North Korean Hackers Attack On Sony

What was actually leaked about Sony that was so bad?

Sledge_sl said:

What was actually leaked about Sony that was so bad?

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Email traffic, contracts with studios and distributors and actors, movies that hadn't been released yet, employee ssns and health info, god only knows what else. It was 12 terabytes of data.

AngryGerbil_sl said:

A sentient being who possesses a sense of worth for my other possessors of sentience. One who is honor-bound not to allow my fellow brains to be enslaved by idiocy, and will not see them handed over to the fuckingfaithsof others.

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Wouldn't your honor require that you pay the price rather than petulantly demanding others pay it while you sit in safety and comfort? I'm all for the extermination of religion bro, but that seems a bit much.

chaos_sl said:

Email traffic, contracts with studios and distributors and actors, movies that hadn't been released yet, employee ssns and health info, god only knows what else. It was 12 terabytes of data.

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And even when you prune out the 10 terrabytes of porn, that's still a lot of data!

chaos_sl said:

Wouldn't your honor require that you pay the price

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Yes but the price isn't assured death, it is the inherent risk that not only I but all of us do and should take in order to not have to cater to the demands of the truly petulant. Dying in a movie theater is preferable to being scared of these people.

Mist_sl said:

Someone probably tripped over their one frame relay to China. Or accidentally mortared or backhoed it.

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NK's internet provider is named Shui Fwui Bekong Bekong.

Btw why wouldnt the NRA set up armed cinema patrols (heck call them Heston squads)for those who would like to see the movie? Nothing could go wrong amiright?

Well the movie isn't bible themed and probably has both cursing and homosexual overtones in it so the NRA and their army would not be interested. Now if this was happening to Exodus: Gods and Kings....

Frenzied Wombat_sl said:

Yup, exactly. SJW hacker groups take credit for their work, and extortion hackers would have either stolen the cash, or held all of Sony's data in ransom. Once you eliminate the notoriety motive, and the money motive, all you're really left with is a state actor.

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I'd disagree, you still have corporate espionage as a possibility. North Korea is the perfect scapegoat for what at the heart is a very damaging attack on a business that may well have to have it's leadership thrown out to move forward, or may even result in the studio being closed and re-opened in another name. It's hard to argue how this attack won't result in serious financial damage to the company.

- Hackers attack Sony with "hints" that it's coming from North Korea (Malware was compiled on machine that was set to a korean locale)
- Hackers request financial compensation or there will be data leaks
- The media to form a narrative that it might be North Korea
- The hackers start leaking data
- Only after several data leaks and a lot of press saying it's North Korea does the actual request/threat not to show The Interview happen

I'm not saying it isn't North Korea, but from a corporate espionage perspective this could be seen as a stunning hack that ripped a company apart and North Korea makes a spectacular fall guy.

Tripamang_sl said:

I'd disagree, you still have corporate espionage as a possibility. North Korea is the perfect scapegoat for what at the heart is a very damaging attack on a business that may well have to have it's leadership thrown out to move forward, or may even result in the studio being closed and re-opened in another name. It's hard to argue how this attack won't result in serious financial damage to the company.

- Hackers attack Sony with "hints" that it's coming from North Korea (Malware was compiled on machine that was set to a korean locale)
- Hackers request financial compensation or there will be data leaks
- The media to form a narrative that it might be North Korea
- The hackers start leaking data
- Only after several data leaks and a lot of press saying it's North Korea does the actual request/threat not to show The Interview happen

I'm not saying it isn't North Korea, but from a corporate espionage perspective this could be seen as a stunning hack that ripped a company apart and North Korea makes a spectacular fall guy.

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Corporate espionage is by definition clandestine. When one company wants to steal intellectual property from another company, it's in their best interest to keep it from being discovered. That's certainly not the case here, besides which, what is the value of stolen information if you make it public? The event can't be corporate sabotage either, as competitors to Sony pictures can't really benefit. If you are Warner Brothers, what benefit can you really derive from taking out Sony? It's not like in the absence of a Sony produced movie, people will start flocking to Warner Bros movies.

I still believe this is NK, or possibly Russia/Iran pinning it on Korea.

Frenzied Wombat_sl said:

Corporate espionage is by definition clandestine. When one company wants to steal intellectual property from another company, it's in their best interest to keep it from being discovered. That's certainly not the case here, besides which, what is the value of stolen information if you make it public? The event can't be corporate sabotage either, as competitors to Sony pictures can't really benefit. If you are Warner Brothers, what benefit can you really derive from taking out Sony? It's not like in the absence of a Sony produced movie, people will start flocking to Warner Bros movies.

I still believe this is NK, or possibly Russia/Iran pinning it on Korea.

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Theres nothing about corporate espionage that says it's results have to be clandestine, obviously if you're the actor who's orchestrated it you don't want to be found out. Heres a few things I could come up with that would benefit another corporation:

- Embarrassing Sony Pictures and it's employees, but especially it's relationships with celebrities and other people of influence. These relationships have value and they'll be less likely to work with them in the future
- If the company closes, exclusivity contracts they might of had with celebrities/directors etc would be void
- Fewer production companies bidding for things like scripts and talent reduces costs
- Up until recently a lot of Sony's profits were generated in it's Film division, so that could hurt Sony's bottom line
- There have been pushes for Sony to spin off it's film division, this kind of hack could hurt the IPO value of the company if it was spun off (And likely cause write downs in the value of that division)
- A general lack of trust that anything shared with Sony pictures is going to stay confidential
- Sony stock price manipulation. Short the stock, wreak havoc and profit

a_skeleton_03_sl said:

That their entire staff is racist and just panders to Obama and other high ranking black people just to lobby and look good.

There also was at least one or two celebrities that were bad mouthed a lot by the staff despite them being all friendly to their faces. Standard private email stuff.

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I'm shocked that people in the entertainment industry are assholes to others in the entertainment industry behind their back.

Tripamang_sl said:

Theres nothing about corporate espionage that says it's results have to be clandestine, obviously if you're the actor who's orchestrated it you don't want to be found out. Heres a few things I could come up with that would benefit another corporation:

- Embarrassing Sony Pictures and it's employees, but especially it's relationships with celebrities and other people of influence. These relationships have value and they'll be less likely to work with them in the future
- If the company closes, exclusivity contracts they might of had with celebrities/directors etc would be void
- Fewer production companies bidding for things like scripts and talent reduces costs
- Up until recently a lot of Sony's profits were generated in it's Film division, so that could hurt Sony's bottom line
- There have been pushes for Sony to spin off it's film division, this kind of hack could hurt the IPO value of the company if it was spun off (And likely cause write downs in the value of that division)
- A general lack of trust that anything shared with Sony pictures is going to stay confidential
- Sony stock price manipulation. Short the stock, wreak havoc and profit

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None of the things you are listing except for the last item could directly benefit a competing corporation in any direct financial manner. Everything you listed tarnishes Sony's reputation, or hurts their profits, but doesn't directly help or create profits for a competitor. The film industry isn't like two pharmaceutical companies that have competing drugs, whereby knocking out one of the companies would lead consumers to buy the other companies drug. As consumers, we don't give a shit who makes the movie. Either the movie interests us, or it does not. "Taking out" one movie studio doesn't herd us to another, at least not with any specificity.

Could things like loss of "exclusivity contracts" with certain actors or "cheaper bidding" indirectly benefit other movie studios? Yeah, but again with no specificity, in that it basically benefits ALL other movie studios, not just the studio that perpetrated the crime. As for "stock manipulation", the only real thing listed that can directly be quantified as potentially direct income, this would be caught in a heartbeat. I guarantee you anybody that shorted Sony in any significant amount prior to the hack has a magnifying glass up their ass right now by the FBI and SEC.

What you're basically saying here is that a competing corporation engaged pro hackers and sophisticated malware to perform a criminal act just so they could potentially reap some extra income down the line from reduced production bidding and actor availability, or that they simply wanted to tarnish Sony's reputation for their own gain. If I was CEO of this competing company, I would deem the cost/benefit/risk of this scenario to be horrible. If not for the nebulous amount of income it could generate, then certainly for the fact that if caught its jail time.

Sony is gonna go ahead and release it apparently.

Sony Set To Announce Theatrical, VOD Release (Exclusive) - TheWrap