Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with iHeart Radio and
Speaker 1: I love all things tech. This time for a tech
Speaker 1: Stuff classic episode. This episode originally published on January two
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen. It is titled the Sony Pictures Entertainment Hack,
Speaker 1: which I have talked about more recently in a few podcasts.
Speaker 1: Because the repercussions of that of that attack extended far
Speaker 1: beyond just Sony Pictures ended up having a big impact
Speaker 1: on multiple streams of media, and uh, I thought it
Speaker 1: would be interesting to go back now. We keep in
Speaker 1: mind this episode aired a couple of months after the
Speaker 1: hack actually happened, so we had limited information. But when
Speaker 1: we come back at the end, I'll talk a little
Speaker 1: bit more about some other stuff we know. But first
Speaker 1: let's sit back and listen to this classic episode. Ben
Speaker 1: also had me on his show Stuff They Don't Want
Speaker 1: You To Know, to talk about today's topic, the Sony Hack,
Speaker 1: And at the time when we were recording, it was
Speaker 1: still in December and the story was still unfolding. In fact,
Speaker 1: you could say that's still unfolding now, although the news
Speaker 1: has certainly slowed down significantly since the end of December,
Speaker 1: but we ended up talking about the story as far
Speaker 1: as we could at that point and even made some
Speaker 1: predictions of our own, some some theories of our own. So, uh,
Speaker 1: in order to return the favor, Ben's joined me for
Speaker 1: this episode so that we can revisit that topic, talk
Speaker 1: about the Sony hack, maybe talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: some of the information that came out after we had
Speaker 1: already recorded the episode, and uh, just kind of explain
Speaker 1: what happened and how it's different from some of the
Speaker 1: other big stories we've heard, Like you know, all the
Speaker 1: stories about the Sony PlayStation network and the Xbox Live
Speaker 1: network getting brought down, those were done through direct denial
Speaker 1: of service attacks or distributed denial of service attacks, I
Speaker 1: should say. So they were distributed denial of service attacks,
Speaker 1: which is really a brute force way of shutting up
Speaker 1: a server, completely different in comparison to the original Sony hacks,
Speaker 1: wherein the various films were downloaded. But before we go
Speaker 1: inting further, I just have to say I really appreciate
Speaker 1: what you're saying here, Jonathan. I'm blushing. Thank God, I
Speaker 1: grew this beard out so you can see it and
Speaker 1: thank God as an audio podcast. But this is not
Speaker 1: entirely all truism on my part. I come here also
Speaker 1: as a representative of my co host Matt Frederick. Um.
Speaker 1: We had such a great time doing this two part
Speaker 1: episode on Sony for Stuff they Want, you know, and
Speaker 1: we we actually went back and listened to it because
Speaker 1: we liked some of the jokes that the three of
Speaker 1: us were doing. But we really wanted another crack at
Speaker 1: this just because other information is emerged and listeners out there,
Speaker 1: if you do check out Jonathan's earlier appearance on spoiler Alerts,
Speaker 1: some of those predictions that you and I made are
Speaker 1: not that far off. Yeah yeah, And in fact that
Speaker 1: again we don't We still don't have all the details.
Speaker 1: We still have some conflicting information out there, stuff that
Speaker 1: conflicts with the theories we have. It still hasn't changed
Speaker 1: my theories yet, but I do acknowledge the fact that
Speaker 1: I the thing that I believe may not be true,
Speaker 1: and in fact is being said to be untrue by
Speaker 1: certain entities that go by three letter initialisms like the FBI.
Speaker 1: Uh So let's start at the beginning. A very good
Speaker 1: place to start. On November that was the day that
Speaker 1: the Sony hack was revealed, and I say revealed because
Speaker 1: the extent of this hack, the incredible amount of information
Speaker 1: that was stolen as part of this hack was so
Speaker 1: huge as to require months of time. I mean, you're
Speaker 1: talking about the initial story we got and was that
Speaker 1: the the hackers responsible claim to have stolen one terabytes
Speaker 1: of data. A terabyte of data is a huge amount, right,
Speaker 1: And if you're thinking of a hacker that's accessing a
Speaker 1: system remotely, so we're assuming that this person did not
Speaker 1: dress themselves up as a Sony employee infiltrate the company.
Speaker 1: If you're talking about remotely accessing this and siphoning off
Speaker 1: that data. Guys, you know, if you've ever downloaded a
Speaker 1: big file, you know it takes time. Even if you
Speaker 1: have a fast internet connection, it could take a while.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're trying to download let's say a
Speaker 1: really big computer game that's maybe thirty or forty gigabytes,
Speaker 1: that takes time. Terabytes are enormous, A hundred terabytes is huge.
Speaker 1: Would take months to download that much information, and only
Speaker 1: if the faucet is always on. Yeah, you and also
Speaker 1: to be able to do it without raising anyone's attention, right,
Speaker 1: because people would see the activity over the connection. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you would think at least someone would figure out something
Speaker 1: in that time. So all of this is to say
Speaker 1: that it's the While November twenty was when we became
Speaker 1: aware of it, the actual activity had to have been
Speaker 1: happening for at least a few months, if not longer. Right,
Speaker 1: So what what exactly happens? I love this description because
Speaker 1: it's so cinematic. Yeah, so imagine you are an employee
Speaker 1: of Sony Pictures Entertainment, because we always say the Sony hack,
Speaker 1: but we're specifically referring to Sony Pictures, so the movie
Speaker 1: industry arm of Sony. So you're an employee of Sony
Speaker 1: Pictures Entertainment. You go into work on November. It's the
Speaker 1: week of Thanksgiving. You're looking forward to having dinner with
Speaker 1: your family, having a few days off. You come in,
Speaker 1: you turn on your computer to get your little work,
Speaker 1: you work done, type of, type of, type of, and
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, like it was a nineteen
Speaker 1: eighties computer thriller, a skull stylized skull pops up on
Speaker 1: your screen, and this feels like it it feels like
Speaker 1: a stupid movie already. Like you think about those movies
Speaker 1: like The Net, you know, any movie where Hollywood is
Speaker 1: trying to get across the idea of what hacking is like,
Speaker 1: and they they visualize it where it's not someone saying
Speaker 1: that a computer typing in code. No, it's creeping through
Speaker 1: a dungeon. And then you see a skull and crossbones.
Speaker 1: That's a firewall. That's what this was in real life.
Speaker 1: The skulls pop up on everyone's screen and it has
Speaker 1: a phrase that essentially says, this is just the beginning.
Speaker 1: We've obtained all your internal data, and it went on
Speaker 1: to warn that if the company did not quote obey
Speaker 1: the hackers demands end quote, that the internal information would
Speaker 1: be shared with the world. And this had this included
Speaker 1: every thing from well, they didn't even know what it
Speaker 1: included yet, right, so they didn't have any idea of
Speaker 1: the extent of that personal information that I that that
Speaker 1: sensitive info. As it turns out, it was incredibly sensitive information.
Speaker 1: And those demands we're going to get back to because
Speaker 1: the demands are one of the keys I think to
Speaker 1: this mystery, which is still sort is okay. So the way,
Speaker 1: the way it works out, the news spreads quickly. Eleven
Speaker 1: am same day November, it hits the media, right, that's right,
Speaker 1: and so this is where, uh, different media outlets start
Speaker 1: to cover the story. Uh, the employees of Sony Pictures
Speaker 1: have no access to their computers. Also, their email servers
Speaker 1: are completely down, and even their phone systems because they
Speaker 1: were using networked phones, which is you know, we we've
Speaker 1: had network phones in this office in the past, so
Speaker 1: it's one of those things that if your internet goes down,
Speaker 1: suddenly you don't have phone service either, and that's kind
Speaker 1: of creepsy out a little bit. So they literally couldn't
Speaker 1: do any work. They couldn't access any of their files,
Speaker 1: any of those important documents, contracts, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: All of that was inaccessible. And uh, meanwhile, as the
Speaker 1: story would go on that I'm gonna skip ahead a
Speaker 1: little bit, but we're gonna go through a timeline that'll
Speaker 1: lit'll detail this stuff as we go through. But eventually
Speaker 1: the hackers refer to themselves as Guardians of Peace or
Speaker 1: go OP. Yeah, also amuses me because to think when
Speaker 1: we're talking about the GOP and this, since it's not
Speaker 1: the Grand Old Party, the Guardians of peace. Um, this
Speaker 1: is when they claim to have stolen one hundred terabytes
Speaker 1: of data. Ten terabytes is enough for all the information
Speaker 1: in the Library of Congress. So they stole ten libraries
Speaker 1: of Congress. Yes, they stole the Library of Congress ten
Speaker 1: times now right. Yeah, I used to use um. I
Speaker 1: used to use uh conquistadors as an element as a
Speaker 1: unit of measurement for everything. But now I'm I'm willing
Speaker 1: to go and swim to the Library of Congress at
Speaker 1: least when it comes to data. So yeah, this and
Speaker 1: and of course some of that information was in the
Speaker 1: form of high resolution digital film files. We'll talk more
Speaker 1: about that in just a second. So on top of
Speaker 1: all that, this is this is another like you know,
Speaker 1: kick once you're down. You've already been knocked down because
Speaker 1: you've had your this hack stop your work. You've been
Speaker 1: told that a lot of your information has been stolen.
Speaker 1: On top of all that, they also the hackers also
Speaker 1: installed malware called Wiper And you can probably guess what
Speaker 1: this does just based on the name. It starts to
Speaker 1: erase all the data on these various machines. So not
Speaker 1: only did you have all this information stolen, but now
Speaker 1: it's truly inaccessible. It's been white from your computers. I'm
Speaker 1: sure some of it was probably um. You were probably
Speaker 1: able to get back at some of it using some
Speaker 1: I T. Expertise, like deleting a file after your computer
Speaker 1: doesn't mean it's gone forever. Overwriting it does so unless
Speaker 1: wiper and it may very well do this. Unless wiper
Speaker 1: over was overwriting all the data as it was erasing it,
Speaker 1: then you could in theory at least get back some
Speaker 1: of that. But at any rate, Uh, there were even
Speaker 1: that um reports that Sony account Twitter feeds were being compromised,
Speaker 1: and so the Guardians of Peace were able to tweet
Speaker 1: out using that. We actually saw something similar to that
Speaker 1: recently here in the United States with the Central Command
Speaker 1: Twitter feed. Did you see that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The
Speaker 1: The thing is that Twitter is uh, from what I understand,
Speaker 1: much easier to compromise than something that would be a
Speaker 1: well protected corporate level system of of this magnitude. But
Speaker 1: it does tell us something really important, Jonathan, because it
Speaker 1: tells us that this would have been a multi tiered attack,
Speaker 1: even if even if or rather a multifront attacked, even
Speaker 1: if Twitter was just uh, the sprinkle on the cupcake.
Speaker 1: This still shows us that this was well thought out.
Speaker 1: It was established in advance, so it doesn't seem to
Speaker 1: be an impulsive thing at all. Just just going back
Speaker 1: to how much memory and how much time it would
Speaker 1: take to steal a hundred terabytes. Yeah, I mean obviously,
Speaker 1: like you wouldn't be able to do that all on
Speaker 1: a single day. So Novem was essentially the day that
Speaker 1: the hackers decided, Okay, now we let them know what
Speaker 1: we have done. Like, we've already done it. It's it's
Speaker 1: that parts. So we're we're already scott away, scott free,
Speaker 1: you know. Now we're just gonna set the the we're
Speaker 1: gonna make the world burn, and we're gonna walk away
Speaker 1: in slow motion. But Sony still has no idea what's
Speaker 1: going on? For like a week? Right? Yeah? Well, I
Speaker 1: mean again, it happened during Thanksgiving weeks, so this was
Speaker 1: a time when a lot of people were planning on
Speaker 1: being on vacation and suddenly, now you've got this amazing
Speaker 1: crisis to deal with. Uh. And it would take more
Speaker 1: than a week for for executives to start even getting
Speaker 1: a hint at how bad this attack was. So on
Speaker 1: December one, that's when executives became aware that the stolen
Speaker 1: data included personal information about employees and their dependents, such
Speaker 1: as Social Security numbers and financial information, as well as
Speaker 1: health information like one of the leaks of documents gave
Speaker 1: details to employees who had sought treatment for things like
Speaker 1: cirrhosis or cancer or there or had dependents who had
Speaker 1: to seek treatments for such things. And so, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's a huge breach. Are we talking? Uh? In terms
Speaker 1: of for sent injured numbers? How many employees? About fifty
Speaker 1: thousand social Security numbers were stolen? Actually around forty seven thousand.
Speaker 1: I rounded up round, I rounded up for forty seven
Speaker 1: thousand and fifty. But yeah, more than forty seven thousand
Speaker 1: social Security numbers were stolen. Now, these were both current
Speaker 1: and former Sony employees, because it was just it was
Speaker 1: databasis full of information of the aious employees who had
Speaker 1: either worked there in the past or were currently working.
Speaker 1: Not to downplay the gravity of this, because it is
Speaker 1: very dangerous and it's an absolute nutter violation and privacy.
Speaker 1: But not only is that not the end of what
Speaker 1: they stole, but they stole so much that if you're okay,
Speaker 1: I'd like to infomercial this and maybe chime in with
Speaker 1: some But wait, there's more. Yeah. In fact, that is
Speaker 1: well warranted, right because the first one the one that's
Speaker 1: probably the easiest for people to latch onto, because it's
Speaker 1: a simple it's a simple story the idea of stolen
Speaker 1: intellectual property, in this case, stolen movies. Right, So the
Speaker 1: theft included five movies that were scheduled for Sony release,
Speaker 1: one which had already been released, which was a fury
Speaker 1: that one had already come out. But then there was
Speaker 1: also Annie Mr Turner, Still Alice and to Write Love
Speaker 1: on Her Arms. Those had all been stolen as well.
Speaker 1: Uh okay, yeah, so so those are the easy ones
Speaker 1: for people to latch onto. But then there was all
Speaker 1: the internal communications, right, this is where you had information
Speaker 1: about salary for top executives, like the top seventeen executives,
Speaker 1: not to mention I think six thousand other Sony employees.
Speaker 1: Their information got leaked as well. Uh. There was also
Speaker 1: internal documents that that were the records of people having
Speaker 1: complaints about Sony. Yeah, and there were there were some
Speaker 1: fairly undiplomatic internal communications regarding regarding coworkers or talent yeah,
Speaker 1: or the President of the United States. There were Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: there's we'll we'll touch on that again in a moment.
Speaker 1: But out of all these, you probably heard the most
Speaker 1: about Adam Sandler. He got he got raped over the
Speaker 1: coals quite a it in the internal communications. A lot
Speaker 1: of in place that they just didn't like the direction
Speaker 1: that the movie studio was going in, and they wanted
Speaker 1: to see if you were Adam Sandler comedies, which is
Speaker 1: I guess okay, because Netflix picked him up so for
Speaker 1: four films. Yeah, so Sony might be free of him,
Speaker 1: we're not. Uh, And that's not the only stuff that
Speaker 1: got leaked. Still, no, no, there's still more, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's tons of information that got taken from this. Uh,
Speaker 1: personal information about talent was leaked. Stuff like passports and visas,
Speaker 1: like copies of this stuff that people needed to do. Uh.
Speaker 1: There were so much things that so many things that
Speaker 1: were stolen as a result of this. And uh, we're
Speaker 1: going to go through the rest of the timeline to
Speaker 1: kind of give you an idea of how this all
Speaker 1: unfolded and what extent we began to learn more and
Speaker 1: more about the damages. Uh. Meanwhile, one other thing to
Speaker 1: mention is that Sony employees have many of them have
Speaker 1: filed lawsuits against the company for not protecting their personal
Speaker 1: information well enough to prevent this from happening. So there
Speaker 1: are several class action lawsuits have been leveled against the
Speaker 1: company as a result of this. Because people's lives have
Speaker 1: been really impacted. We're not just talking about you know,
Speaker 1: celebrities here. I mean that their lives have been impacted too,
Speaker 1: and it's not I personally don't think that that means
Speaker 1: that celebrities should be expected to deal with more crap
Speaker 1: than the rest of us. I mean, sometimes that happens
Speaker 1: because it's just one of those things that goes along
Speaker 1: with all the fame and everything else. But regular employees,
Speaker 1: people just normal folks like me and you who go
Speaker 1: in to do their job every day and it may
Speaker 1: not be glamorous, but it's it's an important part of
Speaker 1: the function of the company. They were impacted too, just
Speaker 1: regular folks, and they will tend not to have the
Speaker 1: uh financial wherewithal or the social safety net to help
Speaker 1: protect themselves in the aftermath of such an event, right right,
Speaker 1: They don't have the benefit of that safety net like
Speaker 1: people who might have a lawyer on retainer or enormous
Speaker 1: sums of money to lay in when you go to
Speaker 1: sleep at night. You know, I have a have a
Speaker 1: very particular fantasy in my head of what Hollywood celebrities like,
Speaker 1: how they live. It's mostly Scrooge McDuck oriented. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: did you see that? This is totally unrelated? But did
Speaker 1: you did you ever see the study of what what
Speaker 1: would happen if you tried to swim through a vault
Speaker 1: full of gold? I imagine that you would not feel
Speaker 1: very good. Yeah, it will. It will break you in
Speaker 1: numerous ways. So maybe it's good that you were talking
Speaker 1: about sleeping on paper money probably better for your back.
Speaker 1: And speaking of back, you wanna let's see where where
Speaker 1: should we go next? Let's look at November twenty eight,
Speaker 1: because we've been talking a lot about this hack. The
Speaker 1: The initial messages from the hackers didn't identify any particular
Speaker 1: motivation for the attack. They it was more of almost
Speaker 1: like an extortion thing, like do what we tell you,
Speaker 1: or you're gonna get it. You know. It was like
Speaker 1: and it essentially sounded like pay us off or we
Speaker 1: will ruin you. Now. They didn't name a specific amount
Speaker 1: of money at that initial point, they just said, do
Speaker 1: what we say, yea, So they The reason why this
Speaker 1: is important is because a lot of the discussion that
Speaker 1: has followed has centered around a very specific topic that
Speaker 1: we're about to touch on. But that all came after
Speaker 1: the fact, which makes me a little cautious in actually
Speaker 1: saying that that was the reason for the whole thing,
Speaker 1: the whole time. So November twenty eight, this is four
Speaker 1: days after the initial attack was discovered. That's the first
Speaker 1: time anyone floats the possibility that the attack was in
Speaker 1: response to Sony's plans to release the film the interview,
Speaker 1: which I have we both seen it at this point.
Speaker 1: I have not seen it. Did you watch it? I
Speaker 1: did see it. What did you think? Uh? Well, I
Speaker 1: will I will say that uh I enjoy uh Seth
Speaker 1: Rogan and James Franco a bit more than you, which
Speaker 1: is which is something we've talked about before. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: it's not hard to enjoy Seth Rogan and James Franco
Speaker 1: more than you do. No offense, I have a very
Speaker 1: low you own it. You own it though, and I
Speaker 1: respect that. Um, you know, I'll be I'll be candid here.
Speaker 1: It was not my favorite film. Because I think that
Speaker 1: while I I enjoy a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: what might be termed lowbrow comedy, I'm not above it.
Speaker 1: You know. One thing that I noticed sometimes is that
Speaker 1: it is very convenient to conflate satire and racism, and
Speaker 1: I think there's UH to me. There were moments in
Speaker 1: the film that I that I thought were sist and
Speaker 1: I and also was talking with my girlfriend about this
Speaker 1: and said, okay, well check me here, like my am
Speaker 1: I being two PC and I am I getting my
Speaker 1: jim socks all bunched up over something unnecessarily And she
Speaker 1: came in and watched part of it and she said, no,
Speaker 1: I think that's pretty very racist. Yeah. Now, there is
Speaker 1: definitely a difference between using satire in order to point
Speaker 1: out things that you see as being important or unequal
Speaker 1: or whatever. It's something that you are actually commenting on
Speaker 1: and bringing attention to and starting a discussion over, and
Speaker 1: then there's a totally different type where you're just making
Speaker 1: fun of something or or you know, especially in hurtful ways. Well,
Speaker 1: here's a here's a question I have for you. I
Speaker 1: don't want to derailist, but the question would be then uh,
Speaker 1: in comparison to let's say the south Park film also
Speaker 1: a work of satire in any ways, uh so, what
Speaker 1: makes these two different? You know? Is it because the
Speaker 1: south Park film is animated? I think part of it
Speaker 1: is that south Park is really about pointing out the
Speaker 1: the the absolute ridiculousness of things like racism. I mean,
Speaker 1: south Park used the movie used Canadians as the the
Speaker 1: great big enemy, you know, that's what all the people
Speaker 1: they blame Canada. There's a whole song about it. It's yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a good song. It actually was nominated for an
Speaker 1: Academy Award. But at any rate, the you know, that
Speaker 1: was really to kind of poke fun saying like this
Speaker 1: is literally there's no difference between people like you know,
Speaker 1: you look at Canadians and Americans. There's no difference there,
Speaker 1: just as there's no difference with any people of any
Speaker 1: two nations. And therefore the concept of racism itself is
Speaker 1: utterly ridiculous. I see what you're saying. There's there's a
Speaker 1: method to the prat falls, as you would say. But
Speaker 1: the I don't know if anyone's ever said that before.
Speaker 1: But the thing about the interview, despite that, I think
Speaker 1: it was enjoyable. I definitely laughed out loud a couple
Speaker 1: of times. But I believe it's received much much more,
Speaker 1: much more international attention than ever would have had it
Speaker 1: not been associated with this. And also, you know, for
Speaker 1: people who aren't familiar with it, Uh, the the entire
Speaker 1: film is about people traveling to assassinate Kim Jong un,
Speaker 1: the current leader of North Korea. Right. The whole idea
Speaker 1: about a host of a celebrity talk show type program
Speaker 1: and his producer heading over to North Korea because it
Speaker 1: turns out Kim Jong un is a big fan of
Speaker 1: the program, and then being told by is that the CIA, Yeah, yea,
Speaker 1: the CIA to take this opportunity to assassinate Kim Jong un,
Speaker 1: and uh and of course, uh spoiler alert, the leader
Speaker 1: is killed in the film. Uh. So this was November
Speaker 1: twenty was the first time anyone had even mentioned this
Speaker 1: as a possibility of a motivator, and they said, yeah,
Speaker 1: there was. This was not from the attackers at all.
Speaker 1: This was all just kind of a I wonder if
Speaker 1: this thing that's coming out later this month had anything
Speaker 1: to do with our actually next month, because this was
Speaker 1: still in November. Um so, yeah, we didn't really have
Speaker 1: any evidence here. And now there was a North Korean
Speaker 1: website that had referred to the interview as quote an
Speaker 1: evil act of provocation end quote. So you could say, well,
Speaker 1: they said that it was an evil act of provocation.
Speaker 1: We were they were provoked, so maybe this was the
Speaker 1: act they were provoked into doing. But you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, like I said, the the attack itself must
Speaker 1: have gone on for months, and it was only in
Speaker 1: those last few months that the interview was even getting
Speaker 1: the promotion of here's a movie that's coming out soon,
Speaker 1: and here's what it's all about. So that would have
Speaker 1: meant that North Korea was just paying attention to this
Speaker 1: film for longer than the American public was, and that
Speaker 1: that the attack began months in advance, in anticipation for
Speaker 1: this December release. All that being said, December one, that's
Speaker 1: when the top seventeen Sony executive salaries were leaked. Uh,
Speaker 1: the information had already been stolen, but the information that
Speaker 1: had then been leaked publicly. A lot of these leaks
Speaker 1: happened on an app that allows for anonymous text dumps,
Speaker 1: so you can just put things up on that app
Speaker 1: and not leave a trace of who you are. And
Speaker 1: that's how a lot of this information got distributed. Also,
Speaker 1: including that same file were the salaries of more than
Speaker 1: six thousand Sony employees. One of the big things that
Speaker 1: came out about this was a disparity in pay depending
Speaker 1: upon gender and race. And so this also makes me
Speaker 1: think the nature of the leak. The first stuff that's
Speaker 1: leaked here, here's bread crumb, bread crumb later on, the
Speaker 1: nature of the stuff that was leaked first was incredibly
Speaker 1: harmful to Sony the company uh in an industry perspective,
Speaker 1: but had nothing to do with any sort of like
Speaker 1: it didn't have anything to do with the interview directly anyway.
Speaker 1: So that to me suggests that there's a very specific
Speaker 1: motivation behind the attack. But we'll get into that when
Speaker 1: we get towards the end. So December three was when
Speaker 1: the Adam Sandler PDF dump happened. There's a big dump
Speaker 1: of Adam Sandler information. And I'm using that word in
Speaker 1: a couple of different ways, are you There could have
Speaker 1: been a little bit of editorializing. This is also when
Speaker 1: the data including a passport information, visa information, other private
Speaker 1: information about celebrities who had worked on various Sony films, actors, actresses, directors,
Speaker 1: that kind of thing leaked. So this is where people
Speaker 1: were getting copies of Angelina Jolie's passport for example. Um
Speaker 1: they also included confidential information about film contracts and budgets,
Speaker 1: so again very industry specific stuff and very very damaging
Speaker 1: because Okay, first off, this breeds such dissension amidst the
Speaker 1: employees you know, each other's salaries, and huge morale issue.
Speaker 1: Huge and then also the idea about finding numbers and
Speaker 1: film contracts and budgets, that's a massive amount of leverage
Speaker 1: lost on Sony's part. Well, and it's you know, these
Speaker 1: are industry secrets, like if you've ever heard stories about
Speaker 1: how miraculously no movie ever released makes money, like you know,
Speaker 1: if you have, if you have the inside look on
Speaker 1: these budgets, the actual numbers, the real thing, then suddenly
Speaker 1: you know how much actual money was being spent producing
Speaker 1: it versus how much was made in revenue. And then
Speaker 1: you've got some really tough tack questions that you need
Speaker 1: to answer. So again, very much a very savvy attack.
Speaker 1: This is going to be trouble for Sony down the road. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be trolled for a while. So December four,
Speaker 1: that's when the associated press reports that cybersecurity experts found
Speaker 1: similarities in the code used in the Sony hacks of
Speaker 1: with another attack that targeted South Korean companies in two
Speaker 1: thoush And you remember the name of that attack, right, Oh,
Speaker 1: I do remember reading it. What was it? Dark Soul?
Speaker 1: Dark spelled like the capital of South Korea. Oh, that's
Speaker 1: so brilliant. Nah. I was thinking of something else too,
Speaker 1: so I didn't. I didn't even hear of it called
Speaker 1: dark Soul. That's awesome, but it's so again. This was
Speaker 1: sort of a a uh a hint that perhaps North
Speaker 1: Korea was behind it, because North Korea was was very
Speaker 1: much believed to be behind the two thousand thirteen attacks
Speaker 1: against South Korea, right yeah, so uh, but no one's
Speaker 1: come out and said anything. Yeah. December five was when
Speaker 1: messages allegedly from Guardians of Peace threatened Sony executives that
Speaker 1: they don't condemn their own company, but they're really poorly constructed.
Speaker 1: They actually don't read the same way as the initial
Speaker 1: messages did in the attack reveal back on Noyo. So
Speaker 1: one of the things we need to keep in mind
Speaker 1: is that the various communications to Sony and to others
Speaker 1: may or may not have come from the hackers. We
Speaker 1: don't necessarily know. It's kind of like when you hear
Speaker 1: about Anonymous targeting someone, you don't know what to what extent.
Speaker 1: The the overall group of Anonymous feels that way, right,
Speaker 1: because Anonymous is made up of a huge number of
Speaker 1: people with different ideologies, different motivations. Uh, sometimes a splinter
Speaker 1: group will end up targeting somebody, whereas the rest of
Speaker 1: the group either doesn't care actively saying hey, don't do that.
Speaker 1: But that's the thing is that it's impossible that, like
Speaker 1: you say, I got a message from Anonymous, and maybe
Speaker 1: technically that's true, but you're going to have people in
Speaker 1: Anonymous saying, hey, whoa dude, I'm totally not That was
Speaker 1: not us, right, that was not us, That was up sec. No,
Speaker 1: that wasn't us, that was lull set. People create factions
Speaker 1: within Anonymous that are oriented towards a specific project of
Speaker 1: some sort. And I think we even mentioned it, or
Speaker 1: I think I might have brought it up in our
Speaker 1: Sony Heck episodes for stuff they don't want you to
Speaker 1: know that. This reminds me a lot of the Jack
Speaker 1: the Ripper letters, because when Jack the Ripper was active
Speaker 1: there were letters written to the police, the London police
Speaker 1: that was there were essentially taunting the police, and a
Speaker 1: lot of ripperologists experts in the field believe that many
Speaker 1: of those, if not all of them, are fakes. They
Speaker 1: weren't written by the killer, and it could be that
Speaker 1: some of the messages that are attributed to Guardians the
Speaker 1: piece we're not written at all by anyone remotely involved.
Speaker 1: We don't know, right, because there's a way to verify.
Speaker 1: We'll be back with more about the Sony Pictures Entertainment
Speaker 1: hack after these messages now. On December seven, North Korea
Speaker 1: officially says they had nothing to do with this attack.
Speaker 1: On December eight, another alleged Guardians of Peace message demands
Speaker 1: that Sony stop immediately showing the movie of terrorism, which
Speaker 1: can break regional peace and caused the war. Um they
Speaker 1: don't specifically name the interview, although I guess, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know what other film. I don't think they
Speaker 1: were talking about Annie, so if they did, it was
Speaker 1: The Hard Knock Life for us. But uh no, I
Speaker 1: think they met the interview, but it wasn't specifically named,
Speaker 1: right and uh These events continue though, because the hackers
Speaker 1: now after a little bit of silence, are communicating semi
Speaker 1: regularly or at least leaking information there, there's someone is
Speaker 1: communicating semi regularly. Whether it's the actual hackers or not,
Speaker 1: we don't really know. Um. Also, it was kind of
Speaker 1: interesting that, uh that you know, we had that that
Speaker 1: previous message supposedly from the Guardians of Peace saying, you know,
Speaker 1: condemn your own company, which is a very odd request.
Speaker 1: It's that's another breadcrumb force, I think, Yeah, to say, like,
Speaker 1: please sign a paper that says your company stinks. That's
Speaker 1: essentially what they were saying. And it just seems seems
Speaker 1: a little odd. It seems a bit childish and personal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a little weird, alright. So Decemmer night through eleventh
Speaker 1: now we get a little bit more activity with more
Speaker 1: leaked material. The hackers release emails that reveal some pretty
Speaker 1: ugly conversations about various actors, directors, and even the President
Speaker 1: of the United States, including some remarks that you could
Speaker 1: at least say are racially insensitive, if not out right racist.
Speaker 1: Uh and Son executive Scott Ruden actually with an issue
Speaker 1: an apology on the on December eleven for the messages
Speaker 1: that he claims were written in just with no offense intended,
Speaker 1: and um, yeah saying that was just a joke. I
Speaker 1: didn't mean any offense. It really meant like I didn't
Speaker 1: expect any one of that race to ever read this
Speaker 1: email that I wrote. That's what it comes across to me.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry I got caught. Yeah, I love I love
Speaker 1: the I'm sorry. I'm sorry if I offended you. Not
Speaker 1: I'm sorry I offended you not. I'm sorry I said
Speaker 1: that thing, but I'm sorry that you felt this way
Speaker 1: in response to something I said. Well, I'm sorry that
Speaker 1: you're upset. Yeah, exactly. I'm like, well, you can just
Speaker 1: keep your apologies then, Mr. Now, this isn't This is
Speaker 1: an interesting thing that comes next, because this is something
Speaker 1: I did not know about until you told me. Yeah. So, December,
Speaker 1: Aaron Sorkin publishes an open editorial column in The New
Speaker 1: York Times. Now, Sorkin had had some of his emails
Speaker 1: revealed in a process of this, some of which ended
Speaker 1: up having Sorkin being a little uh uncharitable towards certain
Speaker 1: Hollywood personalities. Yeah, like saying that certain actors are not
Speaker 1: a draw and therefore there's no reason to ever have
Speaker 1: them in one of his movies, that kind of thing. Anyway,
Speaker 1: in the open editorial, he did not say that, because
Speaker 1: how would be crazy. Uh. Instead, he actually said that
Speaker 1: journalists were being just as uh, just as destructive as
Speaker 1: the hackers were by sharing this confidential information, that they
Speaker 1: were essentially enabling the hackers in their attack to cause
Speaker 1: damage to the company by taking that same info. He says,
Speaker 1: you know, I imagine that the hackers are sorting through
Speaker 1: that mountain of information they stole looking for the most
Speaker 1: harmful pieces of information. Meanwhile, the journalists are next door
Speaker 1: doing the exact same thing with all the stuff that's
Speaker 1: been leaked. And he drew a differentiation, however, between the two. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean he was saying that the hackers are at
Speaker 1: least doing it out of the sense of ideology, but
Speaker 1: the journalists are just doing it to make a make
Speaker 1: a nickel is essentially what I said. He actually did
Speaker 1: say make a nickel. Uh, no word if he was
Speaker 1: walking and talking as he wrote this. Um, that's the
Speaker 1: only way I imagined, Sorkin. We can only assume. But anyway,
Speaker 1: so it's an interesting point, and honestly, one of the
Speaker 1: things that's really important to me reporting on this stuff
Speaker 1: is that we're reporting on the incidents, but we're not
Speaker 1: sharing any of that information that was leaked. I haven't
Speaker 1: sought it out, I haven't downloaded in of it. I'm
Speaker 1: not interested in the contents. Uh Like, I'm not interested
Speaker 1: in the specifics. I'm interested in the impact. I agree
Speaker 1: with you partially, I'm ultimately interested in the big mystery
Speaker 1: and in the final answer, the stuff about people's salaries,
Speaker 1: people's medical records, things like that. As strange as it
Speaker 1: is to say, it comes down to an issue of
Speaker 1: you know, your personal opinion of what is what is
Speaker 1: right and wrong to look at because a lot of
Speaker 1: people nowadays, with the cost of information and communication being
Speaker 1: so low, there are a lot of people who will
Speaker 1: simply hoard information to collect it. You know, um I
Speaker 1: because I would not really want anybody reading my medical records.
Speaker 1: Not that I'm like secretly awarewolf or something. No, I'm
Speaker 1: pretty open about it. Where you're like henther part on
Speaker 1: your sleeve when you when you're able to wear sleeves,
Speaker 1: when I'm able to wear sleeves indeed. But but the
Speaker 1: point is that, uh, you know, I think both you
Speaker 1: and I kind of go on a golden rule basis
Speaker 1: for this stuff. I'm very much a proponent of compassion
Speaker 1: and understanding as much as possible in general, not just
Speaker 1: in this case. But yeah, I mean, I think it's
Speaker 1: newsworthy that it happened. I think taking that information and
Speaker 1: actually disseminating what was inside it apart from a generalization
Speaker 1: like you could say it was sal or information without
Speaker 1: going into the details of what that salary information was. Right,
Speaker 1: So Sorkin was specifically pointing out the journalists who are
Speaker 1: sharing this information and essentially doing what the hackers wanted
Speaker 1: them to do in the first place, essentially making the
Speaker 1: hackers threats work. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, now you guys
Speaker 1: are carrying out the second part of that plan essentially. Um.
Speaker 1: So you know, on the other hand, there are some
Speaker 1: very important issues that have been talked about, like the
Speaker 1: pay disparity that clearly should be addressed. Uh. And so
Speaker 1: it's hard to just be completely like hands off on
Speaker 1: this because there are some things that have come out
Speaker 1: of this that, you know, you want to say, like,
Speaker 1: all right, some of you, some of you may be
Speaker 1: terrible people, and some of your policies may be very
Speaker 1: terrible as well, and maybe we need to take a
Speaker 1: look at that. This is not the way I would
Speaker 1: have preferred us to have this conversation. Absolutely, that's a
Speaker 1: really good point. And uh, it's weird because although the
Speaker 1: Guardians of Peace do not directly respond, I guess to
Speaker 1: media members, Yeah, we do see that they are clearly
Speaker 1: listening to as much as I loathe the term Jonathan
Speaker 1: to the narrative. Yes, So December sixteenth, that narrative gets
Speaker 1: pushed forward with another message allegedly from Guardians of Peace
Speaker 1: that specifically mentions the interview. This is the first time
Speaker 1: the interview is mentioned by name December sixteen. November twenty
Speaker 1: four was when the attack was revealed. December sixteenth is
Speaker 1: when the interview is mentioned by name, and the message
Speaker 1: contains threats saying that if the film is allowed to
Speaker 1: run in theaters, there will be a September eleventh style
Speaker 1: terrorist attack as a response specifically against the New York
Speaker 1: theater where it would have premiered, but also uh nationwide
Speaker 1: um incidents if it were to run in local theaters.
Speaker 1: Sony ends up canceling the premiere and pulls the film
Speaker 1: from theaters, but they really pull the film for theaters
Speaker 1: after several theater chains have already said that they will
Speaker 1: not show the movie, right, and these are the big
Speaker 1: the big names. Yeah, so these are that's exactly right.
Speaker 1: So once, I mean, if if the major chains say
Speaker 1: we're not going to show your movie, then canceling it
Speaker 1: kind of makes sense. So we'll come back to that
Speaker 1: because Sony story about this removing of the movie and
Speaker 1: then returning the film is not totally coherent, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's and it's a charitable way to put it. So
Speaker 1: at this time, people say, well, you should release it
Speaker 1: in video on demand somehow, right, or independent theaters, right,
Speaker 1: And Sony says, nope, dada, We're not releasing it in
Speaker 1: any form. Now, this is an important thing to remember
Speaker 1: that Sony has said they do not want to release
Speaker 1: the movie in any format. And uh So, December seventeenth,
Speaker 1: the U. S Government, in the form mostly of the FBI,
Speaker 1: stated that they believe North Korea was centrally involved in
Speaker 1: the hacking, although the FBI has not officially said that
Speaker 1: at this point, it was really a government official saying
Speaker 1: we believe that North Korea was involved. Uh this was
Speaker 1: not when the FBI specifically came out, but on December
Speaker 1: eighteen messages, again allegedly from Guardians of Peace, went to
Speaker 1: Sony executives and said that if the film was never
Speaker 1: released in any format, then Guardians of Peace would not
Speaker 1: release any more damaging information stolen in the hack. So
Speaker 1: presumably they still had some that was at least as
Speaker 1: damaging as the mountain of stuff they had already released,
Speaker 1: but they were holding it in check, and if that
Speaker 1: movie didn't come out at all, it would never see
Speaker 1: the light of day. But a second message on the
Speaker 1: web application paste band that's the one I was talking
Speaker 1: about that it's supposedly also was from Guardians of Peace
Speaker 1: and had a different message in it, saying that Sony
Speaker 1: had suffered enough and the company could release the movie
Speaker 1: if Kim Jong UN's death isn't quote too happy and
Speaker 1: what does that even mean? I guess that if it
Speaker 1: wasn't like a big emotionally uplifting moment in the film,
Speaker 1: like you weren't supposed to stand up and cheer and
Speaker 1: go yea when Kim jong un dies, and that would
Speaker 1: be okay. I feel fairly confident and saying that this
Speaker 1: is not the same group, or at least it's not
Speaker 1: a group representing North Korea, because that seems completely antithetical
Speaker 1: to everything else that's been said. It's even antithetical to
Speaker 1: the other message that was released that very day, Like
Speaker 1: one message says, never released the movie and we'll stop,
Speaker 1: and the other message says, go ahead and release the
Speaker 1: movie as long as it's not celebrating the death of
Speaker 1: Kim Jong un. Then you you've suffered enough and you've
Speaker 1: learned a lesson. Clearly, these can't be the same people
Speaker 1: unless they're just message with Sony in that case that
Speaker 1: it could be in the same people, but now they're
Speaker 1: cruel mischief makers. Now there's one other thing though, that's
Speaker 1: that's a pretty big deal that was unearthed during the
Speaker 1: leaks of the Sony hacks. Yeah, this is one that
Speaker 1: has become a separate issue all on its own, and
Speaker 1: it's one that I would really need to look into
Speaker 1: further to to do a full rundown on it. But
Speaker 1: the future, I think so. Yeah, I've been trying to
Speaker 1: give it some more space so I can get more
Speaker 1: information on it. But this was where we also saw
Speaker 1: as part of the leaked information that came out that
Speaker 1: there was this um kind of a conspiracy really among
Speaker 1: movie studios about Project Goliath, which everyone is pretty sure
Speaker 1: means Google and Google in the mp a A the
Speaker 1: Motion Picture Association of America ended up having some some
Speaker 1: very public spats about the information contained in the leak
Speaker 1: regarding Project Goliath, Google saying that the m p A
Speaker 1: was essentially trying to reinstate policies that were under the
Speaker 1: SOAPA umbrella but had been defeated because HOPO was not adopted. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the m p a A is saying Google being talking
Speaker 1: about self as a champion of free speech is a joke, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it got brutal. Uh yeah, very ugly. It's definitely worth
Speaker 1: looking further into, but we won't, you know, I just
Speaker 1: wanted to mention it because again, it's like, that's not
Speaker 1: that this story wasn't big enough, but other big stories
Speaker 1: came up to like because of it. December nineteenth, that's
Speaker 1: when the FBI announces it has connected the North Korean
Speaker 1: government to the attacks, citing unreleased evidence as well as
Speaker 1: clues such as hacking tools that have been used by
Speaker 1: North Korean hackers in the past. They also cite that
Speaker 1: the attacks seemed to originate from IP addresses within North Korea,
Speaker 1: and later stated that they believed it would have been
Speaker 1: really difficult for anyone else to have used or spoofed
Speaker 1: those particular IP addresses. Is my favorite party coming up? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then North Korea says it was not involved in
Speaker 1: the hacks, but praises the hackers as sympathizers and that
Speaker 1: the hack was quote a righteous deed. They basically said,
Speaker 1: we didn't do it, but we should have. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: like that they say it was a righteous deed. But
Speaker 1: I like to think of him saying it was a
Speaker 1: righteous deed, you know, like kind of surfer Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I hope mutant Ninja Turtles version of righteous. I don't
Speaker 1: know how popular Hawaiian shirts are there, but that would
Speaker 1: have been good, good costume. If they're really popular, then
Speaker 1: I've got my wardrobe. Should I ever visit North Korea,
Speaker 1: I've got a ton of those. President Obama also on
Speaker 1: December nineteenth, spoke out about the hack and said he
Speaker 1: felt that Sony made a mistake pulling the movie from theaters,
Speaker 1: and also said that the US would respond proportionately to
Speaker 1: the attack. What that specifically meant, no one was really
Speaker 1: sure at the time. Yeah, I've even got a I
Speaker 1: forgot to put the note in, but I'll mention it
Speaker 1: when we get a little further in about the something
Speaker 1: that happened in North Korea that some wonder perhaps was
Speaker 1: the proportionate attack. We don't write the response now that
Speaker 1: that same day, Sony came out and this is where
Speaker 1: the this is where their message evolves. Yeah, evolves is
Speaker 1: good chain just make degree turn. So this is the CEO,
Speaker 1: Michael Lynton came out and said that the decision to
Speaker 1: cancel the film was merely in response to theaters refusing
Speaker 1: to show it, and not a sign that the company
Speaker 1: was bowing to terrorist threats. If that's the case, I
Speaker 1: don't know why they refused to release it in any format.
Speaker 1: If they said we're never releasing this movie. Ever, how
Speaker 1: could that be only because the theater's refused to show it,
Speaker 1: Because you would assume that the company wouldn't want to
Speaker 1: just eat the expenses of producing and marketing a film.
Speaker 1: The Gigantic expenses many millions of dollars, So if you
Speaker 1: want to recapture at least some of that, you could
Speaker 1: release it online. I mean, if you're truly not scared
Speaker 1: of the threats, then why not why not release it
Speaker 1: online or allow independent theaters that say, look, we'll still
Speaker 1: show it. Why not allow them to do it? And
Speaker 1: that was that was the thing, is that this response
Speaker 1: to me did not ring true because the actions that
Speaker 1: Sony had taken just a couple of days earlier spoke
Speaker 1: very differently than what they were saying. However, of course
Speaker 1: they want to say face, they want to say, hey,
Speaker 1: we weren't scared. It's just that there was no place
Speaker 1: to show it. So that's why we pulled it, which
Speaker 1: is patent lee false. Because there were several theater in
Speaker 1: the city of Atlanta that was ready to show it. Uh.
Speaker 1: There are two theaters in general that are specific, rather
Speaker 1: too specific theaters that said they wanted to show the film.
Speaker 1: One is in Atlanta called the Plaza, which is just
Speaker 1: down the street from where I live. Independent theater, yeah,
Speaker 1: a little tiny independent theater. Uh, and they said we'll
Speaker 1: show it. And then there was other one in Texas
Speaker 1: Alamo Drafthouse Yeah yeah, yeah, which are which are too
Speaker 1: um unforeseen champions there. We we do know though. This
Speaker 1: is another thing that's really interesting thing to me because
Speaker 1: all this stuff takes place after you and I and
Speaker 1: Matt did the earlier show. So what happens on December twenty.
Speaker 1: That's when North Korea offers to take part in a
Speaker 1: joint investigation of the hack, and the U. S Government declines.
Speaker 1: So North Korea says, hey, we weren't responsible, but we
Speaker 1: will totally help you try and track down who was
Speaker 1: responsible for this thing that we approve of but totally
Speaker 1: didn't do. And the United States said, uh, Here's what's
Speaker 1: interesting to mean though, If North Korea is telling the truth, right,
Speaker 1: and if they were in no way involved in that hack, right,
Speaker 1: this this, uh, these bits of code that somehow could
Speaker 1: have come from them, I'm wondering if maybe maybe their
Speaker 1: willingness to investigate was seen as uh disingenuous. Maybe they
Speaker 1: were looking to find out how their how their work
Speaker 1: got out there or how it got found, or maybe
Speaker 1: they were It could also possibly be that North Korea
Speaker 1: is saying, hey, you know, we didn't um, we didn't
Speaker 1: allow for this to happen. We didn't we didn't designate
Speaker 1: someone to go and do this on our behalf. We
Speaker 1: would like to track down the person responsible for reasons
Speaker 1: of our own exactly. Or it could be that they
Speaker 1: totally did it. It could be they totally did it.
Speaker 1: And that's one thing that we should point out, Like
Speaker 1: I have pretty strong skepticism about this, but they totally
Speaker 1: could have done it right. It's just not enough information.
Speaker 1: We'll get to we'll get to the biggest, the biggest
Speaker 1: problem in the information gap here pretty soon, I think.
Speaker 1: But then on that same day, December twentie that's when
Speaker 1: North Korea also warned that there would be serious consequences
Speaker 1: should the United States attack North Korea if this retaliation
Speaker 1: were to happen, right, whatever that would be. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: essentially like whatever proportionate response you're thinking of, better not
Speaker 1: be against us, because boy heality, we will we and
Speaker 1: and they were very like, very militant. Not big surprise,
Speaker 1: I mean, North Korea is very angry. North Korea has
Speaker 1: got a long history of of you know, beating the
Speaker 1: drama and saying that they will take severe action without
Speaker 1: backing it up. Not that you would ever want them
Speaker 1: to back it up. But the United States in North
Speaker 1: Korea remember still technically in a ceasefire with the war
Speaker 1: that never ended. Yes, North Korea has never acknowledged the
Speaker 1: end of the war. So December twenty three, Sony would
Speaker 1: authorize three theaters to show the interview on Christmas Day,
Speaker 1: and they also released the film to streaming options late
Speaker 1: on the Christmas Eve, and there were no further attacks.
Speaker 1: Despite that fact that you know, you had those messages
Speaker 1: earlier saying that if you ever show this, we will
Speaker 1: attack more, there weren't any. There were no real life
Speaker 1: violent consequences. December seven, North Korea condemns the release of
Speaker 1: the film, and they're real jerks about it. They used
Speaker 1: a racially insensitive term to describe our president it, which
Speaker 1: was pretty ugly, and I got a lot of people
Speaker 1: up in arms. But I mean, the most important thing
Speaker 1: is obviously that there wasn't any kind of physical retaliation
Speaker 1: for the release of the movie. It was just a
Speaker 1: really nasty worded message from people who were upset about
Speaker 1: it well and the film itself. Of course, given we
Speaker 1: talked about this a little bit, but given the political
Speaker 1: environment and ideology of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
Speaker 1: or North Korea, this is this is a profoundly offensive thing.
Speaker 1: It's it's similar to a film that came out featuring
Speaker 1: Mohammed from you know, from the Muslim faith, uh which
Speaker 1: depicting Mohammed is already supposed to be a profound defense
Speaker 1: and then having him killed. It's similar to that because
Speaker 1: of the deification of the leadership of North Korea. Sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a very much a kind of divine
Speaker 1: right sort of thing. Yeah, that's a good phase. And
Speaker 1: so a nastily worded statement, Uh, with added racism. I
Speaker 1: guess just to make it really pop is the least
Speaker 1: you could expect. Yeah, that's true. Uh. Sony also has
Speaker 1: threatened media companies that are covering the hack with legal action,
Speaker 1: saying they will sue companies that specifically companies that are
Speaker 1: sharing the leaked information. I mean, reporting on something is
Speaker 1: one thing. Obviously, Sony suing a company for reporting on
Speaker 1: the story would be pretty difficult to win. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, no one wants to get sued. It's an
Speaker 1: expensive endeavor. But you know, most most media outlets are
Speaker 1: going to say, like, well, we're just covering the news.
Speaker 1: This is news, and that's what we do. You're not
Speaker 1: a government. You can't claim that this is a national
Speaker 1: security issue. Yeah. Now, if if in fact they were
Speaker 1: releasing private like corporate secrets that kind of thing, then
Speaker 1: you get into a sort of a murky ground. And
Speaker 1: I can see why Sony definitely wanted to to try
Speaker 1: and cut down on people sharing this information and disseminating
Speaker 1: it further, which is another reason why I report about
Speaker 1: the story, but go into it. Uh, there's not always altruistic.
Speaker 1: We've got a little bit more to talk about with
Speaker 1: the Sony Pictures Entertainment hack, but first let's take this
Speaker 1: quick break. Now, there's one other thing you that you
Speaker 1: were going to mention as well about this, which is
Speaker 1: something funny happened in North Korea's internet. Yeah, their internet
Speaker 1: um had a real slow down and eventually just a
Speaker 1: complete halt of operations in late December, and there was
Speaker 1: some question about whether or not that was in fact
Speaker 1: the proportionate response that the United States was going to
Speaker 1: take against whomever perpetrated the ac UM, And we don't know,
Speaker 1: we don't know if it was. In fact. There's so
Speaker 1: few nodes in North Korea, and it's all stuff that
Speaker 1: the government and military can have access to, but no
Speaker 1: one else outside of those organizations has access to the Internet.
Speaker 1: So but those those nodes that all the connections were
Speaker 1: essentially shut down, like the Internet went dark in North Korea. Uh.
Speaker 1: It led some people to wonder if perhaps there was
Speaker 1: an attack, if it was a state sponsored attack like
Speaker 1: the United States proportionate response, if that was it, or
Speaker 1: if it was just as an example of infrastructure breaking down,
Speaker 1: which could have been the case. It could have been
Speaker 1: that it was as simple as someone needed to go
Speaker 1: and reboot a machine in order for it to reconnect
Speaker 1: to the Internet at large. So, uh, there just wasn't
Speaker 1: any answer to that. Of course, you know, you had
Speaker 1: a lot of speculation around it, but since there's not
Speaker 1: enough information, I don't want to speculate right the We're
Speaker 1: just saying that the issue of antiquated or malfunctioning equipment
Speaker 1: is at least as likely a culprit as a state
Speaker 1: sponsored attack, if not more likely in my opinion. But so,
Speaker 1: happy New Year, Sony. You made it to uh the
Speaker 1: and that's January second. There's a funny thing, Jonathan, You
Speaker 1: and I have talked about this off air before, but
Speaker 1: there's this funny way that stories drop, Uh, some big
Speaker 1: stories drop on Friday afternoon. Listeners will recall that January
Speaker 1: two was a Friday. There's a great subreddit about important
Speaker 1: news that drops on Friday. Yeah. The hope that there
Speaker 1: are a lot of companies that will release like unpleasant
Speaker 1: news on a Friday, hoping that it just gets buried
Speaker 1: and then by the time everyone's ready to talk about
Speaker 1: it again on Monday, it's old news, so no one
Speaker 1: talks about it, right, Yeah, exactly, And so this is, uh,
Speaker 1: this is a pretty big Friday to drop some disappearing
Speaker 1: news because it's the day after New Year's Day. Every
Speaker 1: once hungover, no one can no one can remember what
Speaker 1: their name is, let alone read a press release right right,
Speaker 1: and like, you don't drink, and you're probably just hungover
Speaker 1: from having to deal with all the people drinking. It's
Speaker 1: mostly made dealing with the immense frustration of all my
Speaker 1: drunk friends who are who are texting me as they're like, dude,
Speaker 1: did I call you last night? And if I did,
Speaker 1: don't remember the things I said? Don't check the message. Yes,
Speaker 1: you know your your co host Matt Frederick has done
Speaker 1: that to me. Yeah, at one thirty in the morning,
Speaker 1: I got a call from him. That was a few
Speaker 1: years ago, though that was not this year. That was
Speaker 1: in his checkered past. So here's what happens. On January second.
Speaker 1: The White House announces a new round of sanctions on
Speaker 1: North Korea and they do this via executive order. We've
Speaker 1: got a quotation here, uh, which we should say also
Speaker 1: that as the US is releasing these new sanctions, people
Speaker 1: are already raising um skeptical concern about this North Korea allegations.
Speaker 1: And they're saying, you know, the FBI or the CIA
Speaker 1: or the rest of the alphabet soup seems convinced that
Speaker 1: North Korea was involved. And they're saying that due to
Speaker 1: information we have, we know it was North Korea. And
Speaker 1: people are saying, but how and why what is this
Speaker 1: information that you have that's such a convincing smoking gun, right,
Speaker 1: and uh, they that's why we've got the exact quotation
Speaker 1: of why they are sanctioning this. Uh if if you
Speaker 1: could probably do a better voice thanich. The response. So,
Speaker 1: it's a response to ongoing provocative, destabilizing, and repressive actions
Speaker 1: and policies. Particularly it's destructive and coercive cyber attacks on
Speaker 1: Sony Pictures Entertainment. So specifically, not not just specifically cyber crime,
Speaker 1: but specifically Sony Pictures Entertainment. They're saying, not only do
Speaker 1: we think he did it, this is our official response
Speaker 1: to that. Yeah. So in this case, I mean it's
Speaker 1: essentially saying like cases closed, guys, this is they did it,
Speaker 1: and Uh, we're gonna kind of segue into sort of
Speaker 1: the skepticism about this, including my own personal skepticism, but
Speaker 1: I want to preface it with saying, and we said
Speaker 1: this on on the stuff they don't want you to
Speaker 1: know episode as well, that this is based upon the
Speaker 1: information that we have available to us. And it could
Speaker 1: be that the US government hasn't its possession information that
Speaker 1: is damning evidence that proves that North Korea's government was
Speaker 1: in fact behind the attacks. Uh, And it's just that
Speaker 1: we don't have access to that information, and therefore that's
Speaker 1: why things look a little hokey to us. Uh. That
Speaker 1: being said, things look a little hokey to us. How So,
Speaker 1: what what are some of the points that make this
Speaker 1: not an ironclad theory? All right? So, first, it's odd
Speaker 1: to have a state sponsored tech where you have a
Speaker 1: hacker group claiming responsibility and giving itself a cool name. Yes. So,
Speaker 1: so having a group come out and say, hey, we're
Speaker 1: guardians of peace, were the ones who did this, this
Speaker 1: is the reason we did it, here's how you can
Speaker 1: stop it from happening, is a lot different from a
Speaker 1: state sponsored attack. A state sponsored attack usually one thing
Speaker 1: is they don't want to leave any trace of who
Speaker 1: it was that did it. You know, this is if
Speaker 1: you remember the episodes we've done about stucks Net, then
Speaker 1: you know this is the case. Like you want, you
Speaker 1: want to have the effect without having it be autographed.
Speaker 1: You know, love North Korea. Next, the amount of data
Speaker 1: stolen was huge, so we mentioned this earlier. It takes
Speaker 1: a really long time to siphon off a hundred terabytes
Speaker 1: of data, particularly if you're not on site. So that
Speaker 1: is an enormous undertaking. It's not impossible. It is something
Speaker 1: that could happen, but it would take months. Well, it
Speaker 1: would suggest to me that if in fact this is
Speaker 1: North Korea that behind it, that they targeted Sony essentially
Speaker 1: sometime mid two thousand and fourteen for a movie that
Speaker 1: wasn't going to come out for six months the latest,
Speaker 1: because that's how long it's going to take to steal
Speaker 1: that much information. Also, that they were able to identify
Speaker 1: the information that would be most harmful to the company,
Speaker 1: target it, take it and not ever be noticed. Now granted,
Speaker 1: when they're taking it, they're making copies. It's not like
Speaker 1: stealing from a store where suddenly there's there's an empty
Speaker 1: space where a TV used to be. Right, So it's
Speaker 1: a little different from physical theft, but still you could
Speaker 1: end up being caught, you know, you could at leave,
Speaker 1: people could see unusual traffic in the Internet servers, that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Um, So it's unusual. Also the fact
Speaker 1: that the information that was released to harm the company
Speaker 1: was incredibly savvy, Like this speaks of someone who has
Speaker 1: a real under a standing of what is going to
Speaker 1: make a company, specifically a media company vulnerable. Right, how
Speaker 1: do I strike at the morale of the employees, how
Speaker 1: do I strike at the relationship between the production company
Speaker 1: and the other big players in the industry, How do
Speaker 1: I strike at the American public's perception of that company?
Speaker 1: This is incredibly savvy stuff. Not to say that there
Speaker 1: are there aren't people in North Korea who are aware
Speaker 1: of this. They very well maybe, but it seems to
Speaker 1: me like it's a real insider's insight to what is
Speaker 1: important within the film industry in general and Sony in particular. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a little clunky myself, but okay. Also, the
Speaker 1: threats to obey the hackers had nothing to do with
Speaker 1: the interview for a really long time. Like, so essentially
Speaker 1: they were saying, obey us, do what we say, but
Speaker 1: they weren't say they weren't giving instructions, Like they didn't
Speaker 1: give Sony the chance to pull the interview. It was
Speaker 1: only after leaking the information that the demand was even made.
Speaker 1: So it's really odd that if the interview was in
Speaker 1: fact the reason for the attack, and if the goal
Speaker 1: of the attack was to have the interview pulled from
Speaker 1: film from theaters, why not actually give the company a
Speaker 1: chance to do that rather than just slash and burn
Speaker 1: because the film was released anyway. Yeah, to me, that's
Speaker 1: that's one of the most important parts. Let alone the
Speaker 1: fact that UH, states don't typically attack other states for
Speaker 1: media like private films, you know, private sector films. Uh.
Speaker 1: We've already talked about. You know something that ties into
Speaker 1: that earlier point you just made, which is, uh, how
Speaker 1: to attribute who said what? How do you how can
Speaker 1: you be sure that a message supposedly from the hackers
Speaker 1: was actually from the hackers? And you can't know, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, you might as well sit there and go
Speaker 1: to four chan and try and say this particular message
Speaker 1: was from this particular person. It's all supposed to be
Speaker 1: anonymously protected, so you don't know. We've got a bit
Speaker 1: more to say about the Sony Pictures Entertainment hack before
Speaker 1: we wrap up, but first let's take another quick break. Also,
Speaker 1: security firm Norse identified six former Sony employees who had
Speaker 1: the skills necessary to pull off something like this and
Speaker 1: had participated in chat room discussions revealing their negative feelings
Speaker 1: towards the company, which wasn't anything incriminating, but they were
Speaker 1: clearly disgruntled. They were former employees, they were part of
Speaker 1: a layoff that happened in two thousand fourteen UM and
Speaker 1: the FBI rejected this information, which is interesting because one
Speaker 1: other thing that I believe it was Norse found when
Speaker 1: North submitted their stuff to the FBI. They they are
Speaker 1: big proponents of this insider job argument because within the
Speaker 1: code they found the credentials that you would need to
Speaker 1: access some of these uh some of these compartmentalized basis
Speaker 1: of information, right. Yeah. It seemed to a lot of
Speaker 1: cybersecurity experts that whomever pulled off this attack had access
Speaker 1: to passwords and other verification UH criteria that would allow
Speaker 1: them access to these very sensitive areas of information that
Speaker 1: would be challenging for an outsider to identify and use.
Speaker 1: But if you're if you were familiar with the system already,
Speaker 1: then you would know what you needed before you did
Speaker 1: your attack. So it's it's one of those things where
Speaker 1: you're like, yeah, it's not impossible for someone outside the
Speaker 1: group to have figured this out, but it's far more
Speaker 1: likely that there was at least some insider assistance because
Speaker 1: you know, they are able to target specific pieces of information,
Speaker 1: and perhaps it's unwitting insider assistance too. It could be Yeah,
Speaker 1: it could just very well be a case of social
Speaker 1: engineering where uh, an outside hacker gets unwitting participation and
Speaker 1: the people who handed over the information or the the
Speaker 1: access the keys to the kingdom weren't aware of what
Speaker 1: they were doing at the time. That's possible. Um I
Speaker 1: still think that the insider hypothesis is the most compelling
Speaker 1: based upon what was stolen, how it was leaked, and
Speaker 1: the effect it had. But and also the fact that
Speaker 1: the demand for the film thing didn't come until after
Speaker 1: the leaks had happened. But again, that's that's just based
Speaker 1: on the information have available to me. So what do
Speaker 1: you think then about one of the early things presented
Speaker 1: as smoking gun evidence. The idea that uh, certain pieces
Speaker 1: of code that have been used in the attacks were
Speaker 1: present in these most recent attacks. Well, ben, as you
Speaker 1: and I know, on the internet, um, all code is
Speaker 1: incredibly proprietary and can't be spread around or tweaked or
Speaker 1: changed or altered or added to or taken away from.
Speaker 1: I mean, if only we lived in a world where
Speaker 1: you could take existing programs, change them and make them
Speaker 1: do things for your on your own behalf, then we
Speaker 1: would live in a world where you can't attribute a
Speaker 1: source for a particular attack simply because of the code
Speaker 1: that was Oh wait, that is the world we live in.
Speaker 1: So yeah, here's the problem is that just because the
Speaker 1: code was found in attacks from a previous instance doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that that code only belongs to one group. A
Speaker 1: lot of these tools get distributed through various channels online hackers.
Speaker 1: When they create a really powerful tool, sometimes they love
Speaker 1: to share it. Not all the time. Some of them
Speaker 1: are very jealous with what they create and they keep
Speaker 1: it from the selves. But some will go and say, hey,
Speaker 1: I made this tool, it's perfect for cracking passwords. Have
Speaker 1: at it, and then the people who downloaded and use it.
Speaker 1: We often called script kiddies. They aren't the ones who
Speaker 1: developed the code. They're just making use of code that
Speaker 1: was built to do a specific thing. So I hesitate
Speaker 1: to attribute an attack to us specific group simply because
Speaker 1: the code that was included. Yeah, I agree with you there,
Speaker 1: because it's strange too. It's strange to think that someone
Speaker 1: could own a process, and especially when there's so much
Speaker 1: sharing in the toolbox. And uh, if this code was recognized,
Speaker 1: right then that already inherently tells us that other people
Speaker 1: have seen it, which also means they could replicate it.
Speaker 1: It would be I think it's a little bit movie
Speaker 1: thriller right now to say, uh, that someone purposely put
Speaker 1: it in his red herring. But wouldn't that be cool? No,
Speaker 1: I just think it's also movie thriller to say I
Speaker 1: recognize this code. It could only come from one place
Speaker 1: and that's totally yeah, And and you're right about that.
Speaker 1: And one thing that we should also list that I
Speaker 1: think is important to note here is that I've seen
Speaker 1: several journalists um reciting these u S statements of North
Speaker 1: Korean involvement as fact, and it is true. The problem
Speaker 1: with this is something that you and I have have
Speaker 1: touched upon already in the show, which is that we
Speaker 1: know that the United States and some of its cooperative
Speaker 1: countries have this vast array of sophisticated and in many
Speaker 1: plate cases classified collection methods, right, and this means that
Speaker 1: it is fair to assume that the United States has
Speaker 1: access to information that civilians and journalists may not be
Speaker 1: able to analyze. So so, yeah, that leads you to
Speaker 1: the conclusion that again there could be a smoking gun
Speaker 1: sure that I am completely unaware of that says No,
Speaker 1: it was North Korea. It was not some insider, it
Speaker 1: was not it wasn't a disgruntled employee. This was a
Speaker 1: very effective attack. Which if that is here's the thing.
Speaker 1: If that's the real answer, If that really is the
Speaker 1: real answer, that's terrifying, because not only does it mean
Speaker 1: that you have a country that has created an incredibly effective,
Speaker 1: invasive attack into a major corporation, but they understand the
Speaker 1: culture and the impact that corporation has and how to
Speaker 1: best attack it. It just doesn't make sense though to
Speaker 1: do so. I would be surprised to do something of
Speaker 1: that magnitude for a work of fiction that honestly, honestly,
Speaker 1: and I see this as as a fan of seth Row. Again,
Speaker 1: it's not it's not going to be his Oscar winning film.
Speaker 1: I had said that, um when Sony first pulled the film,
Speaker 1: I said, listen, I don't plan to see the interview,
Speaker 1: but I want that to be my option, that I
Speaker 1: don't see the interview, right, you want it to be
Speaker 1: your choice. I don't don't want the choice made for
Speaker 1: me that I don't see the interview. And see, that's
Speaker 1: the thing is that they released it and again we
Speaker 1: didn't see more attacks, at least not yet. I mean
Speaker 1: it could be by the time this podcast goes out
Speaker 1: that in fact, more has developed the story, which we
Speaker 1: do have to be conscious of. But going back to
Speaker 1: that point in the missing information, this also means that
Speaker 1: without access to it, there's no way for someone to
Speaker 1: independently verify the accuracy of the statements on the part
Speaker 1: of Uncle Sam, and it's been it's being used as
Speaker 1: the proof and the fact that their further sanctions really
Speaker 1: does show I think it indicates that there is some
Speaker 1: sort of belief. Yeah, I I am at least hopeful
Speaker 1: that they are sincere in the statement that they fully
Speaker 1: believe North Korea to be behind it, because otherwise We're
Speaker 1: talking about a very bizarre clancy like thriller where the
Speaker 1: US government is taking advantage of an insane hacking attack
Speaker 1: on a media company as an excuse to step up
Speaker 1: sanctions against a hostile foreign power, which is such a
Speaker 1: weird thing to even say. But what I love about
Speaker 1: the plan is that it's so straightforward. Right, step three profit. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: so where does this leave us, Well, it pretty much
Speaker 1: leaves us in the same place we were at the beginning.
Speaker 1: We don't really know you and I certainly don't know
Speaker 1: who is behind Yeah, and it may very well be
Speaker 1: like we said that, in fact, it is North Korea.
Speaker 1: And it's just that that's such it's it stretches my
Speaker 1: belief so much. That's why I really have trouble with it.
Speaker 1: But it could very well be true. Yeah, I'm curious
Speaker 1: what our listeners think. Guys, if you have any suggestions,
Speaker 1: if you if you have an opinion on this, or
Speaker 1: you have a suggestion for a future episode, you should
Speaker 1: write in the addresses tech stuff at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com or drop us a line on Facebook or Twitter.
Speaker 1: They handle us tech stuff hs w ben. Where can
Speaker 1: they find you? Ah? Yes, well you can find Jonathan
Speaker 1: and I hanging out on several shows where I'm brain
Speaker 1: stuff together on YouTube and What the Stuff. We've got
Speaker 1: an upcoming episode of brain Stuff. Where were we both
Speaker 1: appear in the same episode. Oh, we do. Only one
Speaker 1: of us talks and that's why. Yeah, you know, on
Speaker 1: on that is What the Stuff. I believe it's Uh,
Speaker 1: it is What the Stuff. Technology spoilers bad, It's it's that.
Speaker 1: That was a strange shoot. I hope listeners enjoy it.
Speaker 1: You can find my co host Matt and I on
Speaker 1: Stuff they don't want you to know. Uh. You can
Speaker 1: find uh a former guest host or recurring guest host
Speaker 1: of tech Stuff, Scott ben Jamn Yes, who works works
Speaker 1: with me on car Stuff next to me. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he does. You guys have some of the most interesting
Speaker 1: conversations in the office. Yeah, you know, Scott. I was
Speaker 1: peg Scott as the super quiet guy in the office,
Speaker 1: but he really does enjoy a fun, bizarre, thoughtful conversation.
Speaker 1: He's a big true crime fan too, by the way.
Speaker 1: That's good to know. It's good to know. It's more
Speaker 1: more risks for the mill, my friend. Uh and if somebody,
Speaker 1: if somebody wants to learn more about let's see the
Speaker 1: future of technology, and they haven't heard of your other show.
Speaker 1: Where would they go, Well, they would go to fw
Speaker 1: thinking dot com for Forward Thinking. That's where Lauren Vogelbaum,
Speaker 1: Joe McCormick, and I will end up talking at nauseum
Speaker 1: about all sorts of things from the future. Uh. It's
Speaker 1: also the video series Forward Thinking. I am the soul
Speaker 1: host of that show and sometimes the writer. Uh. But
Speaker 1: you should definitely check that out. If you haven't listened
Speaker 1: to that podcast, you gotta check out the episodes that
Speaker 1: just went live so you can find them. In the
Speaker 1: most recent ones. We did back to Back to the
Speaker 1: Future to part one, and then we did back to
Speaker 1: Back to the Future to Part two, where we looked
Speaker 1: at the technology that Marty McFly encounters when he travels
Speaker 1: to two thousand fifteen and see how it measures up
Speaker 1: to the actual two thousand fifteen technology of today. So
Speaker 1: the general consensus, at least on the U S side,
Speaker 1: was that in fact, this was a state backed attack,
Speaker 1: North Korea sponsored attack on Sony Pictures, And UM, I
Speaker 1: mean that's entirely possible. It's also possible that it wasn't. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's still some questions about that, But generally speaking, the
Speaker 1: consensus appears to be, at least within the law enforcement
Speaker 1: community of the United States that this was in fact
Speaker 1: an attack that originated out of and was supported by
Speaker 1: North Korea. UH. Like I said, there were other consequences
Speaker 1: to this attack. For example, the entertainment industry took it
Speaker 1: as a UH instigator to really go after file sharing
Speaker 1: services again, and sites like the Pirate Bay got targeted
Speaker 1: for UH, for government UH takedowns and things of that nature.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, it's one of those elements where you
Speaker 1: start to see ripple effects beyond just the attack itself.
Speaker 1: Of course, we're still seeing cyber attacks throughout various industries
Speaker 1: to this day, with companies often having to deal with
Speaker 1: the repercussions of those attacks. You would think that we
Speaker 1: would see much better security these days, but it's a
Speaker 1: reminder that security is only as good as the people
Speaker 1: who are put in charge of it. You can easily
Speaker 1: have a weak link. If someone is, you know, vulnerable
Speaker 1: to a social networking kind of attack, a social engineering approach,
Speaker 1: then it doesn't really matter how good your passwords are,
Speaker 1: you know. So I hope you enjoyed that classic episode.
Speaker 1: Remember if you have suggestions for future topics of tech
Speaker 1: Stuff episodes. Reach out to me on Twitter to handle
Speaker 1: for the show is tech Stuff H s W and
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff is
Speaker 1: an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from my
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.