19 Dec 2014 11:34 PM PT
President Obama delivering message about the cyber terror attacks on Sony Image: yahoo.com
New developments in the continuing saga of the Sony hacking story have unfolded.
The FBI have confirmed that the threats and attacks against Sony Pictures Entertainment have indeed come from North Korea. “As a result of our investigation, and in close collaboration with other U.S. Government departments and agencies, the FBI now has enough information to conclude that the North Korean government is responsible for these actions,” the Bureau said. “North Korea’s actions were intended to inflict significant harm on a U.S. business and suppress the right of American citizens to express themselves.”
Sony had made the decision to pull the plug entirely on the release of The Interview, the film that the cyber terrorists claim was the point of contention to begin with, but now the attackers are gloating over their success at seeing Sony cave to their threats. They sent Sony Executives a message stating that Sony had made a ‘very wise’ decision and followed with, ““Now we want you never let the movie released, distributed or leaked in any form of, for instance, DVD or piracy.” They continued with their smugness with the following warning “we still have your private and sensitive data” and said they will “ensure the security of your data unless you make additional trouble.”
“The Interview,” which stars James Franco and Seth Rogen, is comedy action film about two bumbling American journalists who are enlisted by the CIA to assassinate North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.
Reaction in Hollywood as well as the White House have not been favorable with the decision Sony made. Obama feels that Sony made a mistake and said “We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship here in the United States. Because if somebody is able to intimidate folks out of releasing a satirical movie, imagine what they start doing when they see a documentary that they don’t like, or a news report that they don’t like. Or even worse, imagine if producers and distributors and others start engaging in self-censorship because they don’t want to offend the sensibilities of somebody whose sensibilities probably need to be offended. That’s not who we are. That’s not what America is about.”
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) came out with this statement:
“The FBI’s announcement that North Korea is responsible for the attack on Sony Pictures is confirmation of what we suspected to be the case: that cyber terrorists, bent on wreaking havoc, have violated a major company to steal personal information, company secrets and threaten the American public. It is a despicable, criminal act.
Disappointingly, that fact has been lost in a lot of the media coverage of this over the past few weeks. This situation is larger than a movie’s release or the contents of someone’s private emails. This is about the fact that criminals were able to hack in and steal what has now been identified as many times the volume of all of the printed material in the Library of Congress and threaten the livelihoods of thousands of Americans who work in the film and television industry, as well as the millions who simply choose to go to the movies. The Internet is a powerful force for good and it is deplorable that it is being used as a weapon not just by common criminals, but also, sophisticated cyber terrorists. We cannot allow that front to be opened again on American corporations or the American people.”
The Directors Guild of America are now calling for the US Government to take a more serious look at the issue of cyber security. They issued this statement:
“As the events of the past weeks have made painfully clear, we are now living in an age in which the Internet can enable a few remote cyber criminals to hold an entire industry hostage. This unprecedented situation demonstrates that even basic rights such as freedom of expression can quickly fall prey to those who would misuse and abuse the Internet to steal from, intimidate and terrorize our industry and our nation, and stands as an excruciating illustration of the heightened need for the federal government to increase its efforts to protect our society against cyber crimes, terrorism and all of its implications.
We hope that instead of the “chilling effect” on controversial content, this incident becomes a rallying point for all of us who care about freedom of expression to come together and champion this inalienable right. We stand by our director members Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg and hope that a way can be found to distribute the film by some means, to demonstrate that our industry is not cowed by extremists of any type.”
Stay tuned as we are certain more will unfold throughout the day. We still hope to see Sony come out with a statement and plan of how they plan to address the concerns that have been expressed above and how to show they stand up against the terrorists.
It is our wish that the government will also look at cyber security issues more in depth and to develop new technology and methodologies to prevent such attacks in the future. The government’s slow response to the initial reports from Sony could have played into Sony’s decision. We feel that if the government had taken the breaches more serious up front, perhaps this would have played out different and therefore make a plea that the government respond more quickly should a future breach occur. Ideally, they will find ways to secure against cyber attacks and breaches so that this becomes a non-issue.