An Offer to Sony from 2600(2600.com) |
An Offer to Sony from 2600(2600.com) |
So what if North Korea did it (of course I'm skeptical of this, anyone with a computer can conduct the same activities, with the motivator of trolling the entire world for fun). It's not a big deal, it's not something that requires US presidential intervention. It's not even remotely as big of a deal as the CIA torture report that just came out. The CIA report threatens our legitimacy as a world power. The Sony hack just costs a corporation some money, maybe (free publicity FTW). Big. Deal.
If this is the worst a hacker can do, I'd love to see all future wars replaced with hacking. I'll take that over agent orange and torture any day.
This sad, sick notion that hackers are terrorist enemy #1 and this is the most important thing governments should be working on is, like this movie will probably be, shitty fiction, a self-fulfilling prophecy perpetuated by Hollywood in movies like War Games that make it look like we're all going to be nuked thousands of times if we don't stop the Hacker menace. Help me change the media's perception of hacking before we start throwing more whistleblowers and e-graffiti artists in prison.
TLDR: Sony got hacked, too bad, learn a lesson and fix your computer security, let's not start WW3 over it shall we?
It is a big deal actually. Sony and these movie theaters taught the world that US businesses are so risk averse that they will give into any threat - credible or not. The crazies will now come out of the woodwork. Not every business will give in, but the volume of threats and the disruption they cause will vastly increase.
A foreign dictator just told the US population that it isn't allowed to see a movie he doesn't like (false flag conspiracy theories aside - sometimes things are exactly what they appear to be). I am not sure how anyone can think this isn't a big deal worthy of presidential intervention.
That's brilliant. (I assume this refers to defacement s/kiddies)
Wars vs more script kiddies and you'd really choose the wars? I'm disgusted.
Leaving an ever accumlating pile of embarassing communications for someone to steal and then extort you for is not a national security weakness.
Add that a narrative around this story is that the hackers "spear phished" an IT admin. This is incredibly difficult to defend against for any organization (seriously -- for all of the browbeating against Sony on here -- it's all so simple -- I would argue that there are zero organizations that would withstand a concerted, targeted attack. Most would fall in a day). Not only did they purportedly co-opt a privileged account, they then sat on it for months.
Over months they could have changed policies, retrieved backups, and on and on.
When blaming Sony, everyone needs to remember that Snowden, a Dell contractor working at the NSA with limited access, took the King's Ransom from what is assumed to be the pinnacle of computer security and awareness.
Hackers to Sony: We'll stand down if you never release the movie.... "Now we want you never let the movie released, distributed or leaked in any form of, for instance, DVD or piracy. And we want everything related to the movie, including its trailers, as well as its full version down from any website hosting them immediately." [They] warn the studio executives that, "we still have your private and sensitive data" and claims that they will "ensure the security of your data unless you make additional trouble." [2]
Imagine Sony putting it on BitTorrent with a pre-roll asking viewers to donate money to a charity of their choice through a micro-site they setup to track how much has been given. Or something.... This is actually a moment in history where Sony could truly shine.
But back in reality, whatever is in those held-back stolen docs, they probably need time to prepare for the fallout. If they can stall the remaining doc release by stalling the movie release, they can buy themselves some time. In the meantime, the audience for the film is growing daily, but I think will peak and fall if they wait too long.
[1] - http://deadline.com/2014/12/sony-president-obama-the-intervi...
[2] - http://money.cnn.com/2014/12/19/media/insde-sony-hack-interv...
I think people just want to see the film. I certainly want to see the film. It might have a crappy plot or a second-rate screenplay or subpar acting, but with this sort of publicity none of that matters. Just watching it will be an event, perhaps an even bigger event than watching The Last Temptation of Christ was way-back-when...
Anyway, Sony seems to be in a defiant stance. It doesn't seem like Sony is going to yield; it seems like they are going to just find an alternative distribution path: "No thanks, 2600. We got this. After all, this is the sort of hype that we'd... uhh... kill for.... uh..."
However, I applaud 2600's proposal because it points in the right direction: a calm, nonviolent but assertive refusal to be intimidated, rather than the hysterical paranoia and escalation of threats we are seeing all too much of in recent years.
That brings up a good point. Perhaps Sony should even consider using the controversy in its marketing, then later make claims about how much more successful the film was than projected, thanks to the added publicity (which will almost certainly be true).
Not only would it show defiance, it would underscore the paradoxical effect of trying to stifle free speech in this manner. And, that might provide the biggest disincentive of all for future prevention: demonstration of ineffectivness.
It's unclear why the release was canceled. Maybe Sony wants to just put this whole thing behind them. Maybe they want to curtail any further leaks that they feel may be worse. Perhaps the executives feel that being a victim of a foreign nation absolves them of any culpability and they're playing that card to the greatest extent they can. But I highly doubt they're going to make any about face on a policy issue and are still very much against free speech as far as the internet is concerned. If anything this incident will be used to bolster their arguments and to that end maybe it has worked out better for them than "The Interview" ever could.
Wasn't it last December that NK was sending fax messages to communicate with SK? Now they can download Terabytes from Sony without anyone noticing?
The NK/Interview link came out of nowhere and the group seemed to just go along with it. If this isn't Media Hyping, I don't know what is. Sony hacked for the nth time - barely newsworthy by now. Sony cyberattacked by cyberterrorists and your real-world-kids possibly in very grave danger from a cyberbomb in a theater - NewsGold(tm).
Can everyone stop using the NK link as a fact in this case? Thanks.
PS: In case you missed it, NK denied involvement in this early on. Usually this wouldn't mean much (a state's denials? please) but remember who we're talking about here! When has NK passed up an opportunity to display their superiority?
I mean it's obvious that they don't care about security or that they do care but they value flexibility more, than tight security. Either way I don't understand the nature of the offer, maybe it's pure irony and I missed it.
Seriously though, while the plot of the film is both purile and offensive to the North Korean dictator personally, should NK be behind the attack on Sony (im still not convinced) then it is definitely an ulterly inappropriate response.
Problem is, and this is a genuine question, how should they have responded? Is the western media, specifically the US media going to publish a written complaint from NK? Probably not right. I'm not justifying their response in any way, but would be curious to know if they have any way at all to complain.
I'm playing devil's advocate here before anyone starts assuming I'm some NK sympathiser. I too would like to see the NK people freed from the tyranny and death camps they currently live under the constant threat of.
Saving people who want to see a movie $10 is the best gift to humanity you can think of? (jk) It would definitely send a message but considering the loses they've already made from this + the hack they need to exploit the situation and make as much money as possible.
"if you want to put it online, you can put it on our website full of anti-governmental rants"
Ummm... All right. If Sony wants to put it online, they will find other ways.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/feb/01/paulo-coelho-re...
1) Sony gets hacked. A big hack, but just a hack.
2) Sony pulls a movie because it offends a nasty dictator identified by name.
Why are these connected? It's not as if they learned about the movie from the hack? I've seen the ad for that movie a few times, and I'm pretty sure that the spymasters in North Korea can watch the same Seinfeld reruns that I do.
Why is the ridiculousness over Sony pulling the picture (PR stunt or not) at all related to the hack?
Sony got hacked, the hackers said if you halt release of the film we'll stop releasing your private data.
The release was cancelled, the hackers stop releasing private data.
It doesn't take a data scientist to put those two together.
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/sony-north-korea-the-i...
Sony left the decision up to the theater chains, and those chains were reported to back away from the movie because of the legal liability if there were a terrorist incident.
There is a fairly well defined limit to free speech, e.g. yelling "fire!" in a theater. Burning a Koran, just to fuck with people, is probably in "yelling fire" territory.
But as far as Obama's quip against Sony goes... I was really surprised to read that. I think it's tone-deaf for Obama to call out Sony. First of all, it was the theaters not Sony who refused to show it. Second of all, it was the FBI who told the theaters they couldn't guarantee they weren't going to get hit by terrorists on Christmas. What?!
Yes, the capitulation is absolutely shocking and terrible. That's what Obama should be saying. But victim blaming? It's like blaming the kidnapping victim for doing what they're told so they don't get hurt. Sony still has a gun to their head, they are still being actively extorted!
Edit: @icebraining set me straight.
No, no it's not. It's an insensitive, assholish and petty action, but it does not constitute an incitation to immediate violation of the law, including but not exclusively because it was announced beforehand.
I hope not. Making capitulation to a threat, implied or explicit would be the exact opposite of freedom of speech. You would not be able to speak out against... anything.
Which is a completely legal thing to do, provided there is actually a fire.
no it does not...almost everyone in the world understand that under certain conditions, torture to get potentially life-saving information is just the way of things.
let me put it this way...if your immediate family was going to be blown up in two hours, wouldn't you say go ahead and torture that guy who you KNOW has information on how to diffuse the bomb?
I kid, but this hack was pretty damn deep.
Every human/culture has likes,dislikes ...etc and every one expect others not crossing those lines for peaceful co-existence. In democracy, no doubt, there is freedom of expression but if that expression is uncomfortable to other, then there is responsibility to control/prevent that expression rather than brazenly going ahead ignoring sensitivities of others.
If the story line as I understand from mass media is, assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and if North Korea protested it, then Sony should have understand and accommodated the sensitivities of North Korea and stopped making this movie. It is not censorship as President Obama noted.
People on HN voiced concern on NSA surveillance ...etc, since many felt privacy/anonymity is violated...etc. Just like you have sensitivities, North Korea too has sensitivities and it is natural to expect, others to understand them. Whether it is, dictatorship or democracy and their relative merits/demerits is different point of discussion.
I am neither supporting hacker's attack on Sony nor North Korea but Sony in first place, should have considered the sensitivities of other cultures, even if they are alien to your culture and act accordingly, given the story line.
Arts should further enable the stability or peace on earth and you may not achieve peace by hurting sentiments of others.
If they want this movie out, they could make it happen tomorrow.
This is just PR speak. They might cave and release anyway, but Lynton's statement is deliberately weak and duplicitous, once again attempting to deflect all blame from themselves rather than admit to any mistake on their part.
I'm more interested at this point in figuring out what this means for the future. Do we live in a world now where state-actors will target specific companies and basically try to rip them to shreds and extort them? Now I'm supposed to personally defend my company and my network against state-sponsored targeted persistent threats?
It should be possible to lock down individual machines which aren't ever supposed to be networked. That's hard enough. I'm personally of the belief that any networked device is ultimately hack-able up to the physical constraints of the network. It's all about how much it will cost an attacker to gain access, and how much they can steal once they get it.
If governments start routinely sponsoring these attacks, I'm very concerned the cost-levels we impose today are 5 - 6 orders of magnitude too low, and the network bandwidth 5 - 6 orders of magnitude too high, to deter these types of attack.
I'm not blaming Sony for bad security, because as was stated elsewhere, spear-fishing of IT-admins is incredibly hard to protect against. However, depending on how bad the dirt is (and every big corporation probably has a bunch of rather smelly skeletons in the closet), some of that blame may lie with Sony. But if that is so, getting hacked just means they didn't get away with whatever incriminating stuff is in that data.
Which ones?
In reality, they're probably all scared shitless. If all of their employees' personal info has been compromised as reported, I can understand that they'd be worried about the possibility of someone getting hurt. Even a minor, harmless event could lead to bad press. Of course, no one believes that NK actually has the ability to inflict physical harm outside of their own country, but I can understand the Sony executives' hesitance to put that to the test.
If NK is not responsible, it really doesn't matter whether the movie is released. In this scenario, the hackers could easily leak the movie themselves under someone else's guise, providing an excellent excuse to continue their campaign of pure damage toward Sony Pictures. (Assuming they even bother.)
While you wouldn't think so, the North Korean regime does actually have (a few) supporters outside of North Korea. There are always someone who wants to believe that all the bad stuff is invented by regime opponents, regardless which regime you're talking about.
That's somewhat orthogonal to whether or not NK is behind it but the possibility of a nation state being involved must affect their calculations.
If only we had passed SOPA and CISPA, we'd be so much safer right now.
The FBI told Sony they didn't know if the theaters were safe. Seriously, WTF are we paying them for if they can't tell us, with absolute certainty, that our theaters are safe from terrorist attacks on Christmas. That's not very comforting...
So what I'm hearing is, we have no confidence in our national defense, and no ability to prevent, mitigate, or even simply deter these increasingly brutal cyber-attacks... Yeah, actually the last thing I'm worried about right now is CISPA. Like it or not, network defense just became a national security prerogative.
OK, so that's the counter-argument right? So this has been very well played and I don't see how you derail it now.
I imagine that many major US newspapers would love to publish an op-ed by Kim Jong-un. The New York Times, for example, published this op-ed by Vladimir Putin last year: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/12/opinion/putin-plea-for-cau....
Except from the fact that it's a boring script, I don't see nothing wrong with it and I'm pretty sure that you an do a movie like that anytime you'd like in the US. I'm pretty sure the government will not send hackers to attack the studio... For making fun of any figure. In the late night show the host makes fun of virtually everyone and anything. Satire shows pretty much the level of a democracy.
ps. Consider that I'm very critical of the US gov. But it's absolutely nowhere near N. Korea if that was your point.
The film studio quite deliberately decided not to make a film about assassinating Vladamir Butin, or Angela Derkel.
I also find such a plot puerile. That was my point. Also read my original last sentence.
If they want to stop as many people from seeing the film as possible, then they should have done nothing. If they wanted to send a message that NK has the technical abilities to fuck up American (/Western) businesses, then they did the 'right' thing. If they wanted to score a less aggressive propaganda win, then they probably should have incorporated it into their next round of talks or something.
I'm playing devil's advocate above, the last sentence was fairly clear about that, just in case you missed it.
Scene. Oval Office. Red telephone rings. Ring ring...
Obama: Hey David, what's up dude?
Cameron: um, you know, this new film about me being blown
up in my Prime Ministerial helicopter by some of your
special agents, because I'm an evil dictator?
Obama: Oh, yes. Funny. Got a sneak preview of that. They
got you and your Eton homies down bro
Cameron: hmm, yes. You know, could you ask them to stop
it? You know, or I'll let the GCHQ boys loose on the old
reservation if you know what I mean...
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why they are such a perfect scapegoat, and more importantly, that is why I find it so suspicious.
N.B. If it isn't obvious, my 'script' above is offensive. Whether or not I like or support David Cameron policies is irrelevant, but he's still my Prime Minister and he's a real person with a wife and child. Similarly Barack Obama is not some gangbanger, he's a smart man with noble beliefs (albeit a button that got pushed to make him flip flop on the NSA but who wouldn't), but still both British people and American people might find that script offensive. And just to be absolutely crystal clear, David Cameron having GCHQ hack a US film studio is of course an incredibly imbalanced response.
Here's a good article on the subject: http://www.theguardian.com/science/the-lay-scientist/2010/no...
Then how do you explain this case in Germany where simply threatening torture resulted in the perpetrator divulging the location of his victim: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/10/world/kidnapping-has-germa...
it is absolutely morally wrong, but it certainly can be effective and has been used throughout history. usually, things that don't work don't last anywhere near that long.
there are all sorts of reasons to oppose it, which of course I do, but saying it cannot be effective just isn't one of them.
Dozens of others were held for no reason at all, later released as having been found innocent.
If the US did torture someone in a scenario where the public was in imminent danger they would likely be exonerated in (at least) the court of public opinion. That's not what happened here, though.
There was NO ticking time bomb. And even if there was, torture STILL would not work, for all the same reasons, and it would just waste precious time.
You've just demonstrated that you're not thinking rationally, and that you're just reacting to and parroting emotional pro-torture propaganda.
That doesn't win your argument, it just shows what kind of a person you truly are: a war crime apologist, who panders to people's worst fears and emotions, to support ineffective torture, as a means to your actual ends: revenge.
The intelligence that you get from someone being tortured is worthless - people say whatever you want to hear in oder to make the torture stop.
There is never a situation where there's some ticking bomb.
Finally, torture is prohibited under a wide number of international treaties. Even the US uses phrases like "Enhanced Interogation Techniques" because they accept that torture is wrong.
Somebody torturing a man that has his family held hostage is entirely different than state sponsored torture. I think that should be obvious.
People understand the fact that on the battlefield, sometimes torture happens, even when it shouldn't. When a soldier tortures somebody they just captured to keep their fellow soldiers alive, we don't agree with it, but there's a different mentality surrounding it. When the government TELLS that soldier to torture somebody, then it's a different matter entirely. This same idea is at work with your example above.
See... bullshit hypotheticals can prove the opposite point too.
The right to not be offended, quite simply, does not exist and should not exist in free democracies. Everything should be open for debate, discussion, parody, etc..
Not producing a movie because someone might feel insulted by it and then throw a temper tantrum is censorship by proxy in its purest form. The tyranny of sensibilities may be justified by humanitarian arguments (i.e.: "peace on Earth" !) but it is, more often than not, a disguise totalitarian doctrines take to silence opponents.
The fact that this attack allegedly comes from the last Stalinian regime - the worst dictatorship still in existence - certainly points to a totalitarian motive.
Genuine question: Why is that?
This also really has nothing to do with a silly little movie called "The Interview". The movie is a footnote in a brutal attack on Sony which left their entire network destroyed, their PCs wiped, their entire data set stolen and published, their employees and partners and customers terribly exposed, and all this used to extort them...
As for peaceful co-existence and all that, such a thing can only be possible not by retaliating when we are offended, but by understanding we have a right to be offended, and a right to express our outrage peacefully and constructively.
Edit: Imagine a world where Kim Jong-un posts a video statement on kim.nk decrying the movie and asking for support in a world wide boycott. This is how mature adults respond to such a situation. Oh wait, I almost forgot, he's a brutal dictator bent on world destruction. Seriously, your comment blows my mind.
>>> As for peaceful co-existence and all that, such a thing can only be possible not by retaliating when we are offended, but by understanding we have a right to be offended, and a right to express our outrage peacefully and constructively.
I would like to see examples of this approach getting succeeded between different countries with different scales/opinions on justice,fairness. Whatever may be the reasons/circumstances, West did not pursued this approach after 9/11. I live in India which pursued peaceful/constructive approach after 26/11 but literally no change has occurred. So this looks proper approach in theory but not practical.
Interestingly enough, The Interview never actually hurt the feelings of the North Korean people. In order to do that, they'd have to learn about it first. And there's nothing less likely to find its way into a closed society than a comedy about the assassination of that society's leader. But that's largely irrelevant: we don't live in a society that enforces "respect" at the expense of individual liberties.
There's a significant difference between being able to respectfully engage cultural differences and blindly accepting the abuses and atrocities. Particularly when we're talking about the sort of practices that make North Korea, well, North Korea (which have nothing to do with a Korean culture that dates back centuries and everything to do with one family's mad desire for absolute power).
Apparently, that movie was ok, so why shouldn't this have been?
There is always people whose sensitivity gets hurt by movies and books, but this should not automatically lead to stopping publishing.
>>> There is always people whose sensitivity gets hurt by movies and books, but this should not automatically lead to stopping publishing.
There are "defamation laws" in many countries. Many people/companies use them if they feel offended/hurt, even if they are not noble. This incident may be the same for NK.
Call it artistic freedom if you'd prefer. It's all a form of free speech and I'm not sure that Sony has ever come out against artistic expression.
Regardless, I think it's pretty clear that the shoe is on the other foot now. That point, of course, is essentially the main premise of the article on which we are commenting, and it's what makes the situation so sweetly ironic to its author(s).
But, you know, it's all P.R. and all about messaging (from both sides). Sony doesn't have to really believe in free speech for everyone in order to make a stand on that premise. They are surely aware that standing on their right to make a profit probably wouldn't engender as much support or be as effective as standing for artistic freedom, free speech, etc.
And, of course, all of this discussion about what to call it is pedantic, because my bigger point was that they have an opportunity to turn this on its head and have it completely backfire on the attackers, thus providing strong disincentive for future attacks.
>It's unclear why the release was canceled.
I think it's pretty clear that, at least in part, they were tired of having their asses handed to them. In short, they were punked.
The power to suppress murder is a relatively small power, and its limits are easily determined by laws and courts. A power to suppress offensiveness would be broad and vague, capable of suppressing anything anyone might object to. Since taking offense is so subjective, it would be difficult for this power to be administered by a neutral third party. It would be prone to abuses.
A right not to be offended requires an arbitrary power incompatible with freedom.
Because empirically, history seems to tell us that very many people will always be "offended" by others disagreeing with them, or living/worshipping/looking differently.
And so if there were a right to not be offended, it would trample many of the fundamental human freedoms we associate with democracies.
Blacks and whites marrying offended some people. The River Brethren not going to war offended some people. And in this specific case? Black humor isn't that rate; Arsenic and Old Lace, man. I'm sure that offended some people.
The right to be offended probably can't exist in free democracies.
The other five main exceptions to free speech protection include; Defamation, Obscenity, Sedition, and...
Fighting words: As defined by the Supreme Court, fighting words are "those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace."
Causing panic: The classic example of speech causing panic is someone yelling "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater. Speech may be suppressed where a reasonable person would know that his speech is likely to cause panic and/or harm to others.
The government also has the right to restrict speech in order to promote a "compelling government interest," such as national security. This standard is extraordinarily strict and hard to prove, making it a rather narrow exception to free speech.
[1] - https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/free-speech-primer-what-c...
I thought that the courts would look at it under this 6-part framework and they might possibly decide, under the facts and circumstances of Terry Jones for example, that it falls under "fighting words" or maybe some kind of hate speech.
But now I've read up more on Terry Jones and what actually happened, and, you're right, the consensus was it was protected speech.
Pulling an Obama quote from Wikipedia;
President Barack Obama was asked on September 9, 2010, on ABC's "Good Morning America" about the Quran burning controversy. He said, "You could have serious violence in places like Pakistan or Afghanistan. This could increase the recruitment of individuals who would be willing to blow themselves up in American cities or European cities." He said, "I just want him to understand that this stunt that he is talking about pulling could greatly endanger our young men and women in uniform who are in Iraq, who are in Afghanistan. We're already seeing protests against Americans just by the mere threat that he's making." "I just hope he understands that what he is proposing to do is completely contrary to our values as Americans, that this country has been built on the notions of religious freedom and religious tolerance," Obama said. "He says he's someone who is motivated by his faith ... I hope he listens to those better angels and understands that this is a destructive act that he's engaging in.” Asked if the event could be stopped, Obama replied, "My understanding is that he can be cited for public burning … but that's the extent of the laws that we have available to us."[42]
This is different from states trying to explicitly destroy another company, but the bottom line is the same: you need to include state actors in your list of potentially hostile attackers, same as any black hat.
This whole thing has been blown out of proportion.
I haven't found a good write up on the attack, however my understanding is it was mainly due to Sony's lack of security and not the prowess of the hackers.
This was something like SQL Injection and non password protected excel files with employees social security numbers. The state-sponsored APTs you are talking about are hundreds of millions of dollars worth of custom software engineering.
However I agree with your general premise that another government essentially blackmailing one of our private companies is worrying.
I wish. They're definitely capable of inflicting physical harm outside of NK. Just the first link that comes to my mind that has already been shared here:
http://www.gq.com/news-politics/newsmakers/201306/kim-jong-i...
It's not so unusual for a Korean to be in Japan, and NK can surely provide falsified documents to "prove" their agent is actually from SK (NK and SK, aside from minor differencies, even speak the same language, so how would you tell them apart?)
Granted, their ability to move in the US might be severely smaller than their ability to move inside Japan. But you only need a person or two with an handgun to scare the living hell out of the media/country/people who worry about such things
I think there's an argument going on between Sony Pictures and Sony Japan over the release, and that right now everyone is sitting on their hands waiting to see how the U.S. government responds. But since there's already screener copies out there, I would put money on the movie seeing the light of day.
Yep, it sure is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Pictures_Entertainment
"Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. (SPE) is the American entertainment subsidiary of Japanese multinational technology and media conglomerate Sony."
Making a movie about the assassination of the NK leader doesn't imply hate. I'm pretty sure making the movie wasn't about the hate against NK per se, but rather a comedy about the situation in an oppressed country.
If you burn a koran/bible I'm pretty sure we all know what that means: You hate the religion and wan't it to die.
As you can see the difference is that the first one falls under free- and the other under hate-speech.
Now if you ask me, it's still wrong to hate against those who burn "holy books" or whatever. In my opinion hate speech is integral to having free spech, even if it should be watched carefully (I really don't wan't a third reich here in germany) - something that has been lost in the past couple years. But it's important to differenciate between both.
As far as hate speech, in the U.S. hate speech is legal -- as it should be. Being able to express ideas, no matter how repugnant, is the very foundation of the United States. Besides, who determines hate speech? If I say white people are less intelligent than Asians-- is that hate, or my own (distorted) view of the world? It's a very slippery slope to start classifying ideas and banning ideas based in some social norm or the moment.
In the case of the movie, the audience was American moviegoers, with the producers solely intending to amuse the audience.
In the case of the Koran burning, the audience was Muslims worldwide, with full knowledge that the act was under intense media scrutiny, and with forewarning that it would likely result in riots and violence. He chose to act in a way that he knew would result in riots and violence. It wasn't "hate speech." It was an act that was engaged in consciously with knowledge that it would likely provoke a violent response engaged in out of pure malice.
When John McCain was tortured and was asked to give up the names of his squad mates, he gave the names of the front line of the green bay packers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_life_and_military_career_...
Clearly torture is an effective way of getting useless information, you have no way to tell if the info is correct or not, and the prisoner has no incentive to give you the correct information.
People who were cooperating were still tortured, for no apparent reason!
(See the section on Rectal Feeding And Hydration:)
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-senate-is-about-to-releas...
So no, its just people being messed up. There is no logic. There is no reason.
The bottom line is if you have to resort to torture, too many systems have failed, and you have to seriously question the values you're trying to preserve.
(In the following, I'm trying to just discuss the technical aspects of this. When I ask if or suggest that something would be effective, it is not meant to imply that if torture can be made effective then it is OK to do it. The ineffectiveness of torture as currently practiced is just one argument against torture, and so if it can be made effective that still leaves the other anti-torture arguments intact).
Wouldn't this largely depend on what type of information you are trying to get and how much you already know? If you already have information that I know that you are not supposed to know, and I don't know you already have it, you can ask about that while interrogating me in addition to asking about whatever it is you are really trying to get. That should give you some feedback on whether or not I'm giving correct info.
Wouldn't it also depend on how many other people you are interrogating over the same subjects? If you are questioning me and several other people about a particular thing, and I make up something on the fly to get you to stop torturing me, my made up story might not be the same as the made up stories of other people, whereas the stories of the people who tell the truth will agree. Of course, we could all have been trained to expect to be interrogated over this, and all have consistent prepared lies to give. Your counter to that would be to try to capture and interrogate lower level people or people who were less directly involved so that they are less likely to have prepared stories to give.
I can believe that torture as currently practiced is almost always ineffective, but I suspect that this may be due to them relying on psychologists to figure out how to do it rather than bringing in engineers, scientists, and mathematicians and treating it as some kind of noisy and unreliable channel problem.
They have the means and the platform. Blaming it on others when they have their own internal platforms is blatant blame-shifting and nothing more.
Are you kidding me? You expect that if the FBI can't say with absolute certainty that all 40K screens in the US are absolutely safe from terrorist attack on Christmas that they've somehow failed us?
They'd have failed us if they could state that with certainty, IMO. Because either they don't know what certainty means, or they'd have frivolously wasted such a massive amount of money securing a soft and nearly useless target. What's next? Food courts? Mall parking lots?
Society simply cannot afford to provide absolute certainty, nor would I want to live in a world where that was the goal. Imagine the surveillance effort and intrusion into your personal life that would be needed to prevent you from carrying out an attack at a time and place of your choosing that the media would call terrorism. Now multiply that by 300 million people. You'd likely need over half of the population to be trusted and in law enforcement and you still wouldn't have certainty...
You think it's too much to ask for the FBI to be able to stand up and say that this particular threat of violence, which feels like little more than chest-pounding script kiddies, is not credible?
My initial reaction was the physical threat was little more than a joke. The FBI and Homeland Security do need to be able to give proper guidance on credible and non-credible threats, and I think in this case in particular, it's a good example of something which I really would have hoped they could have explicitly labeled as non-credible.
Or to state it another way, if the accepted reaction is that we actually have to treat threats like this as credible, if attackers start spamming these threats are we just supposed to shut it all down?
What companies are looking for is a liability shield, and a public reassurance that they can use as a backstop for disregarding the threat. Otherwise they have no choice but to cave-in. So I think we depend on the FBI in specifically these cases to provide that level of assurance.
I agree with your premise though: there is no possible way for society to have absolute certainty of the validity of something so vague as the threats issued. To cave to those demands is absurd.
(full disclosure: I work for a company that owns a large number of theater screens, though not within that department. These are my personal views.)
This is an argument that frustrates me. I don't mean to directly imply that parent feels this way, but there is this idea that our government can provide true assurances of our safety. But in a free society (or any) that's just not true.
This idea isn't helped at all by the government pushing that they can, if we just hand over one more freedom, or give up one more bit of privacy.
There is nothing that can guarantee safety from violence. Nothing. The FBI, NSA, etc., when not spying on us for no reason do seem to keep us safer than we might be without a degree of diligence. Police forces do seem to, in general, care for public safety. But of course the FBI can't guarantee that tens of thousands of theaters are completely safe from violence - and to think otherwise is to be permanently afraid, and to always be looking to Big Brother to assail your fear.
Having spent time deployed, I think a lot of Americans might be conditioned to seeing immediate(ish) responses to threats via Drones, SEAL team 6, Ranger Regiment, whatever. The nature, and future, of Cyberwar is something that's fundamentally different from what we've seen broadcast on CNN over the last 13 (soon to be 14...15...) years. A response to North Korea (though I'm not truly convinced that they're the lone perpetrators) might not be something that pops up in The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer or trends on Twitter.
Further the actual damage in this case is quite minor. Some of Sony's private business dealings were made public and some employees were embarrassed, but what other harm could you possibly see? Businesses have been online for 10-15 years now and computer security has improved dramatically over that time. We're not in any new era of capability, though with the amount of hysteria over this we may be in a new one mentally.
The only real threat is in our government marching towards totalitarianism by enacting invasive laws and spying on its populace in bulk. Unwarranted fear likes yours is what enables that.
I think these attacks could be reduced by holding companies financially responsible. First, insurers shouldn't be allowed to exclude terrorist attacks in their policies. Second, forcing arbitration or excluding class-action should be unenforceable in a contract. Third, we could establish clearer standards for what constitutes negligence in IT.
edit: And this might be a good time to discuss making software engineers actual licensed professionals and forcing companies to use them.
I think it's likely that fallout cost from this breach will cost Sony hundreds of millions of dollars. It's almost an existential crisis the amount of damage this hack has done. The information disclosure was complete. The hackers took a scorched-earth policy on the way out. They got hit mind-blowingly hard. I do have sympathy with the house of pain they are in, and I don't think they need any more financial incentive than what they are already looking square in the face.
I don't think the story here is about negligence in IT. Even Google has been hacked very badly in its time. There are two kinds of companies, the ones who have been publicly hacked, and the ones that just haven't discovered it yet.
The real story here is we are seeing an escalation in cyber-warfare. This is not "hacking" in any sense. This is extortion, humiliation, and subjugation. It's very sad to watch.
uhhh terrorist attacks and terrorism are, by definition, "not very comforting" and in many ways are impossible to stop, thus the word "terror" that is used so prominently in their constructions.
I agree it's very early days. I think what I'm fixating on is that we now live in a world where the US government needs to formulate a response to a business hacking. I mean, not a civil but actual military response.
I think this is a reality that even the Top 1% of commercial networks are simply not prepared for. There won't be any lag when more crucial services come under attack.
White House homeland security and counterterrorism adviser Lisa Monaco: As the volume, frequency and intensity of cyberthreats increase, Monaco’s biggest fear is intrusive threats turning destructive. She called cyber “one of the gravest national and economic security threats we face.” [2]
[1] - http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/dec/18/white-house-...
[2] - http://www.fedtechmagazine.com/article/2014/12/white-house-w...
So I guess to touch back on the parent thread, it's not that we're not capable of responding...it's that we haven't invested the intellectual capital to formulate what an appropriate response should be.
simply threatening torture
The issue with the CIA torture scandal is that you have a bunch of guys who may or may not know anything. These guys are interrogated, and, probably, disclose everything they know. Then, the higher ups at the CIA, acting on the authority of Cheney[1] and Bush[2] required that the guys being held—who may or may not know anything more or at all—be tortured to extract more information.
At this point, the guys being held who may or may not know anything are going to start telling their 'enhanced' interrogators anything they can in order to stop what's happening to them. It doesn't matter if it's real or fake.
[1] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/sep/09/dick-cheney-def... (and it's important to note that the Senate report on this subject revealed that torture had nothing to do with the discovery of bin Laden's location.)
[2] http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-bush-knew-about-cia-tortu...
The Senate report has a revealing passage saying that
the statement of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed ("KSM")
"during his first day in CIA custody included an
accurate description of a Pakistani/British operative,
which was dismissed as having been provided during the
initial 'throwaway stage' of information collection
when the CIA believed detainees provided false or
worthless information". KSM was later water-boarded
(simulated drowning) 183 times, leading him to make
frequent confessions that later turned out to be false.
Another section of the report says that "KSM fabrications
led the CIA to capture and detain suspected terrorists
who were later found to be innocent".
One could imagine a situation where, like this one, we DO know the person has the information. Add to that the 'ticking time-bomb' context and it's difficult to argue against torture.
Just to be clear, I think torture is horrendous and should be outlawed. But to say it should never be used is to fail to grapple more broadly with the complexities of collateral damage.
Not to mention, the use of the ticking-time bomb scenarios were used to justify use of torture by the CIA. Which entity determines if a suspect has usable information, to stave off 'improper' use of torture? If you can't trust the CIA to make a definitive call in that regards, why even consider torture as an option in any form?
The thing isn't that threatening torture occasionally works, it is that it generates false information just as readily. It is extremely unreliable and in the process it also turns you into something despicable. Nietzsche had it right when he said: Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
In the case of Abu Zubaydah, in his first 2 months of capture he provided more information than at any other time. The "enhanced" torture techniques didn't start until about his 3rd month of detention.
In both cases, the threat of torture, among other future conditions that don't fall under the "enhanced" umbrella (simple solitary confinement, life in prison, unable to see family, etc) were enough to extract valuable information. Subjecting them to humiliating and physically brutal conditions did nothing. tl;dr: threatening torture can motivate people to divulge information, but performing it does nothing further.
@logn mentioned rallying around this like we did Apollo. It's a grand idea, but I can't say I have any hope that will be the chosen approach.
OT, but have you read what's going on in Russian this last week? It's unbelievable how hard the sanctions have hit them, and how quickly. It's a huge story which has been drowned out in all this other noise. NK is obviously not Russia, being more insular makes it harder to sanction them.
The escalation of cyber warfare, the possibility of it all being a false flag, the idea of a military response to defend, exactly as you say, life liberty and property, the idea of a necessary response if sufficiently proven to be a state-sponsored attack... the idea of the network as a battle zone with governments playing offense and defense... it all gives me shivers.
As @unclebucknasty says, the drum beat has started. This is going to take us somewhere very interesting in 2015.
Oh, it's coming. The drumbeat has started and harrowing possibilities are being offered. The media will be in full panic mode and billions of dollars in contracts will be awarded soon enough.
There's too much money to be made to resist treating it like the "War on ____".
After years of bluster and suggestions by Mr Putin that the US is a paper
tiger, the Kremlin is now coming face to face with the cataclysmic
consequences of what it has done by invading Ukraine and changing
Europe's borders by force. By the same token, Washington needs to move
with care since it would be a geostrategic miscalculation of the first
order to push a nuclear-armed Russia too far into a corner, or to
perpetuatue a cycle of grievance.