there was, torture STILL would not work, for all the same reasons, and it would just waste precious time.
You've just demonstrated that you're not thinking rationally, and that you're just reacting to and parroting emotional pro-torture propaganda.
That doesn't win your argument, it just shows what kind of a person you truly are: a war crime apologist, who panders to people's worst fears and emotions, to support ineffective torture, as a means to your actual ends: revenge.
Most people in Gitmo were not captured by US forces on the battlefield (only 5% were captured by American forces) - the rest were captured by Afghan forces and handed over in return for money.
The intelligence that you get from someone being tortured is worthless - people say whatever you want to hear in oder to make the torture stop.
There is never a situation where there's some ticking bomb.
Finally, torture is prohibited under a wide number of international treaties. Even the US uses phrases like "Enhanced Interogation Techniques" because they accept that torture is wrong.
I believe torture is abhorrent. Effectiveness aside, how would one morally distinguish himself from the bomber in this imaginary scenario? Or is it because one person has done something terrible, a moral golden ticket is created that allows a person to do anything, including terrible things like anal rape and simulated drowning, in order to /maybe/ stop that first terrible act? Is there a torturer inside every human heart just waiting for an excuse to be let out? The philosophical ethical project isn't about what we can get away with but instead against what kind of standard do we want to hold ourselves. If we allow ourselves torture as an acceptable mode of conduct, what is off limits?
You're missing the entire problem with this premise.
Somebody torturing a man that has his family held hostage is entirely different than state sponsored torture. I think that should be obvious.
People understand the fact that on the battlefield, sometimes torture happens, even when it shouldn't. When a soldier tortures somebody they just captured to keep their fellow soldiers alive, we don't agree with it, but there's a different mentality surrounding it. When the government TELLS that soldier to torture somebody, then it's a different matter entirely. This same idea is at work with your example above.
If Sony wanted to release the movie they probably wouldn't miss the chance of making money with it so this proposal sounds rather stupid.
There is no differentiation between Hacker and Cracker in public media. Get over it.
Let us relook the issue here. Is it hackers attack on Sony or Sony making a movie on North Korean ruler(as I understand) or both?
Every human/culture has likes,dislikes ...etc and every one expect others not crossing those lines for peaceful co-existence. In democracy, no doubt, there is freedom of expression but if that expression is uncomfortable to other, then there is responsibility to control/prevent that expression rather than brazenly going ahead ignoring sensitivities of others.
If the story line as I understand from mass media is, assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and if North Korea protested it, then Sony should have understand and accommodated the sensitivities of North Korea and stopped making this movie. It is not censorship as President Obama noted.
People on HN voiced concern on NSA surveillance ...etc, since many felt privacy/anonymity is violated...etc. Just like you have sensitivities, North Korea too has sensitivities and it is natural to expect, others to understand them. Whether it is, dictatorship or democracy and their relative merits/demerits is different point of discussion.
I am neither supporting hacker's attack on Sony nor North Korea but Sony in first place, should have considered the sensitivities of other cultures, even if they are alien to your culture and act accordingly, given the story line.
Arts should further enable the stability or peace on earth and you may not achieve peace by hurting sentiments of others.
I understand the sentiment behind your comment but applying this doctrine does more good than harm.
The right to not be offended, quite simply, does not exist and should not exist in free democracies. Everything should be open for debate, discussion, parody, etc..
Not producing a movie because someone might feel insulted by it and then throw a temper tantrum is censorship by proxy in its purest form. The tyranny of sensibilities may be justified by humanitarian arguments (i.e.: "peace on Earth" !) but it is, more often than not, a disguise totalitarian doctrines take to silence opponents.
The fact that this attack allegedly comes from the last Stalinian regime - the worst dictatorship still in existence - certainly points to a totalitarian motive.
Because a right not to be offended requires a power to suppress offensiveness. The right to life and the right to property would be meaningless if murder and theft were decriminalized. In the same way, a right not to be offended implies that offensiveness must be punished.
The power to suppress murder is a relatively small power, and its limits are easily determined by laws and courts. A power to suppress offensiveness would be broad and vague, capable of suppressing anything anyone might object to. Since taking offense is so subjective, it would be difficult for this power to be administered by a neutral third party. It would be prone to abuses.
A right not to be offended requires an arbitrary power incompatible with freedom.
Because empirically, history seems to tell us that very many people will always be "offended" by others disagreeing with them, or living/worshipping/looking differently.
And so if there were a right to not be offended, it would trample many of the fundamental human freedoms we associate with democracies.
Blacks and whites marrying offended some people. The River Brethren not going to war offended some people. And in this specific case? Black humor isn't that rate; Arsenic and Old Lace, man. I'm sure that offended some people.
The right to be offended probably can't exist in free democracies.
I think this shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the basic meaning of artistic expression, freedom of speech, and censorship. I find that I am diametrically opposed to everything that you have stated.
This also really has nothing to do with a silly little movie called "The Interview". The movie is a footnote in a brutal attack on Sony which left their entire network destroyed, their PCs wiped, their entire data set stolen and published, their employees and partners and customers terribly exposed, and all this used to extort them...
As for peaceful co-existence and all that, such a thing can only be possible not by retaliating when we are offended, but by understanding we have a right to be offended, and a right to express our outrage peacefully and constructively.
Edit: Imagine a world where Kim Jong-un posts a video statement on kim.nk decrying the movie and asking for support in a world wide boycott. This is how mature adults respond to such a situation. Oh wait, I almost forgot, he's a brutal dictator bent on world destruction. Seriously, your comment blows my mind.
Whatever happened on Sony is bad, no doubt in that.
>>> As for peaceful co-existence and all that, such a thing can only be possible not by retaliating when we are offended, but by understanding we have a right to be offended, and a right to express our outrage peacefully and constructively.
I would like to see examples of this approach getting succeeded between different countries with different scales/opinions on justice,fairness. Whatever may be the reasons/circumstances, West did not pursued this approach after 9/11. I live in India which pursued peaceful/constructive approach after 26/11 but literally no change has occurred. So this looks proper approach in theory but not practical.
Ok, let's fill in a little bit of background here: North Korea isn't a happy place. It's a tyrannical dictatorship that has earned its spot as, quite literally, the worst place on earth. The Kim family has spent decades systematically programming the North Korean people as part of a system that follows in the tradition of such evil as Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, and Pasha. Concerning yourself with Kim's feelings is the height of ignorance and folly: he certainly doesn't concern himself with the millions who have died at his family's hands by, in NK concentration camps, and through preventable famine.
Interestingly enough, The Interview never actually hurt the feelings of the North Korean people. In order to do that, they'd have to learn about it first. And there's nothing less likely to find its way into a closed society than a comedy about the assassination of that society's leader. But that's largely irrelevant: we don't live in a society that enforces "respect" at the expense of individual liberties.
There's a significant difference between being able to respectfully engage cultural differences and blindly accepting the abuses and atrocities. Particularly when we're talking about the sort of practices that make North Korea, well, North Korea (which have nothing to do with a Korean culture that dates back centuries and everything to do with one family's mad desire for absolute power).
a few years back we had Team America[0] in which kim jong il is painted as a crazy terrorist and in the end dies after the american world police gets to him, and is revealed to be an alien cockroach when he gets impaled on a tube.
Apparently, that movie was ok, so why shouldn't this have been?
There is always people whose sensitivity gets hurt by movies and books, but this should not automatically lead to stopping publishing.
All things happened in the past may not be good for example financial crises, wars, tsunami's ...etc. So past is not reference to present or future.
>>> There is always people whose sensitivity gets hurt by movies and books, but this should not automatically lead to stopping publishing.
There are "defamation laws" in many countries. Many people/companies use them if they feel offended/hurt, even if they are not noble. This incident may be the same for NK.
I think you misunderstood me: sony did not worry about north korea's sensibility, as you seemed to imply it should have done, because north korea has never manifested any interest in it.
So what if North Korea did it (of course I'm skeptical of this, anyone with a computer can conduct the same activities, with the motivator of trolling the entire world for fun). It's not a big deal, it's not something that requires US presidential intervention. It's not even remotely as big of a deal as the CIA torture report that just came out. The CIA report threatens our legitimacy as a world power. The Sony hack just costs a corporation some money, maybe (free publicity FTW). Big. Deal.
If this is the worst a hacker can do, I'd love to see all future wars replaced with hacking. I'll take that over agent orange and torture any day.
This sad, sick notion that hackers are terrorist enemy #1 and this is the most important thing governments should be working on is, like this movie will probably be, shitty fiction, a self-fulfilling prophecy perpetuated by Hollywood in movies like War Games that make it look like we're all going to be nuked thousands of times if we don't stop the Hacker menace. Help me change the media's perception of hacking before we start throwing more whistleblowers and e-graffiti artists in prison.
TLDR: Sony got hacked, too bad, learn a lesson and fix your computer security, let's not start WW3 over it shall we?