Hack

It's difficult to take a story seriously when it sounds like the plot to a poorly-considered movie that still somehow managed to get green-lit because a huge star thought the script hilarious. It's more difficult still when such a movie is proposed as the actual starting point for the events. When the ultimate goal is a serious posting about the state of the world and how it is headed toward a dangerous and deadly series of conflicts, such a doubly-ludicrous starting point can make it even more difficult to manage a coherent proposal.

Nonetheless, that's where we are with the Thanksgiving hack of Sony Pictures. Rumors are circulating that North Korea was involved, because Sony is preparing to release a movie about news "personalities" who are first granted a chance to interview the leader of North Korea, and then tasked by the CIA to assassinate him. Whatever his failings as a leader or his country's failings as a fun place to live, basing a wacky comedy on an assassination is reasonably considered in bad taste. Malaysia had a similar issue with Zoolander, as did Roger Ebert.

Unlike Malaysia, North Korea has evidently decided to fight back with more than words. Several stories on the breach of Sony's computer systems - compromising everything from individual's computers to Twitter accounts to files containing completed digital copies of upcoming films - propose some combination of
1) Several U.S. agencies believe that North Korea was involved;
2) Multiple sources claim that The Interview is the reason that North Korea instigated the attack;
3) North Korea is not denying that they were behind it.

Another surprise is that such a sophisticated and successful attack was done by a nation that is not known for its prosperity. Still, it indicates that the data wars really could be asymmetrical, with economic robustness not being a requirement for success.