BIZARRE TWISTS IN “THE INTERVIEW” SONY MOVIE SAGA

Bottom line: If you want to feel secure, stay at home and keep your private information offline; the Internet security is an oxymoron

Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive! (Sir Walter Scott, Marmion)

When I first heard that SONY was about to cancel the opening of its new movie “The Interview” because of an alleged cyber attack by North Korea, I thought it was a joke. Some sort of a marketing spoof to help boost interest in the film.

Here is a country that has been supposedly suffering under the weight of the UN sanctions for decades. The western media and governments have been depicting it as one of the most backward nations in the world. This is where people are allegedly starving and the store shelves are empty.

Then suddenly, practically overnight, that same country – North Korea – gains tremendous technological capabilities. It brings to its knees one of the world’s most savvy high tech multinationals – SONY. The company capitulates unconditionally, canceling a $44 million-film without as much as a whimper.

Sound like a plot of a fantastical movie? That’s what I thought on Dec 18 after I first learned about this cyber attack.

 

Amazingly, it was not a movie script. it all turned out to be true. SONY surrendered unconditionally and agreed to take a $44 million hit in order to appease the powerful hackers.

“All plans to release the film were cancelled after the FBI warned movie theaters and businesses linked to The Interview they could be targeted in further cyber attacks,” (see Sony cancels release of The Interview after hack threat, Dec 18).

  

Obama Goes to Bat for SONY, Seems to Contradict the FBI

That’s when I realized that something smelled rather fishy in this sordid Hollywood affair.

Enter Obama, the president who has told us so many lies that one wonders if he himself knows anymore what the real truth is.

Speaking at a White House press conference on Dec 19 before departing for a Christmas vacation in Hawaii, Obama sounded more like a SONY CEO than the chief executive of the United States:

“Sony is a corporation, he said.: It suffered significant damage, threats against some employees. I am sympathetic to the concerns they faced. Having said that, yes I think they made a mistake,” Obama said Dec 19 answering a question from a reporter.

“I wish they’d spoken to me first. I would have told them, ‘Do not get into a pattern in which you’re intimidated by these kinds of criminal attacks’.”

See what I mean? “I wish they had spoken to me first!”

Is this a US president talking or a would-be SONY CEO?

And Obama is blaming SONY for caving in. Didn’t somebody tell the president that the FBI had advised SONY to do so?

Furthermore, Obama promised that he would use the US taxpayers’ money and resources to help SONY.

“They (North Korea) caused a lot of damage and we will respond. We will respond proportionally, and we’ll respond in a place and time and manner that we choose,” he said.

And just think, SONY is not even a US company. It is a Japanese multinational. But that matters not to a loyal servant of the global Corporatocracy which is now running this country (see AMERICAN CORPORATOCRACY (Corporate Plutocracy), NOV 13, 2014).

“We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship here in the United States.”

Of course, not. That’s Obama’s job. And that of his cohorts in the media and film industry whose job is to turn the American people into shopping and eating zombies. That’s why this American president is willing to go to bat for Hollywood and a Japanese multinational (see Obama: Sony Made Mistake Pulling ‘The Interview’; U.S. Will Respond Proportionally At Time And Place We Choose, Dec 19).

FBI Confirms North Korea Behind Cyber-Attack

“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,” a FBI statement said on Dec 19.

Just think – the FBI released this statement the same day Obama was blaming SONY for following the FBI advice and canceling the movie.

Weird, huh? Or par for the course in Washington? After all, where was the FBI intel on 9/11?

North Korea Says It Sid Not Hack Sony, Wants Joint Probe with U.S.; Putin Invites North Korean Leader to Visit Russia

In another twist to this bizarre story, North Korea said on Dec 20 that it did not hack SONY, and proposed a joint probe with the US into the cyber attack.

The foreign ministry in Pyongyang denied responsibility for the the highest-profile corporate hack in history, and said there would be “grave consequences” if Washington refused to collaborate on an investigation and continued to blame it (see Guardian, Dec 20).

But don’t hold your breath for a positive response by Washington. They probably don’t want the North Koreans to help them wipe the egg off their faces.

In yet another strange twist to this story, Vladimir Putin invited North Korea’s Kim Jong-un to visit Russia,” the global media reported today (Dec 20). The visit is to take place in May 2015 during the celebrations of Russia’s victory over Germany in WW II. But the timing of the invitation – in the middle of the SONY cyber attack ruckus –  has got to be raising quite a few eyebrows around the world.

Washington Getting Desperate, Seeking Chinese Help

And then another strange twist. Today (Dec 21), a story broke that the US is seeking China’s help to curb North Korea cyber-attack.

Wait a minute? Isn’t that like asking the fox to help guard a chicken coop? Hasn’t the US been accusing the Chinese of trying to hack into its own Pentagon website?

In September, the Chinese Hacked U.S. Military Contractors, Senate Panel Said:

“Hackers linked to China’s government broke into computer networks of private transportation companies working for the U.S. military 20 times in one year.”

And back in July, the The New York Times reported that the Chinese hackers sought information on people who were candidates for higher security clearances. The Secretary of State Kerry brought up this issue in his meeting with the Chinese president (see U.S., China Talk Cybe-rhacking Amid New Allegations).

This suggests that Washington is getting quite desperate. Because the relations between North Korea and China have been quite frosty lately. But all North Korea internet communications reportedly go through China. So beggars can’t be choosers.

That must be especially embarrassing to the Obama administration considering that the relations between the US and North Korea have been actually on the mend lately. In early November, North Korea released the last two Americans it had kept prisoner. In an unprecedented move, the NSA boss James Clapper (left) flew to Pyongyang as Obama’s personal representative to personally attend to the release.

But this happened to the chagrin of China. The country was then hosting a high profile APEC summit in Beijing (right). And the North Korean prisoner release stole some limelight from this glitzy event (see “THE UGLY AMERICAN” RESURFACES IN BEIJING, Nov 10). The Chinese were not amused.

And yet now Washington has come crawling to the country in had accused of hacking, asking for help?

What if the Chinese did this to SONY deliberately so as to pour a bucket of ice over the warming US-North Korean relationship?

False Flag Attack – a Triumph for Chinese?

So now you can see why this writer felt this bizarre story reeked of a false flag black op. And that it was probably carried out by some sophisticated Chinese hackers, not the lowly North Koreans.

After all, unlike the North Koreans, the Chinese have proven their prowess before. And since the North Korean communications go through China anyway, it may not be impossible for the hackers to plant the evidence that would point to Pyongyang. And fool the FBI et. al.

If true, this would be a triumph for the Chinese. Outsmarting the Silicon Valley and bringing two nuclear powers and Hollywood to their knees. All with one stroke. Quite a coup!

In other words, the hackers have rewritten the ending of The Interview movie. Which is much more interesting than the original twisted Hollywood plot. Because the hackers have turned the tables on the US movie industry which tried to ridicule North Korea.

“The joke is on you” – was their message to Hollywood.

The hackers showed both Washington and Hollywood who is the boss of the Internet.

What Does It All Mean for You and Me?

What does it all mean for you and me?

• First, you don’t have to pay ten bucks to enjoy an exciting movie. Just stay tuned to the Internet.
• Second, if you want to keep something private, keep it in hardcopy. Locked in your home safe.

The internet security is an oxymoron.

The FORTUNE magazine published yesterday an interesting first person story written by a SONY employee: I work at Sony Pictures. This is what it was like after we got hacked (FORTUNE, Dec 20). The story amplifies what this writer said above:.

Here’s an excerpt:

“The Monday before Thanksgiving, we all came to work; some people had turned on their computers and were working. At around 8:15 a.m., that black screen of death came on.

They shut down the entire network. We couldn’t really work the rest of the week, which seemed OK because it was a holiday week. But as Tuesday and Wednesday progressed, it became clear that this wasn’t a simple hack.”

A few days later… 

A few days later, we were on loaner laptops, pen and paper, recreating PowerPoints, re-creating databases. All the things you’d need when you’re working on any kind of business deal. Word documents, contracts, PDFs. We chugged along. We did as much as we could. But there were certain days that people had to leave the office to do what they had to do personally.

Going forward, I want to know that I won’t get a random $500 charge. I decided that I’m never going to access any of my financial accounts on my work computer ever again. If I need to do something urgently, I’ll use my smartphone, or I’ll go home and do it. It’s not worth the risk.

There you have it. If you want to feel secure, stay at home and keep your private information offline.

That’s the bottom line. That’s the lasting message from the bizarre SONY hack-attack story.

* * *

UPDATE DEC 21, 2014 – 6:50PM MST

FORBES MAGAZINE CONFIRMS CHINA’S COMPLICITY IN SONY HACK ATTACK

This evening, Forbes magazine’s Asian affairs contributor, Gordon Chang, published a piece which confirms our own conclusions about China’s role and complicity in the hacking attack on SONY (see Did China Help North Korea Hack Sony?, Dec 21).

Here’s an excerpt:

“The shadowy Unit 121 has its headquarters in Pyongyang, but it reportedly operates mainly from outside the country, particularly from cities near the North Korean border in China, including the Chilbosan Hotel in the city of Shenyang. Most North Korean cyberwarriors, whether directly employed by the regime or freelancing, work from China because North Korea does not have the technical infrastructure to support extensive hacking operations.

Yet we do not need to speculate on the origin of the Sony attacks to find China complicit in the crime. After all, the attacks were routed through Chinese IP addresses. It is true that, in an apparent attempt to mask their origin, the attacks were also passed through, among other places, a Singapore convention center, Thailand’s Thammasat University, and a computer in Bolivia. No one is accusing the governments of Singapore, Thailand, or Bolivia of being behind the assaults.

The use of Chinese servers indicts Beijing, however. China maintains the “Great Firewall,” what many consider the world’s most comprehensive and sophisticated set of Internet controls. Chinese authorities can detect a single-line message sent from a computer or phone anywhere inside the People’s Republic. Therefore, these authorities knew or should have known about both the North Korean attacks passing out through the Firewall and the inbound data stolen from Sony, more than 100 terabytes worth.

Indeed, almost all the North’s telecommunications run through Chinese networks, which means all or virtually all of its Internet connections pass through China. Therefore, North Korea’s hacking, spanning decades, is well known to Beijing.”

Just as the Truth in Media said in our piece “FALSE FLAG CYBER ATTACK?” (Dec 21).

For the full Forbes article, click here. Also see this London Guardian story about the hacking unit 121 published long before The Interview movie was canceled:

Did North Korea’s notorious Unit 121 cyber army hack Sony Pictures?

Read more… http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/02/north-korea-hack-sony-pictures-brad-pitt-fury

 * * *