Trollception
Sony Pictures has been compromised last month. Many internal documents were released on November 24th, responsibility was claimed by a group called 'GOP' (Guardians of Peace). The amount of data stolen from them was estimated at 100TB (in other words: A LOT and then way more than more).
It appears that Sony's poor systems security made the data theft easy, or perhaps even just plain possible. This is far from being the first time Sony's network has been compromised (Playstation Network outage). Sony doesn't seem to focus much on protecting their user's data, nor their own, including employees and former employees, some have even filed a lawsuit.
![Sony Pyngd logo](/blah/images/normal/Kim_pass12345.png)
So far Sony's method of trying to contain this mess consists of invalid threats towards reporters, they've demanded that any leaked material obtained should not be used or else they will send over lawyers.
Somehow along the line, news outlets have started to report that this was the work of the North Korean government. In other words, an act of cyber terrorsim commited by "our" eternal commie enemies.
![Try password: 12345](/blah/images/normal/Sony_pyngd.png)
(I don't know who to credit for the original photo)
Shortly after there were stories about GOP threatening theatres that would play this new Sony Entertainment movie called 'The Interview' which was supposed to come out on December 25 in the U.S.A.. The movie shows Kim Jong-un getting killed by North American reporters, or something along those lines. This is a Seth Rogan movie so I'm guessing it was a bunch of non-funny dick and weed jokes.
What is for sure, the 'The Interview' movie just got a huge load of free publicity, the U.S.A. got many of it's people pumped with extra 'Murica and Sony is seen as a victim of an unavoidable attack. The Interweb is full of people wanting so hard to watch this crap movie "just to piss off Kim Jong-un".
The leader of a Human Rights Foundation even wants to include copies of 'The Interview' in planned balloon droppings. This is not the Onion !
The attack/leak is likely to have more to do with unhappy ex-Sony employees, they've been firing away since last year. It also appears that code written to execute the attack demonstrates the attacker knew about Sony's internals. There's also been a leaked clip of a scene from 'The Interview' where Kim Jong-un gets killed (it was on Youtube yesterday), it's obvious the GOP would not have released this if they actually cared about the movie.
Back to the movie/propaganda industry, movie theatres were to show 'Team America: World Police' in place of 'The Interview', however, Paramount pictures said "no" and didn't explain why, leaving more space for more cold war theories.
This (almost certainly) fake news about North Korea 'hacking' the west has taken up way too much space in the news, it's almost suffocating the other stories ("I can't breathe", torture reports, etc).
Some U.S. politicians are seizing the occasion to push cyber-security bills, like Diane Feinstein: “This is only the latest example of the need for serious legislation to improve the sharing of information between the private sector and the government" Some are calling this an act of "cyber war" and using terms like "our nation's enemies". American politicians are using this to push for more Internet legislation and control instead of requiring companies that handle sensitive information to use things like secure passwords and other forms of basic security measures.
Meanwhile, I'm sure there's a bunch of kids wearing monocles and sipping wine (or more likely grape juice) thinking "hmm, this is going much better than we could have been planned". Well played I say.
![Lulzsec logo with a touch of DPRK](/blah/images/normal/Lulzsec_dprk.png)
Update
Kim Jong-un is unhappy with the accusations and has proposed to join the U.S. on investigating the attack, they claim they can even prove it was not the work of North Korea. Kim Jong-un added: Without resorting to such tortures as were used by the CIA, we have means to prove that this incident has nothing to do with us.