What's Up with the Movies?

Sony reached out to the administration to ask them to review the film, a comedy starring James Franco and Seth Rogan that depicts the fictional assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. One leaked scene shows Kim Jong Un's head exploding, though it is not clear what version made it into the final version of the movie.

The FBI and Justice Department are currently investigating a major cyber attack on Sony Pictures that is likely the work of North Korea, after the country said the film's portrayal of their leader was an "act of war."

  HuffPo

Today Sony canceled the premiere of “The Interview” and its entire Christmas-Day release of the movie because of fears that terrorists might attack theaters showing the film.

The actions show just how much power the attackers behind the Sony hack have amassed in a short time. But who exactly are they?

  Wired

I know! I know! North Korea! Right?

First off, we have to say that attribution in breaches is difficult. Assertions about who is behind any attack should be treated with a hefty dose of skepticism. Skilled hackers use proxy machines and false IP addresses to cover their tracks or plant false clues inside their malware to throw investigators off their trail. When hackers are identified and apprehended, it’s generally because they’ve made mistakes or because a cohort got arrested and turned informant.

[...]

It’s easy for attackers to plant false flags that point to North Korea or another nation as the culprit. And even when an attack appears to be nation-state, it can be difficult to know if the hackers are mercenaries acting alone or with state sponsorship.

[...]

Nation-state attacks aren’t generally as noisy, or announce themselves with an image of a blazing skeleton posted to infected computers, as occurred in the Sony hack. Nor do they use a catchy nom-de-hack like Guardians of Peace to identify themselves.

[...]

“It is not clear how the United States came to its determination that the North Korean regime played a central role in the Sony attacks.” The public evidence pointing at the Hermit Kingdom is flimsy.

Other theories of attribution focus on hacktivists—motivated by ideology, politics or something else—or disgruntled insiders who stole the data on their own or assisted outsiders in gaining access to it. Recently, the finger has pointed at China.

OK. But we can still blame North Korea.

First of all, Sony and the FBI have announced that they’ve found no evidence so far to tie North Korea to the attack. New reports, however, indicate that intelligence officials who are not permitted to speak on the record have concluded that the North Koreans are behind the hack. But they have provided no evidence to support this.

[...]

[There is no mention] in an email sent to Sony by the hackers, found in documents they leaked, [...] of North Korea or the film. The email was sent to Sony executives on Nov. 21, a few days before the hack went public.

[...]

[The email was signed] by “God’sApstls,” a reference that also appeared in one of the malicious files used in the Sony hack.

OK, maybe some God Nuts are after the Hollywood film industry? I’m confused. You better read the whole Wired article if you want to figure anything out yourself.

Three movie theaters say Paramount Pictures has ordered them not to show Team America: World Police one day after Sony Pictures surrendered to cyberterrorists and pulled The Interview. The famous Alamo Drafthouse in Texas, Capitol Theater in Cleveland, and Plaza Atlanta in Atlanta said they would screen the movie instead of The Interview, but Paramount has ordered them to stop.

  Daily Beast

President Barack Obama said in a Wednesday interview that the cyber attack is "very serious." But, he added, people should not be afraid to go to theaters.

"My recommendation would be that people go to the movies," he said in the ABC interview.

  HuffPo

Aha! Proof he’s working with the enemy!

"We cannot have a society in which some dictator in some place can start imposing censorship in the United States," Obama said, referring to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

"I wish they'd spoken to me first," Obama said of Sony. "I would have told them: Do not get into the pattern in which you are intimidated."

  Yahoo

Well, he should know about that.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 12/20/2014:

“My gut instinct was, ‘Oh no, is it the North Koreans?…For two seconds it was the North Koreans, and then the younger guys in our office who know way more about computers were, like, ‘No way. You’d have to know Sony’s network, it has to be somebody on the inside,” [Evan Goldberg, co-director of the controversial film “The Interview”] said.

These comments were made over a week ago and went largely unnoticed by the mainstream media. However, Goldberg isn’t the only one who thinks that the hack was an inside job.

This week, computer security expert Vinny Troia told Fox News “America’s Newsroom” that there was much more evidence for an inside job than there was for a cyber attack from North Korea.

  The AntiMedia