Sony Cancels The Interview Over Hacking Threat - Update
Thread starter Fanghawk
O maestre
either a) North Korea trolled Sony into silence, or b) the movie is so bad that Sony is using this as an excuse to save face.
Baghram
The America ' fuck yeah' is strong in this thread. People calling Sony cowards and disgusting for caving to ' terrorists'. And how they should grow a spine and just release the movie. Can all the brouhaha, moral outrage and macho rhetoric about how North Korea can't touch the almighty US of A stop for a moment? Sony is recovering from a massive cyber attack which literally crippled the company and severely damaged their public image. The hacking being succesful is also not Sony's fault if the hack was perpetrated by North Korea. Any system can be hacked, especially if the hackers have the power and backing of a country behind them. Any normal corporate security system would eventually fall to such an attack. So while dealing with all of this and trying to recover they are being threatened with even more trouble which could very well sink the entire company considering how vulnerable it is right now, so on that account it also makes sense for them to go into full damage control mode and removing said offending piece to get some breathing room.
Now on the subject of the attacks. If North Korea is behind all of this, they do have the capabilities to strike at targets in the USA and in Japan. They might not be a global superpower but they do have a well trained military that is also zealously loyal to their leader who they perceive as divine and would do anything for. So it's not inconceivable for them to send some of those highly trained people to the US and/or Japan under a false passport via different asian countries to then plan out and execute attacks. This isn't just some random terrorist group in the Middle East with only a few hundred or thousand backers who have poor training and have trouble leaving the area because incoming flights from the Middle East are closely monitored when they arrive in the US. This is not so much the case from flights coming out of Asia which is generally a trouble free zone, with the exception of Birma/Myanmar. So they could probably get into the country with little trouble and have the training and willingness to carry out these attacks. Is this a slim possibility? Sure, but it's not so unlikely as to not be considered at all.
And to the people crying: 'Well then the USA will just bring down North Korea with it's superior might!.' I say that North Korea is backed by China which would complicate matters and North Korea has weapons of mass destruction which include nukes. They can't hit the US or probably even Japan. But they sure as hell can blow up their own country + half of South Korea in a last act of zealous desperation. Seeing how they are all completely bonkers one can't know how they'd react but the potential for catastrophic escalation is definitely there. So I'd say that the US would probably not take that chance. Over a few movie theatres being blown up.
And as others have said. Even if this is not done by North Korea but some random nut job shoots up a theater while this movie is running with all the publicity and controversy going around, Sony will get blamed and the company will be burned to the ground through the moral and financial backlash. The risks simply outweigh the gains. And in the capitalistic society we and especially America holds so dear that is ultimately what counts for corporations.
Norithics
I just don't... I mean what were they going to do? This isn't Watch Dogs, you can't hack a movie theater. I don't... I don't understand anymore.
Th37thTrump3t
This is so motherfucking stupid. This is exactly what these stupid-ass fucking terrorists want. They won, and with this victory, they basically showed that we are still fucking terrified over something that happened 13 goddamn years ago and that we will let a couple of script kitties from our good ol' friends in North Korea dictate what we can and cannot film, because we may hurt their dear leader's feelings.
What a fucking joke.
TheVampwizimp_v1legacy
Are we really that afraid of North Korea? That cesspit of a country with no economy, pathetically outdated technology, and a lunatic for a leader? NK has been rattling its limp, rusty sabre for years every time we say something about them that they don't like. Have they ever harmed anyone outside of their own borders? No. This is absurd. It's jumping at shadows in broad daylight is what it is.
aliengmr
Baghram said:
Now on the subject of the attacks. If North Korea is behind all of this, they do have the capabilities to strike at targets in the USA
No, they certainly do not. And while they aren't a complete backwater, they aren't that advanced militarily. Maybe Japan, but that's a big maybe. They have nukes and yes, they have missiles but even hitting the lower 48 (the biggest target) is far beyond their current tech. See, when launching nukes, you got to be precise. Other countries tend to frown on getting nuked by accident. Not to mention the international shitstorm it would create.
I say nukes because anything less would have to be really spot on. As it is they couldn't hit the lower 48 if they wanted to.
Sony may have their reasons, but this was a cowardly move.
Siege_TF
Disappointed, but not surprised. Remember when North America tried to call out China for using lead paint in children's toys? Minimal saber rattling and our fearless leaders were cowering behind their desks shouting 'Did we say paint? We meant magnets! Really! OH GOD DON'T HURT US!'
Oh, and would it have bankrupted the theaters to just hire some security guards?
Ashley Blalock
With movie theater chains giving in so quickly and easily you have to wonder will they cave just as easily if ISIL or another group decides it wants attention by treating to attack showing of the new Star Wars film, Avengers 2, or Superman vs Batman? What's to keep another group from pulling this same stunt but with bigger films?
Now I don't know if this is true, but i read somewhere that the reason many theaters wasn't going to show the movie was because many movietheatres in the us apparently are located in malls, and several of them were pressured into not showing it by the surrounding shops, who didn't want the customers to stay away from shopping because of fear of an incident. Likely or not? You tell me.
JonnyHG
I'm really glad this movie got pulled. Why even make a movie in which an assassination of a current country leader (especially one with whom we have poor relations) is attempted? What good does it do? With freedom of expression comes responsibility of expression.
ajr209
Gronk said:
Well there are some malls that have movie theaters inside the main mall complex or adjacent to it so it's not beyond the realm of possibility that some individual theater managers received a few requests not to show it from other people in the mall. That being said many movie theaters in the US are part of chains and it's unlikely that there were enough complaints or that the individual managers passed enough of those complaints along to their company's higher ups for it to be a deciding factor in the decision of the chains to not screen the movie.
TechNoFear
The theaters are worried the public will take the threat seriously and not go to any movies over the holidays (costing much more than the revenue from The Interview).
The hacking being succesful is also not Sony's fault if the hack was perpetrated by North Korea. Any system can be hacked, especially if the hackers have the power and backing of a country behind them. Any normal corporate security system would eventually fall to such an attack.
Most corporate networks have limited internet exposure, anything mission critical is behind an air gap (not connected to the internet).
However, no networks are 100% secure.
But no network I have worked on stored passwords in text files / spreadsheets, nor did they keep these files in a folder named 'passwords'...
the7ofswords
Where were these hacker terrorists when Kirk Cameron's cinematic abortion Saving Christmas was about to be released?!?
Miles Maldonado
Part of me sits here wondering, if WWII were to start in 2019, and Charlie Chaplin's "The Great Dictator" were to come out in this movie's stead, and Nazi Germany had the same response to The Great Dictator as North Korea does to The Interview, would we react in a similar way?
In my opinion The Interview WAS set up to be the next Great Dictator, but maybe I'm going in the wrong direction with it.
I vote Sony just release it online for free. No theaters will be threatened and only Sony themselves will be a target. I'm sure people will DDoS the sites hosting the movie, but as everyone should know, once something goes on the Internet, it never leaves the Internet.
RavingSturm
Sounds like a publicity stunt to make the most of the hack imho.
XMark
Sounds to me like it's probably just a really crappy movie and they're delaying the launch to generate buzz about how the movie actually caused North Korea to make terrorist threats.
Adam Jensen_v1legacy
I never asked for this
And of course, it wasn't the North Korea: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/20/sony-hackers-guardians-of-peace-troll-fbi-fbi-is-the-best-in-the-world.html
I wonder if the US will ever admit this now that they've already publicly stated that they know it's NK.