The Sony Hack And Waiting For The President To Make A Decision
[guest post by Dana]
While President Obama is claiming that the Sony hack is not an act of war, but rather
“an act of cyber vandalism that was very costly, very expensive,”
John McCain disagrees, believing this new warfare to be something far more serious:
While this cyberattack is notable for how much it took place in public view, the offensive use of cyber-weapons is far from new. Sony is, in fact, just the latest victim in a recent, escalating spate of such attacks aimed at undermining our economic and national security interests.
Examples are numerous, and the damage to our economic and national interests has been severe. Our financial institutions have been repeatedly targeted by criminal enterprises acting with impunity and at the direction of countries like Russia and Iran, according to news reports.
The theft of intellectual property through cyber-espionage has been called “the greatest transfer of wealth in history,” and cyber-crime and espionage reportedly cost the global economy $445 billion annually. Recent reports have, moreover, confirmed that our nation’s energy grid is critically vulnerable.
This morning, Representative Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, made the following assertion on Fox News:
“Our intelligence services, the folks who would be responsible for at least the first wave of trying to make sure they don’t have the capability to do this again, were ready, they have the capability, they were ready to go. The problem here was not the fact that we didn’t have the capability to do something nearly in immediate time, we just didn’t get a decision from the president of the United States.”
–Dana
Hello.
Dana (8e74ce) — 12/21/2014 @ 8:44 amAs per usual, our Hamlet in the White House hasn’t yet quite decided.
Patricia (5fc097) — 12/21/2014 @ 8:47 amI heard on Face the Nation, the bank accounts important to North Korea are someone more concealed than they were in 2005, but what was done then could still be done.
Also heard that when it come to a cyber-counterattack, if anything was done, techniques (that you might want to reserve for a more important crisis with China?) could be revealed.
Sammy Finkelman (6a57b5) — 12/21/2014 @ 8:56 amThis is the President playing ping pong. He just stands there watching the balls fly by. as his opponent scores points.
felipe (40f0f0) — 12/21/2014 @ 9:04 amHow can I hurt America and sell it with a sanctimonius, false choice?
I’ll deal with it after Sportscenter.
DNF (d52fb5) — 12/21/2014 @ 9:11 amActually, the prez prolly thinks he’s playing quidditch, where, while points are scored, the game can be won by catching the snitch. All the genders love quidditch!
felipe (40f0f0) — 12/21/2014 @ 9:18 amquidditch!
felipe (40f0f0) — 12/21/2014 @ 9:21 amTo paraphrase the great Donald Rumsfeld, you go to war with the Commander-in-Chief you have. This is not a President I want to go to war with. We’ve played footsie with North Korea for a very long time; we can wait another 25 months to respond. The less this president does, in all spheres foreign and domestic, the better.
“I’ll deal with it after Sportscenter.”
Very good, DNF.
ThOR (130453) — 12/21/2014 @ 9:21 am“..we didn’t get a decision from (Mr. Resolute/Let me be perfectly clear)…”
Yeah, that pretty much sums up this administration.
askeptic (efcf22) — 12/21/2014 @ 9:26 amIf ValJar can’t make up her mind, nothing happens.
well looky there
meghan’s opportunistic coward daddy is opportunistic
happyfeet (831175) — 12/21/2014 @ 9:53 amI still am not convinced the North Koreans did it.
What’s the basis for the assertion, other than the demand to pull “Interview”–which requires no intimate knowledge known only to North Koreans that they’d find it offensive.
Where did they acquire the knowledge of modern security systems? Where are their hackers trained?
You can’t just “hack” stuff from outside with no knowledge of how it works. People who hack are people who are continuously involved in software and security development and have been for years. Where would North Korea get these people? They can’t generate them internally.
Gabriel Hanna (dcffe4) — 12/21/2014 @ 10:06 amGabriel Hanna,
According to this report, Jang Se-yul, who defected from NK 7 years ago, and attended North Korea’s military college for computer science, the University of Automation, and worked in information services for the government before defecting, claims that NK’s Bureau 121 is buried in cyber warfare and that there approximately 1,800 “cyber warriors” stationed throughout the world. South Korea blames the agency for cyber attacks they’ve had recently. Further, the country depended on the image we have of NK as a backwards outpost:
Dana (8e74ce) — 12/21/2014 @ 10:23 amOne morning, Americans will arise, reach over to turn on the bed-stand lamp, and nothing will happen.
askeptic (efcf22) — 12/21/2014 @ 10:52 amAt that point, they MAY realize that the cyber-war is real.
Gabriel Hanna (dcffe4) — 12/21/2014 @ 10:06 am
Russia and China.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/20/inside-the-surprisingly-great-north-korean-hacker-hotel.html
Russia and China are beleived not to do this training for free.
How does North Korea pay for it?
They are actually believed to be based in the 16-story Chilbosan Hotel in Shenyang, China. This hotel is also available to tourists.
Now it is very possible that the ideas come from China (and also Russia) and North Korea is kind of being used to test things out.
Sammy Finkelman (1b38fa) — 12/21/2014 @ 11:06 amI imagine the private sector is not sitting back and waiting for the feds to deal with this, though obviously the feds would have more resources in finances, infrastructure, and legal standing.
I’m thinking some people in cyber security are starting to look like the tech version of Blackwater, perhaps a separate private company being funded by many different clients, all interested in someone other than the bad guys having the last say.
But that also is a setting for moles and betrayal I guess.
“24” had this one season, the bad guys hacking into the FAA tracking system and making airplanes crash into each other with false instructions.
In my little understanding, I’m guessing the only safe thing is to take a lot of things off line, and allow any communication to not be in real time but be put into some kind of “electronic quarantine” that was actually physically quarantined from the system as well. Some equivalent of taking down the information in an isolated flash drive, running it through who knows what before it is even put into contact with a system.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/21/2014 @ 11:11 amAt the bank I go to in Philly, the doors are set so that only one person at a time can be going either in or out.
I despise The North Korean munchkin because he’s going to force me to sit through a Seth Rogan movie.
Jo Jo Checking In (deb449) — 12/21/2014 @ 11:17 amDoc, jewelry stores, and gun-shops, use the same system if they have the space and resources.
askeptic (efcf22) — 12/21/2014 @ 11:25 amFWIW, here is another example of cyber-terrorism directed at a U. S. company. It has been hidden for almost a year and is just now becoming public. It too has been very destructive.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-12-11/iranian-hackers-hit-sheldon-adelsons-sands-casino-in-las-vegas#p5
Hangtown Bob (352813) — 12/21/2014 @ 12:20 pmBarry the Dimwitted has already come out with his patented “they acted stupidly” schtick, where he said that Sony should have talked to him first, only to have it announced shortly thereafter that Sony HAD been in touch with “senior advisers” in the Racist House, only to have them apparently offer no help with the problem.
Our First Whiner wants extra credit for having the dog eat his homew*rk.
redc1c4 (a6e73d) — 12/21/2014 @ 12:26 pmI believe this cyberattack is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions because it is a willful, unnecessary taking of property. Alternatively, it is an act of terror.
But my gut says Obama won’t say that because his buddies, Sony CEO Michael Lynton and his Obama fundraiser wife Jamie, would be hurt by calling this an act of war. It could mean Sony America couldn’t recover on the insurance policy covering this film, because most insurance policies have provisions excluding recovery for acts of war. If so, this is another example of Obama’s commitment to crony capitalism, even if it means America suffers.
In addition, we learned at Fort Hood that Obama can’t bring himself to admit terror attacks occur on his watch, which is another reason he won’t call this terrorism and explains why he wouldn’t let the CIA, military, or national security people respond.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 12/21/2014 @ 12:32 pmwhen you remember that Obola aids, abets and supports anything that is bad for America, and opposes anything that’s potentially good for it, everything he does makes sense DRJ.
redc1c4 (a6e73d) — 12/21/2014 @ 12:38 pmDRJ, ditto and amen.
People forget that the Korean War started five months after — and by some accounts, in large part because of — U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson’s delivery of a speech before the National Press Club in which he failed to mention the Korean peninsula as part of America’s international strategic defense perimeter. The North Koreans thought that since they weren’t specifically mentioned as a threat, nor the fledgling South Korean government as something the U.S. would protect, the U.S. wouldn’t reinforce the collapsing South Korean forces. Until the Pusan perimeter stabilized, it looked entirely likely that the tiny American force there would be driven off or captured, with the North simply swallowing the South. It was an extremely close-run thing, the first see-saw in an ugly war that featured several more.
But Truman at least had the guts to take a stand. South Korea exists today as a result.
If the North Koreans once again come to the same conclusion — that American won’t fight, almost no matter what — might they actually be correct this time, given who’s currently sitting at the same desk in the Oval Office where Truman sat in 1950? It’s the desk made from the timbers of the HMS Resolute, used by many presidents, but never by one so undeserving of that label.
Beldar (fa637a) — 12/21/2014 @ 12:53 pmThe Sony Situation And Waiting For The Hack In The White House To Make A Decision
FTFY
C. S. P. Schofield (848299) — 12/21/2014 @ 2:03 pmMeanwhile, “U.S. Approaches China in Effort to Respond to North Korean Hacking,” reads the headline, with the sub-head of “Communications With Chinese Officials Seek Beijing’s Intervention.”
Obama is asking the Chinese for help. If he actually had the education his credentials suggest, he’d know that Sun Tzu’s maxim will dictate the current Chinese government’s response: Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”
The Chinese will do that which, if anything, they see in their interest. The notion that we can ask them, this publically, for any meaningful assistance? That’s a high school freshman’s notion of international diplomacy.
Beldar (fa637a) — 12/21/2014 @ 2:14 pmIn one of the early courtroom scenes of the film “A Few Good Men,” Demni Moore, as a defense lawyer in a court martial, had just had her objection to some terribly damaging testimony overruled by the presiding judge. She insist on re-urging her objection, this time telling the judge that she really strenuously objected. The judge was not impressed, nor persuaded in a favorable direction.
Barack Obama thinks our diplomatic options here range from making a speech in which he objects, to making a speech in which he strenuously objects. Or asks the Chinese for help.
Beldar (fa637a) — 12/21/2014 @ 2:19 pmFurther, the U.S. will no doubt want to make sure the response, while hard-hitting, isn’t so hard that Kim Jong Un will be shamed publicly and thus be compelled to retaliate for losing face.
Dana (8e74ce) — 12/21/2014 @ 2:22 pmGood point, Dana, unless we are prepared for some fireworks.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/21/2014 @ 2:26 pm#24… it’s Dhimmi Moore, Beldar… get it right!!!
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 12/21/2014 @ 2:48 pmI blush.
Beldar (fa637a) — 12/21/2014 @ 3:03 pmI’ve been saying since 2010 that there’d be a price to pay for letting the NORKs get away with murder when they sank the Cheonan.
After the FP team of Obama/Clinton/Rice got gang raped at the UN security council (there’s your story, Rolling Stone, not UVA) abd tried to put a happy face on the s#@! sandwich they all took big bites out of, what was Li’l Kim supposed to think?
This administration just let the country get screwed by dwarves wearing sand paper condoms. And professed to like it.
Natch, the NORKs came back for more.
The interesting thing will be to see what if anything Prom Queen does about it. Because the ROKs will be watching to see if this administration values a movie release more than the lives of their Sailors. As will everybody else reevaluating whether a security agreement with this country is worth more than toilet paper.
And you can’t blame King Putt for that. He didn’t vote himself into office (Not that the Dem Machine isn’t good at that).
Steve57 (98542d) — 12/21/2014 @ 3:11 pmabd = and
Steve57 (98542d) — 12/21/2014 @ 3:12 pmBeldar, good to see you posting and as always, directly on point!
Bill M (906260) — 12/21/2014 @ 6:19 pmImagine a scene in which this hack had been traced to Israel instead of NorK.
Cruise missiles would already be flying.
bobby b (cb44ec) — 12/21/2014 @ 6:23 pmWhat slogans for a cyber-war? “No bytes for pixels”? “Obama lied, screens died”? “They’ll take away my McAffee when they pry it from my cold, dead hard-drive”? “Loose USBs sink downloads”? “War is hack”? “No terms of use except an unconditional and immediate reboot”?
nk (dbc370) — 12/21/2014 @ 6:48 pmBeldar (fa637a) — 12/21/2014 @ 2:14 pm
Juan Williams was trying to sell the Chinese connection on FoxNewsSunday for all he was worth –
askeptic (efcf22) — 12/21/2014 @ 11:11 pmhe is a reliable WH shill.
Steve57 (98542d) — 12/21/2014 @ 3:11 pm
The Norks have been getting away with murder since the Pueblo.
askeptic (efcf22) — 12/21/2014 @ 11:13 pmTwo things.
1. The throw-out (un-sourced, un-cquoted, an unconfirmed narrative) is that North Korean ninjas “stole” the security passwords of “a” systems administrator at Sony. Well, the ways to have a double verify for entry into a system are numerous, date back to the Cold War in all the movies I’ve seen, and are so easy to implement even the military could do it. Don’t panic, we know how to lock the door. Actually, this could be a teaching moment, “Darn it, turn the deadbolt, too!”
2. I hope nobody is suggesting that we should do anything that could lead to shots being fired over this. Unless it’s Hollywood big shots (who get fired).
nk who watches old movies (dbc370) — 12/22/2014 @ 3:14 am“I hope nobody is suggesting that we should do anything that could lead to shots being fired over this.”
Where IS the line?
If it does turn out that this hack was the product of the NorK government, do we simply say “this only affected one private company and so is none of our collective business”?
Or even “this only affected the privacy and security of several thousand employees of one private business and so is none of our collective business.”?
How about if the NorK government caused one small private plane to crash in Texas? Still none of our business?
How about a small nuclear weapon detonated in Miami? Wouldn’t affect me up here in Minnesota at all. So, none of our collective business?
I think this line is complex and amorphous, and doesn’t lend itself at all to facile “well, of COURSE this is none of OUR business” lines.
bobby b (cb44ec) — 12/22/2014 @ 3:26 amDon’t let me stand in your way, bobby b. http://www.goarmy.com/locate-a-recruiter.html
nk (dbc370) — 12/22/2014 @ 4:01 amHere’s a radical idea. Maybe we could tighten border security and not issue temporary work visas to Koreans (or Chinese) with computer skills, as if they were dollar bills printed by treasury to keep up with the Fed.
papertiger (c2d6da) — 12/22/2014 @ 6:04 amBeen there, done that, have offspring there now. Doubt you ever could stand in my way, nk.
But I’d not recommend sending boots over when exec-targeting options can be run from comfy chairs in San Diego.
bobby b (cb44ec) — 12/22/2014 @ 6:04 amThey’re already there, hero. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Forces_Korea#Components
nk (dbc370) — 12/22/2014 @ 6:35 amStrange you didn’t know that, that we have real live American soldiers in range of North Korean artillery.
nk (dbc370) — 12/22/2014 @ 6:41 amHigh ranking defectors have been warning us of the NORK’s cyberwar capabilities for years now. And this Sony hack isn’t the first sign of that capability.
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence/2013/03/29/south-koreas-darkseoul-attack-highlights-challenges-for-cybersecurity
http://www.northkoreatech.org/tag/darkseoul/
http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/four-years-darkseoul-cyberattacks-against-south-korea-continue-anniversary-korean-war
Steve57 (98542d) — 12/22/2014 @ 6:55 amit seems it’s appeasement week:
http://babalublog.com/2014/12/22/first-fruits-of-obamas-appeasement-to-cubas-dictatorship-casstro-military-sinks-boat-carrying-32-cubans-trying-to-escape-island/
narciso (ee1f88) — 12/22/2014 @ 6:58 amThe NORKs siezed the Pueblo during the “Second Korean War.” Back when guys in the 2nd ID were getting combat pay for patrolling the DMZ.
Point being, the Johnson administration didn’t deny that the NORKs were committing acts of war, and Johnson responded with force. He sent something like six carriers to the region.
Unlike Prom Queen, who turned to that figment of his imagination, the “international community,” and got a weak-azz statement that didn’t even identify the NORKs as the attackers who sank the Cheonan.
I don’t know about you, but I could hear the howls of laughter all the way from Moscow and Beijing as Preezy Miley Cyrus and SecState Hillary! declared that victory. They made Neville Chamberlain look like a tough, hard-nosed negotiator.
After getting passed around the UN Security Council chamber like a Playboy Bunny at a Bill Cosby impersonator convention, President Ditherington Wiggleroom McMomJeans was going to send one Carrier Strike Group south of the ROK to conduct an exercise to show “solidarity” or something, but they cancelled the exercise when the CHICOMs complained.
You know how if you get taken for everything you’ve got at a casino they’ll at least send you home with a bus ticket and the clothes on your back? The CHICOMs wouldn’t even let President Kardashian leave with even that much dignity.
Is it any wonder that li’l Kim and his frat buddies from the computer science department brought a keg when they decided this time around they’d party at President Mean Girl’s place, and told him to start making them some sammiches?
Steve57 (98542d) — 12/22/2014 @ 7:27 amnarciso, every week has been appeasement week since January 2009.
Steve57 (98542d) — 12/22/2014 @ 7:27 am“Strange you didn’t know that, that we have real live American soldiers in range of North Korean artillery.”
You’re a blowhard, sir. Any other web sites you want to show me to prove your manhood?
bobby b (cb44ec) — 12/22/2014 @ 7:29 amwhoever was behind it, it’s an act of cyberextortion, not vandalism, words don’t mean anything anymore,
narciso (ee1f88) — 12/22/2014 @ 7:33 amYou mean words like “tax” versus “penalty,” for example?
It’s only your white privilege, narciso, that leads you to believe that you can impose your meanings onto words that a black man chooses to use.
Steve57 (98542d) — 12/22/2014 @ 7:43 am‘I apologize unreservedly’ and he was talking to Candy Crowley, so ignore it completely.
narciso (ee1f88) — 12/22/2014 @ 7:48 amWhen you’ve lost Variety:
http://hotair.com/archives/2014/12/22/variety-obama-threw-gasoline-on-the-sony-fire/
you wonder why they were on your side in the first place.
narciso (ee1f88) — 12/22/2014 @ 7:57 amYou’re a blowhard, sir. Any other web sites you want to show me to prove your manhood?
Demented internet personality, claiming to be a vet with “offspring” in the military but not knowing that we have 28,000 troops in harm’s way in South Korea, thinks we could and should launch cruise missiles from comfy chairs in San Diego against North Korea for their possible complicity in the hacking of a Japanese movie studio’s computer, and calls me a blowhard for calling out its demented ignorance. Ok, then.
nk (dbc370) — 12/22/2014 @ 7:59 amI suppose this is as appropriate here as anywhere else, since it’s in keeping with the spirit of bashing Preezy Justin Bieber exactly as much as he deserves for studiously refusing to recognize an act of war when somebody commits one. Or a dozen. Ace linked to this in last night’s ONT. I’d like to direct your attention to these excerpts:
http://www.warriorlodge.com/blogs/news/16298760-a-french-soldiers-view-of-us-soldiers-in-afghanistan
The author notes he isn’t just talking about American special forces. All US forces respond this way.
Which reminds me of that act of war committed at Benghazi, and how Prom Queen told his gang of sycophants to respond publicly. With mucho stupidity (no link to the article at Blackfive as the spelling would get this caught up in the filter; just search on the title if you’re interested).
Of course, Panetta was full of Gruber*. Anybody who ever served, or anybody who has ever observed the US military in operation knows what he was saying was 180 dg out from reality. Doctrine is the exact opposite. But his Gruber sounded good to the members of the freshman dorm presidency and the kind of journalists who’d be fooled by the UVA gang rape story (the only kind there is) so they went with it.
The bottom line is that somebody would have had to order the military not to respond. And while everyone is hanging their hat on that House Intel Committee report as if it absolved the administration (it didn’t, not even in the areas it investigated), the House Intel Committee doesn’t have the jurisdiction to look into what was going on at DoD in terms of moving forces around. Nor do they have the jurisdiction to look into why this administration had to avoid preparing for an attack on the anniversary of 9/11. That’s the only way despite having a ton of s*** in the inventory along the northern coastline of the Mediterranean nothing was in a readiness status to react to an act of war on the southern coast of the Mediterranean.
*Gruber (verb): 1. Lying badly; lying so badly your lies are unbelievable; not fooling anyone, but the liar fools himself into thinking he’s lying effectively because everybody already in their echo chamber repeats those lies as if their messiah carved them in stone on Mt. Sinai. [The liar falsely believes he’s smarter than everyone else, when in fact he’s too stupid to realize that the people in his echo chamber had already been duped long before he showed up. And since the liar is stupid enough to think the idiots in his echo chamber are the smartest people in the world, the liar thinks he’s sucked everyone in with his lies.]
2. Bragging about lying badly; having talked your way into trouble because you’re a piss poor liar, remaining convinced that you’re such a clever bastard you can talk your way out; explaining your lies publicly, in recorded presentations, with sufficient specificity it can be shown that when you later tried to talk your way out of trouble you continued to lie only now under oath.
Gruber (noun): 1. Excrement.
Steve57 (98542d) — 12/22/2014 @ 8:27 amIt did require specific orders because they would have to cross an international border. Not so maybe for the CIA people there – Mike Rogers seems to have accepted the official CIA explanation – nobody i Washington gave anybody any “orders” to stand down, and the officials in Bengazi, like “Bob” were only calculating how best to respond.
Sammy Finkelman (1b38fa) — 12/22/2014 @ 12:24 pmRight now policy seems to be mainly to hope for co-operation from China.
Sammy Finkelman (1b38fa) — 12/22/2014 @ 12:25 pmwhat was President Wiggleroom’s “proportional response” to the sinking of South Korea’s corsair Cheonan?
President Obama sent condolences to the ROK president on the deaths of the 46 ROK sailors. The United States also cooperated with the salvage operation and the forensics of determining the cause of the sinking.
MomJeans was so hoping it would turn out Poseidon did it with the Kracken.
Keep that in mind while interpreting what President Pushover meant by “proportional response” to the Sony hack means.
I have a feeling after a cursory glance the office of the Surrender Monkey will determine the Sony hack as an act of employee theft.
papertiger (c2d6da) — 12/22/2014 @ 1:04 pmcondolences to the ROK president on the deaths of the 46 ROK sailors
Love, Obama.
P.S. Do you feel better now?
papertiger (c2d6da) — 12/22/2014 @ 1:08 pmSammy Finkelman (1b38fa) — 12/22/2014 @ 12:24 pm
sammy, do you really think the average GI, or CIA operative/contractor gives a $hit about “international borders” when the lives of fellows are at stake?
askeptic (efcf22) — 12/22/2014 @ 1:17 pmPlease, go back to the bus-stop and read your Times.