North Korea lambasts U.S. over The Interview CNN) -- The North Korean government is fuming over the release of the The Interview, claiming President Barack Obama forced the film into theaters and onto streaming video services. U.S. President Obama is the chief culprit who forced the Sony Pictures Entertainment to indiscriminately distribute the movie and took the lead in appeasing and blackmailing cinema houses and theatres in the U.S. mainland to distribute the movie, North Koreas National Defence Commission said, according to a state-run media report on Saturday. In the screwball comedy, a tabloid journalist who is granted an interview with North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un is asked to assassinate him. But when he arrives, the movie version of the dictator, played by actor Randall Park, charms him. Spoiler alert: In the end, the journalist confronts the fictional Kim over abuses in the country. The two wage battle, and Kim is killed. Release ordeal Just getting The Interview into theaters and online streams has been an ordeal. Sony Pictures had suspended the Christmas release of the movie after its IT systems were hacked by a group called the Guardians of Peace, which had complained about the movies pending release. Cyber thieves took a possible haul of 100 terabytes of data -- a slew of movies and other content, company secrets, the personal information of employees and the social security numbers of big-name celebrities. President Obama expressed disappointment over the suspension of distribution, saying free speech had not been upheld. The FBI has blamed North Korea for that cyberattack. North Korea, in turn, slammed the United States for that accusation. If the U.S. is to persistently insist that the hacking attack was made by the DPRK, the U.S. should produce evidence without fail, though belatedly, the state-run Korean Central News Agency said Saturday. If the U.S. persists in American-style arrogant, high-handed and gangster-like arbitrary practices despite the repeated warnings of the DPRK, the U.S. should bear in mind that its failed political affairs will face inescapable deadly blows. Whos behind the Sony cyber-attack The FBI has said that the code of the malware used in the attack on Sony is similar to what North Korea has used in other attacks. But that code was leaked a long time ago, cyber experts say, and any hacker around the world could have used it. Some U.S. cyber experts say the evidence the FBI has presented isnt enough to isolate North Korea as the culprit. Its clear to us, based on both forensic and other evidence weve collected, that unequivocally they are not responsible for orchestrating or initiating the attack on Sony, said Sam Glines, who runs cyber-security company Norse. CNN has reached out to the FBI for comment on such doubt, but has not heard back. $1 million in one day After Sony Pictures said film distributors had decided not to show The Interview for security reasons, Sony then arranged for direct distribution online via its own services, YouTube and through independent cinemas. A few hundred movie theaters decided to go ahead and show the film on Christmas. Sony had originally planned to release the movie in 2,000 to 3,000 theaters, but only about 300 hundred played it. Nonetheless, the film raked in $1 million on its first day. While there were threats of attacks on theaters that showed the film, no major incidents were reported.
Posted on: Sat, 27 Dec 2014 09:21:58 +0000
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