SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The Guardian is reporting that the US government seems convinced of North Korean involvement in the recent Sony hacks, and has today imposed further sanctions against the country.
Despite some continued claims from outside the US government that the hack may have been the work of disgruntled employees instead, the White House on Friday followed through on its threat to seek revenge, blaming the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea for “provocative, destabilizing, and repressive actions and policies, particularly its destructive and coercive cyber attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment”.
Scott Borg writing for CNBC has some alternative theories:
North Korea regularly carries out cyber attacks, but these attacks have always been relatively crude. Groups that monitor North Korea's cyber activities have never seen any sign that North Korea is currently a serious cyber threat or on the verge of becoming one.
The cyber attacks carried out against Sony required a much higher level of skill than North Korea could manage as recently as last spring.
[...] Here are some of the possibilities:
1) A criminal enterprise, perhaps ethnically Russian, that wants to confuse anyone investigating its extortion attempt by dragging in North Korea.
2) A group of criminal cyber attackers, perhaps South Korean, who have been mistaken for North Korea, because they simply used some of the same generally available attack tools and servers that North Korea would have used.
3) Ideologically-motivated hackers in Western countries who hate Sony and feel a common cause with anyone else who is Sony's enemy, including North Korea.
4) Former employees who want to hurt Sony and who figured they could add to Sony's woes by stirring up a conflict between Sony and a foreign government, such as North Korea.
5) Any group that wants the United States to take a harder line with North Korea, including many South Koreans, Japanese, and others in East and Southeast Asia.
Borg concludes the article:
The list of possibilities grows larger, the more you think about it. Even more possibilities emerge when you consider that different groups could have cooperated in the attacks, and that the same attackers might have had more than one motive.
Does this make the proposals in the media for making North Korea pay for these attacks sound more than a little naïve? Welcome to the world of cyber conflict! We all better get used to it, because this is what faces us in the year ahead.
(Score: 2) by bziman on Saturday January 03 2015, @03:05AM
It boggles the mind that our politicians spend so much time and effort bullying countries like North Korea and Cuba. They pose zero threat to us - even less of a threat than the countries in the Middle East - who are only a threat because they have at least a minimal capability of resisting America's bullying. Even if North Korea is responsible for the hacking, who cares? If you want to impose sanctions, how about imposing them on companies that can't be bothered to implement basic network security? Of course, unlike North Korea, the big companies can afford to buy representation in America's ruling conglomerate. I'm embarrassed on behalf of my country.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 03 2015, @04:09AM
In order to look tough we have to pick on everyone we don't like. If you're not hawkish then your helping the terrorists win. How many more American children must die for you to be happy? Rhetoric: because fear breeds votes.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday January 03 2015, @07:30AM
The terrists scare won't last long enough, there is a need of something new the US populace needs to be scared or indignant of.
And China's too big for the purpose.
Nope, I disagree.
You see... it's no longer big.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by RedGreen on Saturday January 03 2015, @03:50PM
While I am no big fan of US foreign policy you leave out North Korea developed a nuclear bomb from your rant and the US/other governments response to that. Cuba that policy never has made sense the Americans got their panties in a bunch on that, how dare some puny little country tell them to take their wonderful system of government interference in others affairs on behalf of their corporations looking to enslave people in foreign lands and tell them to stick it where the sun don't shine.
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 2) by bziman on Sunday January 04 2015, @02:41AM
So what? You think only your country has a right to nuclear deterrent? Gimme a break. It's like saying hornets are a threat because they can sting... sure, if you keep poking their nest! Leave them alone and they'll leave you alone. Without America's interference, I'd bet that China would have already prodded North Korea into the 21st century... but they don't, because it's too much fun watching America waste time and resources on them.
(Score: 2) by emg on Saturday January 03 2015, @08:19PM
Bullies only bully people who pose no threat to them, silly. Why would they bully someone who does?
All this really does is make the US government look even dumber to the rest of the world, where most people figured out long ago that North Korea had nothing to do with it.