The New York premiere of The Interview, a comedy about the assassination of North Korea's president, has been cancelled amid threats from hackers.If you've been caught up in the silliness that is Cuba policy then you're dealing with old world problems that are finally being cleaned up in the new world.
A spokesman for the cinema chain due to host the screening said it had been shelved.
Hackers targeting Sony Pictures had threatened to attack US cinemas showing the studio's film.
They belong to the same group which has released emails and data stolen from Sony.
Calling themselves Guardians of Peace, the hackers mentioned the 9/11 attacks in a recent warning, claiming "the world will be full of fear".
"Remember the 11th of September 2001. We recommend you to keep yourself distant from the places at that time," the hacker group wrote in a message on Tuesday. "If your house is nearby, you'd better leave," they add. "Whatever comes in the coming days is called by the greed of Sony Pictures Entertainment."
The Department of Homeland Security said there was "no credible intelligence to indicate an active plot" against cinemas, but noted it was still analysing messages from the group.
The real show is the cyber attack/blackmail that is probably being carried out by N. Korean operatives.
And they won.
The world changed today. For the first time publicly, terrorist have forced a major corporation to bow to their wishes. This time it was a movie. What is going on behind the scenes or what will be demanded next?
N. Korea is cash strapped. Could we see a ransom being paid to NOT release even more information? Could we see some type of move by Sony's home base govt, Japan, to act in a certain way to aid a beleaguered home corporation?
Cyber terrorism is different but its obviously real. Ignore the old stuff. In the grand scheme of things its irrelevant. This new age stuff will change your world.
Sidenote: Hackers have infiltrated our power grid. How long before they test the mettle of the current administration after this success? We MUST be ready to launch full scale war in the event of cyber attacks. The public MUST be educated to the dangers now...before its too late.
Sony and NATO (National Assoc of Theater Owners) bowed to the optics of the several terror events that occurred this week. My view is that this is a mistake, letting terrorists win. It only emboldens more attacks. Of course, now people will want to see the movie even more...
ReplyDeleteAnd suddenly the attacks on Sony make sense. Wonder if NK did it themselves or hired out the work.
ReplyDeleteSol, you might be interested in an excellent British anthology series called "Black Mirror" (it's on Netflix). It ponders the darker side of current and future technologies. The first episode has a hacker blackmailing the British Prime Minister into having sex with a pig on national television. Every attempt to bury the story by the government fails because the hacker uploaded the demand anonymously to YouTube. So everyone in Britain 'knows' despite the press bans that are implemented.
Sort of a serious, realistic version of "Ghost in the Shell". Good stuff!
Good to know I'm not the only one thinking like that. And let's be honest here... They are not crazy enough to blow a cinema in America just because they didn't like a movie theme,i mean, they know what would happen next if they do something like that.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/theater-chains-postpone-the-interview-premiere-amid-threats
ReplyDeleteSony pulls ‘The Interview’ from theaters amid security concerns
Sony Pictures decided to pull its upcoming comedy “The Interview” from distribution Wednesday amid security concerns and news that the five largest movie theater chains in the U.S. had decided to hold off on screening the film.
“In light of the decision by the majority of our exhibitors not to show the film ‘The Interview,’ we have decided not to move forward with the planned December 25 theatrical release. We respect and understand our partners’ decision and, of course, completely share their paramount interest in the safety of employees and theater-goers,” Sony said in a statement to NBC News.
@Slowman.
Deleteyou can't recognize a carefully orchestrated cave in? you think that this was not a coordinated event that originated with Sony themselves? are you really that naive?
I don't know why but I still haven't made up my mind yet on who did the hacks, manly because this doesn't seem like North Korea style especially on the whole Guardians of peace crap, you would think especially with their history of gloating that they openly advertise that they did the attack since you know their ass holes, all I want is to see more evidence, so can any of you give me some links to good sources on the web, id like that a lot.
DeleteOn a contrary maybe they finally learned to shut up about an operation they conduct on the global playing field.
This is a bunch of horseshit, if the norks don't want their folks to see it, thats their problem. People need to steal this movie and play it everywhere, home, theaters, parks, on the sides of buildings, even if it sucks just to tell the North Koreans to fuck off. Then everyone should boycott sony and put those cowards out of business. Finally one of North Korea's ships needs to have an accident, preferably torpedo related and make sure their people see it limping back into harbor or footage of it sinking. The only way to treat this kind of behavior is the same as if it was physical state sponsored terrorism.
DeleteJose Arjona
Delete> this doesn't seem like North Korea style
This is a very North Korean style for governments of East Asia. Yes, North Korea hacks Chinese networks too.
And this was a movie offensive to the North Koreans......what will happen when a movie is offensive to the Chinese ?
ReplyDeleteThere is a self censorship going on in Hollywood in order not to offend the second largest(and soon the largest) movie market in the world. Accordingly, it is not OK to portray Chinese characters negatively, all the bad guys on Hollywood cinemas will have to be Japanese and Koreans. In addition, AMC is already owned by a Chinese company and will not screen any anti-China films in the US.
DeleteAnd you are beginning to see the effect of this rule. In Lucy, the drug trafficking underworld of Taiwan is controlled by Korean gangsters.
EA may be a hated company but atleast they did not bend over to placate China in Battlefield 4. In any case how much business does hollywood expect to do with China? They can only import a limited number of movies in a year. The last time I checked hollywood qouta of movies was only 12 movies a year.
DeleteThe cyber has been ongoing. STUXNET was an even more impressive attack.
ReplyDeleteSony should release the movie on cable if theaters don't want to show it.
Apparantly they have a wide ranging agreement with Cinema owners that all home video releases will be months after cinema releases to preserve the big screen business. An agreement that most movie production houses like Paramount, Fox etc. also share. I waited for months to get a Guardians of the Galaxy HD copy.
DeleteAnd why do you think that Time Warner Cable, Apple iTunes, Netflix, and Amazon want to risk getting hacked for streaming The Interview? A better security? North Korea's malware is weapons-grade able to penetrate 90% of US corporate intranets, and what we have seen may not be the fullest of North Korean cyber warfare capability.
DeleteOh, that's complete BS. SPE security was toddler level at best. Pretty much zero oversight and security practices that anyone with a brain would never use.
DeleteLets be clear, they were emailing top level passwords in the clear with no encryption. Pretty much every security expert out there agrees that SPE was horribly insecure. They were putting critical passwords and encryption keys in plain excel files!
Most security experts agree that there was nothing weapons grade about the attack and against any company that actually cared about IT security, it would of tripped the alarms long before they could of gotten anywhere. From all data available, it appears SPE wasn't even up to PCI level security which is a standard just about every business online at least reaches.
Well, my brother said that us government confirmed North Korea involvement in this case.
ReplyDeletehttp://blog.sfgate.com/dailydish/2014/12/18/steve-carells-north-korea-movie-axed-after-sony-hack/
ReplyDeleteStudio bosses behind an upcoming Steve Carell movie set in North Korea have decided to cancel the project in the wake of the fall out from Sony Pictures’ controversial new movie, The Interview.
Dennis Rodman's one bread and butter and now even that is gone.
DeleteYou know what would have ended this? "Any attack on American theaters linked in any way to North Korea will result in military retaliation against North Korea with strategic weapons" -Barrack Obama. The reason the North gets away with this is because we never call their bluff.
ReplyDelete