Friday, December 19, 2014

Why no one is talking about the scariest part of the Sony hack?



At some point a major Hollywood studio decides to make a silly movie depicting an assassination attempt on the dictator of the last reclusive country on earth - North Korea. (Please remember the last two words of the last sentence. They could be a clue later on).
On November 23, the studio that made the movie is hacked. For two days their employees work with no computers. On November 27, four unreleased movies from the same studio are dumped onto the internet and millions watch them.
On November 28, reports suspect North Korea because a North Korean website calls The Interview “an evil act of provocation.” Really? Could that be possible? What would provoke them? What a crazy thought?
On December 2, nine days after the breach, Sony chiefs Michael Lynton and Amy Pascal issue an alert to employees about the attack: “It is now apparent that a large amount of confidential Sony Pictures Entertainment data has been stolen by the cyber attackers". What? It took six days to figure out that the unreleased movies and others salacious details dumped onto the internet are yours?
And all this while the mighty agencies of the US government are also investigating -with no success. No one has a clue who did it. Really? Who were they trying to assassinate in the movie again? Oh, I get it. No one knows because that movie has not been released in theaters yet.
On December 7, North Korea denies involvement in the hack while praising it as a “righteous deed.” Indeed! That must have thrown all the government agencies off the scent of the real perpetrators. Exquisite diversion.
Now emails, social security numbers, medical records, more threats, passwords and much more come cascading down onto the internet. But who did this? What a mystery!
To add to this covert operation, on December 14, the script for the still to be filmed new James Bond movie is divulged by these mysterious hackers. At this point my 10 year old is asking me, "You have got to be kidding me! Mysterious hackers?"
On December 15, Sony's chief informs a stunned town hall that this is an investigation now being handled by "the highest levels of the FBI". It has now been 17 days and we still have no clue who did this.
On December 18, almost 3 weeks after the hack, the US government accuses North Korea of this cyber-attack on Sony pictures!
Why did a 10 year old figure out who did this before the FBI? That is the scariest part of this story.