Sony Gives In, The Hackers Win
3 min read
Sony Pictures has decided to pull “The Interview” from theaters after the hackers released a physical threat, referencing 9/11, which caused the theaters to pull the movie first and then let Sony pull it second. For now the movie “The Interview” is on ice as a direct result of the hack on Sony’s networks. This is the first major public instance of a company giving in to the demands of those that compromised their networks. Usually the hackers are going after information they can sell for a profit or hack to cause mischief. The Sony hack is different as the purpose was potentially political in nature and borders on cyberterrorism or even worse if the North Korean government was behind the attack as the United States says it was. Regardless of the source, the result is the victim of a hack has folded to the hackers demands. This potentially could set a very dangerous precedence in the future to other hacking groups that if the Sony hackers could do it, why couldn’t we.
Much like negotiating with terrorists is never done, following hackers demands should be in the same category. When no one does it, the odds are less will try in the future. The removal of a victims’ action removes future motivation to try again if it didn’t work the first time. Sony changes all of that. Hacks will get brasher, more intense, all information is now in play not just the data that’s profitable. This could be bad for the world in the long run.
I mentioned it on my Twitter a few days ago, before Sony pulled the movie, that if Sony wanted to shove it to the hackers they should pull the movie from theaters, take the loss, and release the movie 100% free digitally. Everywhere. Blast it out there. The hackers probably have a copy of it but didn’t release it with the other movies they stole. Sony should just do it. The cost to repair the damage over the next decade for Sony Entertainment, lost actors that will refuse to work in a Sony picture, cost to fix the IT systems will far exceed the lost revenue from the ticket sales of this movie. Torrent it up and let her go.
The last thing Sony should not try to do it make any money from this movie. That ship has sailed, it’s over. If they truly care about the filmmakers freedom of expression as they claimed in their press release –
“We are deeply saddened at this brazen effort to suppress the distribution of a movie, and in the process do damage to our company, our employees, and the American public,” Sony said in a statement. “We stand by our filmmakers and their right to free expression and are extremely disappointed by this outcome.”
But Sony goes on to say they have no plans to release the movie on Video on Demand or DVD. They need to. At the very least they need to ‘accidentally’ release screener copies to a few torrent sites and get it out that way. Either way “The Interview” needs to get out there and jam it to North Korea. The trailer below is slightly NSFW… depending on where you work.
End of line.
Binary Blogger has spent 20 years in the Information Security space currently providing security solutions and evangelism to clients. From early web application programming, system administration, senior management to enterprise consulting I provide practical security analysis and solutions to help companies and individuals figure out HOW to be secure every day.
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