Sony Cowardly Caves into Terrorists' Demands

@oralloy,

oralloy wrote:

tsarstepan wrote:
You're clueless Carlos. On all counts. The purpose to sneak in an obviously antiNorth Korean/antiKim Jong Un movie is to seed dissidence and revolution to that country. To get the population to overthrow Kim Jong Un. How did you miss that obvious message?? Do you even know anything about the movie discussed in this topic? Or anything about anything that you didn't learn from watching Fox News?

I confess I feel a bit of trepidation about sending copies over the border by balloon. Would any North Koreans end up getting executed if they were caught in possession of the movie?

Yeah, that crossed my mind, too. I wouldn't risk it for that very reason.

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Here's a story about someone who plans to do it: http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2014/12/31/2014123101620.html

Quote:

Activists Determined to Float Kim Jong-un Caper into N.Korea

Activists here are determined to goad the North Korean regime by floating pirated DVDs of the Hollywood caper "The Interview" across the border.

The run-of-the-mill flick has become an international cause célèbre by focusing on a fictional assassination attempt on North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and sparking a North Korea-linked hacking attack on distributor Sony Pictures.

The U.S. Human Rights Foundation has agreed to fully fund a project to send "The Interview" to the North, Park Sang-hak of Fighters for Free North Korea said Tuesday.

"A few days ago, we received 50,000 DVDs and as many USBs of 'The Interview' with Korean subtitles."

But floating that much merchandise across the border attached to helium balloons presents a formidable challenge.

"We're first of all going to float balloons carrying 10,000 DVDs and USBs on any day in January when the wind blows in a northerly direction, and the remaining 90,000 DVDs and USBs later," Park said.

"The Interview" seems to have already been smuggled into the North, with some North Korean users of South Korean mobile phones that automatically connect to South Korea's roaming service watching the film on their phones.

"If defector groups buy mobile phones in South Korea and send them to the North through China, the phones automatically connect to South Korea's roaming service," said Kim Sung-min of Free North Korea Radio. "I've talked with two North Koreans who've watched the movie on their phone. They said they were disappointed because the movie feels like a cartoon."

They said given how unlike the real Kim Jong-un the movie character is, the regime has inadvertently given a massive marketing boost to a B-movie that would otherwise have sunk like a stone.

The North has set up a taskforce led by a three-star general in the State Security Department to crack down on anyone smuggling the film into its hallowed borders.

1 Reply

@FBM,

If anyone wants North Koreans to actually SEE the movie, the DVD alone won't work. They should also send DVD readers and flat screen TVs and connecting cables with the DVD. And electricity....

Anyway, isn't it in poor taste to make movies about killing real and alive people? If one made a comedy about a plot to kill Obama, i'm sure many would laugh too.

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

Anyway, isn't it in poor taste to make movies about killing real and alive people?

The Americans got a bit upset when we made Death Of A President, about the fictionalised assassination of George W Bush. I don't think American officials called Tony Blair a monkey or carried out a cyberattack against British Media institutions though.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0853096/

1 Reply

@izzythepush,

That wasn't a comedy though, and the plot was also different in one important way: the assassins were not the heroes of the story.

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@Olivier5,

So it's not bad taste to make a film about killing an existing head of state after all. It's only bad taste if it's a comedy.

You should have the strength of your convictions and not need to redefine everything.

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@izzythepush,

I didn't say it wasn't in poor taste to make a movie about W's assassination. I do think it's borderline.

But if the film had been a goofy comedy where two good, nice but slightly out of their league dudes had to fulfill the morally unassailable task of killing Bush, who himself was presented as a dangerous monkey or something, that border of good taste would have been crossed.

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@Olivier5,

So if that had happened you're saying that America would be justified in launching a cyber attack against British companies, infrastructure etc. etc.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

If anyone wants North Koreans to actually SEE the movie, the DVD alone won't work. They should also send DVD readers and flat screen TVs and connecting cables with the DVD. And electricity....

Well, apparently there's more electronics available up there than the western media portray, if defectors' accounts are accurate.

Quote:

Anyway, isn't it in poor taste to make movies about killing real and alive people? If one made a comedy about a plot to kill Obama, i'm sure many would laugh too.

No doubt. I didn't see anything in the film that I'd characterize as being in good taste. If I had a choice of things to send across the DMZ, this film wouldn't even make the top 20...top 50 list.

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@izzythepush,

I never said such a thing. The US, in any case, have already hacked the whole world with the help of the British... On which planet do you live?

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@FBM,

A bunch of activists getting worked up does not always a good project make. Have you ever seen a satellite picture of north korea at night?

You might as well try to sneek Borat in Khazakstan in hope for political change...

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@Olivier5,

You seem to keep changing your position, I think you don't really know where you stand on this.

The point remains that when Western leaders are parodied they take it on the chin and don't threaten anyone.

1 Reply

@izzythepush,

My position is: it's in poor taste to make a movie about killing a real, live person, especially when such assassination is portrayed as a good deed rather than a crime.

Anything you fail to understand there, izzy? Do you disagree perhaps?

1 Reply

@oralloy,

oralloy wrote:

engineer wrote:
Playstation and Xbox were brought down by regular, run of the mill hackers.

The same hackers who were attacking World of Warcraft, it seems.
It appears that they moved on to easier targets once WoW managed to fend them off.

They're back attacking WoW again. I was just going to do some routine maintenance on my garrison and couldn't log in.

When they catch these hackers they really need to feed their brains to some hungry Forsaken.

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@Olivier5,

If everything that was in poor taste was banned there wouldn't be much decent stuff left.

It's about a dictatorship trying to foist its values on the free world.

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@Olivier5,

At this point, I am in suspended judgement over whether or not it's a good idea to send it over the border. A group of defectors have already started to do so, though. I wouldn't do anything to either help or hinder them.

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@FBM,

I don't think it's a 'bad' idea -- just likely to be ineffective.

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@izzythepush,

No disagreement here. Although the term 'free world' has lost some of its ring since the NSA scandal.

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@FBM,

Quote:

If I thought it'd help bring down the regime by puncturing their propaganda, I'd do it. I've thought about it, though, and I doubt it woud do any good. I read in a local paper today that a Korean has expressed his plan to do so, though....

...Why would I need any?...

...Envy? That's a bizarre question, given the context. What would I have to envy of the NKeans? I feel compassion towards them, sympathy, but envy? I don't see your angle. ...

The Independence reached in July 4, 1776 carried slavery up to the following century, and "official" discrimination against women and black people up to 1960s.

This is to say, 200 years process to have the US almost fully functional as a country providing democracy, freedom, equality.

200 years!!!

Do you understand this historical fact? : 200 years.

And, since 1776, the government abuses against minorities where officially tolerated and in many small jurisdictions were even ENCOURAGED.

Tell me something. did any other country of the world invaded the US to stop this kind abuses tolerated by the US government?

Are you suffering of "voluntary amnesia" about the US past in reference to discrimination in its society?

I can bet that you living in the past century won't accept any foreign intervention inside the US to change its way of government even when the killing of blacks without motive was a common event.

In order for you to be aware of what was going on, in several countries the people mocked of the US because this kind of discrimination while spreading around "freedom" invading countries like Vietnam. You were able to read comics about this issue in Europe, the rest of this continent going South, and so forth.

Why you want to intervene in other countries when no other country intervened in the US to change its former policies?

Read the US history first, and you will understand that Martin Luther King didn't die 10 or 20 years later after the Independence in 1776, but that he died in 1968, two hundred years later fighting against social abuses tolerated and encouraged by the US government.

Before caring for the future of other countries, you better try to understand your past. Let each country to decide their own way of government. Don't be jealous of their success even when these countries won't accept democracy and Christmas.

1 Reply

@carloslebaron,

Dood. I'm an expat for a reason. I don't think you'll find many people more aware of and critical of America's hypocritical foreign agendas and hegemony. Are you even reading what I'm writing, or are you just using whatever opportunity you get to launch into a diatribe against the US?

I'm not writing as an American who thinks his country has the superior way. I'm writing as a human being who has heard numerous stories of public executions, starvation, death/work camps, etc etc, visited upon fellow human beings. I would decidedly NOT like to see N. Korea or any other country turn into a mini-US, but I have to admit that that prospect would be an improvement over what has apparently been going on in NK for the past 60 years. How long is the line of hopeful immigrants waiting to get accepted into North Korea? How many N. Koreans risk their lives in escape attempts every year? The fact that you would even compare their situation to the situation in the US suggests that you are being blinded by an agenda.

1 Reply

Sony Cowardly Caves into Terrorists' Demands

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