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A cop. We couldn't get much worse. But if they could, they would.
Bon dilly bon for the best, expect the worst. I hope that's understood. Bon dilly bon!
And a very good evening to everybody. The program is Off the Hook. Emmanuel Goldstein
here with you, joined tonight by Mike. Good evening. Rob T. Firefly. Good
evening. Alex. Good evening. Welcome back. Thank you. And Bernie S. Greetings from
Philadelphia. You know, I had something planned for the beginning of the show.
We're gonna get into the whole Sony thing, don't worry about that. But I had
something planned, a little featurette, if you will. But I just, I got to the point
where I was ready to dial the number and then I realized we don't have the
ability to do something that everybody else has the ability to do. At least I
don't think so. You guys mind if I try this live on the air, even though it
probably won't work? Go for it. All right. Because we are all about
demonstrations. Here's a dial tone. Now we're gonna get an external dial tone.
And I'm gonna dial star six seven to block our number. But I don't think we
can do that. And then I'm gonna dial a number that I was going to call to
demonstrate a ridiculous feature that I just learned about. Let's see if it works.
Probably won't though. Probably just get silence. Yeah, like we're getting right
now is silence. But at least I didn't disconnect anybody. Usually that happens.
Okay, so I'll just tell you what the feature is, since it's not going to work.
Why can't we dial star six seven? There's no way for us to block our number. Do you
realize that? That's just not right. Okay, so the feature, I discovered this because
our colleague Kyle just got a new number out in Washington State. When I called
that number, I was calling from a block line. A line where all numbers going out
are blocked. Your number is never transmitted. And I got a recording saying
the person you're calling does not wish to receive blocked calls. Press one to
unblock your number for this call only. Which I thought was interesting right
there. Because when you dial star six seven or have your your number by
default blocking, you assume that it's blocked from the point of origin. But
they can unblock it after you make the call. I kind of knew that was possible.
But I never actually heard it as a feature. The second feature though, press
two to enter your phone number. And you can enter any phone number you want. What
is the point? You're calling somebody who doesn't want to get anonymous phone
calls. You're blocking your number and they tell you you can't do this. What's
your phone number? And we're gonna trust anything you tell us. This is a
boon for stalkers and abusive husbands and who knows who else that needs to get
through to a blocked number. To a number that doesn't take blocked calls without
revealing their phone number. Emanuel? Yes. This may run afoul of the New
Jersey state bill that's pending that would criminalize caller ID spoofing
more stringently than the federal regulations do. So Verizon may be
unwittingly violating state law pretty soon. Yeah but who said anything about
Verizon? This is in Washington State. Oh you're in Washington State right now?
Yeah. I thought you were in New Jersey. I'm not in Washington State. I'm in Harlem.
No. Listen the phone number is in Washington State. I called the phone
number in Washington State and that's the message I got. Yes but you're calling
from... okay so you'd be... I understand you'd be going through Washington State.
I'd be ending up in Washington State. This is not that complicated. Yeah this is really a
simple concept. It's a phone call. It's a phone call to Washington. I don't know if
other states have this. This is the only time I've ever heard this feature and
we've already spent way too much time on it. But I just never heard of that before
and I've been playing with phones for a long long time and that just seems like
a really stupid move by the phone company to allow somebody to basically
have a spoof card without having a spoof card. Does it even count as spoofing?
Like if this New Jersey law passed and none of us know the answer but could you
possibly be convicted under this law for you know following the prompts that the
person you call gives you? Well I don't know. The New Jersey law basically that's
supposed to stop stalkers even though we know it won't but it's basically saying
that you won't be allowed to do things like spoof your number through spoof
card or I imagine other services. It's just kind of weird when the phone
company itself is offering you that service after you've made the phone call.
Now I haven't heard or seen the display when the call does go through. Maybe it
says this is the number the person gave and this is the number he's actually
calling from. I don't know where they get the extra line to do that but it just
seems like a really silly feature. You know back in the old days of phone
phreaking about a hundred years ago in the 1990s there was a little trick
called op diverting or operator diverting where you would get your you
would make your way to an operator that for some reason or another didn't have
access to the number your call was originating from. The operator would ask
you as he or she were putting your call through you know what number you're
dialing from you could tell them anything and that would come up as the
as the calling number on the other end. And the trick you're talking about seems
to be just sort of an automated way to to do that. But it's it's kind of
interesting because nowadays we really. Hang on I got it. Okay for some reason
I'm not getting a speaker on this phone.
It's going to repeat. The number you are calling does not accept unidentified
calls. If you are a solicitor please hang up now. To automatically unblock
your name and number for this call only and complete the call press 1. To enter
the telephone number you are calling from press 2. Okay I'm gonna do that I'm
using my cell phone now by the way that's that's how I got around the BIFRM
restriction. Okay I don't know if something changed or if I maybe I took
too long to hit the number but the last time I did this it allowed me to enter a
number. I'm not gonna keep trying though. I have to say I love the fact that it
tells you if you're a solicitor to hang up because that having just come back
from England that could be slightly misinterpreted. There's obviously
solicitors there are lawyers. Maybe that's what's designed. I think that's a
good feature. Possibly. Maybe it is. Maybe it's directed towards English lawyers. Yeah I
thought I hung this thing up. I can't hang up. Wow this is I hit end call but
it didn't end the call. Hitting it again. Okay it's gone. It really wants to know
where you are. Yeah it's getting scary now. All right so other things that have
been going on in the in the world. We'll get to Sony. We are gonna get to Sony. So
we talked about the New Jersey bill. Did we talk about the Pirate Bay being sort
of back again? There was there wasn't any development to see yet. There were fake
sites that were purporting to be the Pirate Bay but now thanks to ISO hunt
which is another torrent tracking site that's well known they they managed to
get hold of an archive of the Pirate Bay as it stood and have been and basically
started it up again. They're allowing new content and for all intents and
purposes the the Pirate Bay is back up. That's at oldpiratebay.org. Oldpiratebay.org
Oldpiratebay.org. All one word. And yeah there are still a bunch of
sites up there. New ones popping up now with the old Pirate Bay name that that
are scams of one type or another. But oldpiratebay.org does now seem to be a
mirror of the Pirate Bay that's being brought back to life by ISO hunt. Now is
this something that the original Pirate Bay people are endorsing or condemning?
I don't think I don't think they've endorsed it at all. The one the one I
know last week we mentioned that the one Pirate Bay founder who is not in prison
I think his name is Peter Sund had posted a blog post about how he thought
the Pirate Bay had you know done what it should and should not be brought back. So
so I'm guessing I'm guessing the original Pirate Bay hasn't endorsed or
unendorsed this on any level since they haven't been around. They're still their
sites still down. So it'll be interesting to hear from them if we do what they
think about ISO hunt starting it up again. Now there's also a story that has
been circulating in the last day or so about a shadowy organization with ties
to the Koch brothers that was spearheading an anti net neutrality
form letter that tipped the scales against net neutrality proponents.
Basically they somehow were able to with this form letter make it seem as if most
people were against net neutrality. Didn't we discuss this some time ago? I
don't know if it's exactly the same thing but there was a tactic they use.
There was some announcement that they had suddenly discovered all these
letters to the FCC opposing net neutrality. What I'm wondering is how is
this different than signing a petition? It's basically you're not writing
anything unique. Did these letters actually come from people or did they
just generate a bunch of nonsense addresses? I mean either way it's the
technical implementation can't be very hard. I can write you a software in you
know an hour that if you type in your name and address will generate a letter
with the prefilled content. Well I mean this is what I would expect them
to do though. I expect them to do a mass campaign with form letters so I'm not
sure what people are surprised about or why this was effective as opposed to the
other side. Bernie did you have anything else on this? Not in this story.
Mike is right. We did talk about this a few weeks ago but this is new
information on that on that same story. It was basically right wing
grouper groups that were astroturfing the the FCC. It's a term for like fake
grassroots organizations with anti-net neutrality requests. And we shouldn't be
surprised but I think we played an audio clip of a right-wing
organization that was just bragging that they just totally spoofed the
system and so we win. They win. Well they don't win but they could win.
That was what they were saying if this is a plebiscite where the most votes win
then they win. So it's ludicrous but it's worth knowing that this kind of
astroturfing is going on against the FCC or against people through the FCC. What
are the arguments they use to convince ordinary humans that they should support
the cable companies in their quest to make it more expensive to watch networks? We've covered this
before. They basically say it's innovation. It's about innovation. It's about
competition. It's about getting the government off our backs. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was listening to Fox on the way in. I'm all riled up. It basically boils down to but if we if we have less money then we'll be innovating less and that would make us sad. But yeah. We like money. Hey there's a new technology that we're all going to become very familiar with in years ahead. I'd like to devote more time to this in a future show but I just wanted to give a glancing mention to it. It's basically smart cars. Not the kind I have but actual cars that
communicate with other cars and with a central headquarter. Could it be the government? Could it be the manufacturer? Who knows? It's called V2X. It's a shorthand for two related concepts. V2V is vehicle to vehicle communications and V2I is vehicle to infrastructure communications. Now V2V which is cars talking to other cars and that's really going to be kind of crazy when you think about it. It has obvious potential to improve traffic safety. Imagine if your car could warn the other drivers around you on the highway that you were about
to change lanes or planning to take the next exit. I don't know how it would read your mind but apparently that's in it in the technology as well. Those drivers or their smart cruise control systems because drivers apparently won't be driving anymore could help make make sure that they stayed out of your way or they could warn you to hang on a minute while the car in front of you makes its own moving into all kinds of V2V arguments I suppose and see who is dominant.
But the thing that's of concern here is that you could get speeding tickets. You could get a speeding ticket if you go one mile over the speed limit without even knowing it. Everywhere. Everywhere could be a speed trap. What do you guys think about that?
I have a proposed solution.
Yes.
Obey the speed limit at least occasionally.
OK. But how do you feel about the technology that penalizes you every time you don't?
I think that as a pedestrian that's great technology.
OK. Well as a pedestrian then how about jaywalking. How about every time you jaywalk you also get a ticket.
Who is harmed by my jaywalk.
Well it's not the point. It's about breaking the law Mike. It's about it's about following rules. That's how we live as a culture. And I find that we tend to want to penalize the people that break the rules that we don't agree with.
But when we break the rules we want we want to be left alone. And you know it's the same basic thing that we've been discussing with surveillance how you know surveillance for the cops. That's that's the solution.
And surveillance on people that's not the solution. I know cops are people but it's basically we're all pointing to the same kinds of technology to use against other people. And it winds up being used against all of us.
It's not only that there's there's the basic fundamental idea of the technology we use being being actively used against us being loaded with content code instructions whatever that we don't have control over.
You know my my game console wants me to only play games but in this country from approved vendors my you know if my car only you know if my car wants to be able to send messages I don't necessarily want it to send you know what's what are my rights regarding this.
You know I would be interested to find out what folks like our friends in the open auto project and things like that who have been looking into car computers as they exist now feel about feel about this development.
I mean I think there's an important difference between your game console and a car which is that if you abuse your game console you might be able to hurt yourself although it's not really clear if you abuse your automobile you might kill someone who's not in your automobile.
And so I think not to say that all uses of all technology are great in this regard but I think there is an important consideration that like your car is not just your car it's part of a car road system that all of us as a society share and so there's more need for rules in such a system than there is in in a in a game console and I don't think that's a crazy position to take I think Sony might disagree with you as far as the seriousness of game consoles and how how how much it can hurt.
We're not going to get into the game part of Sony and how they've been hacked but wow this story this story just will not stop.
Okay.
If you look at the headline of CNN right now it's unbelievable in big bold letters North Korea did it.
Apparently the government has has concluded that North Korea.
I find it kind of hard to believe but you know what if North Korea actually found out about this film which I didn't know anything about.
Did you guys know about the interview before this month.
I mean I know it is I know all kinds of things I have no interest in seeing this film except that you know well now I can't see I do have an interest now but and yeah they basically that little publicity stunt worked on me but North Korea found out about this film a long time ago I guess somebody probably told them hey by the way these idiots at Sony are gonna make a film a comedy about assassinating your your beloved leader.
And yeah they kind of reacted badly to that because it was very offensive and nasty to them.
If this is their response their response is to completely own Sony take them to their knees and embarrass them release films that aren't supposed to be released for months and basically make this the biggest disaster the company has ever faced.
All I have to say is well played.
I mean this is a hack like no other hack and considering North Korea is so cut off and their connectivity is not the best.
They they are doing their homework if that is true and I'm not sure it is.
I was listening on the way in.
You know there are a lot of things going on today we're talking about normalizing relations with Cuba.
There was this massacre of schoolchildren in Pakistan all kinds of like terrorist things going on.
But everybody's talking about this movie and whether or not people should feel safe going to theaters because somebody mentioned 9-11 and North Koreans are going to be attacking us on Christmas Day.
That is what everybody is freaking out about.
And it's just the whole thing is so ridiculously absurd that if I was a North Korean hacker right now I would I would be laughing harder than I've ever laughed in my life.
I'm laughing.
Are you laughing.
Are you a North Korean hacker.
Well I'm not in North Korea and I'm not a hacker but I still think it's funny.
But one thing to point out is that this is a truly a war between a nation state North Korea and Sony Corporation.
No people were physically harmed in this war.
Well how about the people whose private information was released physically.
Yes their financial stuff may be harmed but that was really I got to put the blame on Sony for that for not securing their employees information.
I mean there's no there's no way around it.
And apparently apparently some employees are taking them up.
They are holding them responsible.
I'm hearing reports of class action lawsuits being filed by ex Sony employees.
I'm not sure why it's not by current Sony employees against them for this grievous lack of security.
Bernie I'm a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to war.
This is not a war.
Well if you believe that just watch the mainstream media because they're talking about.
Well we can respond militarily to this now because you canceled a movie that is going to be playing in our theaters.
That is an attack on all of us.
And and you said 9-11 and that's a trigger word right there.
This I saying this I can imagine what Fox is saying but CNN is calling it an act of war.
And you know when you think about it you got to put it in perspective.
If you put out a comedy about assassinating your leader and you're a hostile foreign nation isn't that sort of an act of war right there.
You know. No.
Well it's more of an act of war than hacking.
They're equally not acts of war.
All right. I'll give you that.
I did not. I did not say it was worth it if this is a war.
And second of all we discussed many years ago in the show that the Department of Defense or whatever administration it was probably the W.S.
administration that there were new rules in place regarding what could under the U.S.
rules of engagement authorize or legitimize dropping bombs.
And a cyber attack like this was was on that list of acceptable things that could be responded with by bombs dropping.
So you know we could laugh at this but who knows where it's going to end.
Well before things really spiral out of control I just want to pass along the offer we made earlier today to Sony because if they're too afraid to
distribute the film we'll be happy to do it for them.
We might already have a copy.
In fact I'm not sure yet.
We have to go through a few terabytes of information.
But the point is if if if hackers are being blamed for this film not coming out I think hackers should prove that wrong and just basically
expose it to the world.
Let them decide how bad it is.
But man what a stupid idea in the first place to even make this thing.
But they made it.
So let's see how bad it is and let's condemn it for what it is.
I mean you guys think it should be shown at least.
Yeah I mean there there was there was a line in one of the notes that purportedly came from from the hackers saying well we'll all see how
terrible this movie by Sony is.
And you know they got what they want by not getting this movie released there.
The the release of the film which was I believe supposed to happen this week is now being pushed back.
No it's canceled.
They canceled the whole release.
Right.
There's supposed to be a an official release I think tomorrow in New York.
They had one in L.A. and everybody survived.
But it was supposed to be released on Christmas Day.
They've canceled that.
I don't know if they're ever going to release it.
Right.
But we already have a traditional mechanism in place to show how bad the movies these companies make are and that's the movie theaters.
So when we were protesting takedown way back the film about Kevin Mitnick we got it early.
We got it before they started shooting and we were outside the Miramax offices saying this is unfair.
And you know people were afraid then.
Hackers are targeting us.
They actually thought that we were going to do all kinds of horrible things.
And well we didn't.
Well we did sort of make the film have to change and it was a disaster as far as box office.
But it was it was a dialogue.
In this particular case there was no real dialogue.
They just went ahead and did this and they offended people a lot more powerful than us.
So it's it's it's definitely getting more and more interesting.
Yeah I still believe the antidote to bad speech is not censorship it's better speech.
But an attack like this obviously is not done by people who feel that way.
But the other side to the whole attack besides the film is the horrible security that Sony had.
The fact that they they basically had a wide open door that somebody could figure out how to get through and access all this information that had no business being stored in the clear.
I mean I'm not very familiar with with with corporate structures.
But do you guys think this is kind of like something that that maybe Bradley Manning era where all these documents are available to millions of people.
Do you think all of this information was available to many many people within Sony in the first place.
I think this information was possibly made available to people who didn't necessarily need it.
No one with a need to know basis would I would have access to every single thing in this that's been released in this massive hack so far.
But I think on a grander scale it's it's actually comparable to what happened a few months ago with with the celebrities who had photos of themselves getting out that they didn't want.
Because it's another case of people not people not being cognizant of how the security is in places where they leave this information and then suffering on a grand scale when when it gets out.
And I think every other studio all of Sony's competitors and now Sony themselves are completely clenching up possibly as a result of this adopting some better data practices you know doing things to prevent something like this happening to them.
And you know maybe maybe society will be richer for it.
I mean I'm not sure that making people more paranoid all the time is exactly the society we want to build.
I mean Sony I don't know anything about their corporate IT practices but they presumably have like some people who are at least moderately competent and failed to protect the data.
But you know if they lock everything down such that people you know it makes it harder to communicate across departments in such a company like that's bad that's bad for Sony as well.
So yeah there's there's limitations but I mean having having unreleased films available to download that's kind of stupid having salaries of people you have no business with available to to peruse.
We've seen this all before.
I mean all year long we've been hearing reports of corporate America not learning their lessons very basic lessons on security security of customer security of employees security of their basic operating systems so that they can't be manipulated and and and infiltrated.
They don't seem to be learning.
I don't see how after this it can be ignored any longer.
I think you're absolutely right.
And I think another corollary of this is that people are going to be thinking long and hard about how they write emails and how long they're stored.
And there are I think a couple of points to make here with regard to Sony security and one of which is documents are one thing documents on a major document management system like SharePoint can generally be accessed by probably more people than likely have a need to know as Rob had mentioned.
But the fact that all of these emails have been exfiltrated terabytes of emails implies to me that they didn't have a document retention policy that they were probably following the document retention policy is going to say something like after six months all of our emails are purged or they're put on backup tapes and held for two years and then destroyed.
Here we've got Sony holding onto these things for what appeared to be an indefinite period of time terabytes of this information that had then been exfiltrated.
And last week when I wasn't here you guys discussed whether or not this could be done via a regular broadband connection.
And I discussed this with a couple information security colleagues of mine and I thought this indicated to me that this is probably an inside job.
They knew where this this data was and they probably just walked out with it.
But given the speeds that we have today I mean think about going back to hope how fast the network connection there was and hey maybe there's a connection between you know July and you know when when when when I mean I want to say you're lying here.
I'll go propter hawk right logical fallacy who knows.
But but I do think over a certain period of time all that data could be exfiltrated so companies are going to be really thinking long and hard about what they put in writing and how long it's stored.
So you think someone may have gone in there with a Lady Gaga disc and copied it all and walked out.
You know it's happened before.
I mean go ahead Bernie.
Then I just want to ask sort of a legal question of the Alex.
Thanks.
Hey Alex.
Thanks.
Thanks for coming back to the show for a little bit.
We we have an analogy I think in the Fair Credit Reporting Act where I hurt me if I'm wrong but I think it provides for a fine and a civil civil liability
for any consumer reporting agency that report something wrong and doesn't correct it or report something that like an expired debt.
And US citizens have a can can can successfully get to get compensated when their information is put out or wrong information is put out of them.
Do you think you think it's time for some federal legislation as much as I cringe at the more federal legislation.
But in this case it sounds like maybe a law would be a good idea that would that would provide a penalty for any any company that allows private
information of their employees to escape their corporate walls.
Does that make sense.
You know Bernie it's a very interesting point you raise here because essentially the law under which the three sets of class action plaintiffs are suing
Sony currently is actual the federal law that allows class actions to be brought in federal court.
And when you look at the complaint the complaint is actually a cause of action for negligence.
And it's exactly what you were talking about before that you know they have a duty to safeguard this personal information.
The PII the personal identifying information of its employees and former employees and its colleagues and third parties.
And that's a legal duty to safeguard that they breach that duty and the breach of that duty is the proximate cause of these people's damages.
And so I would say I don't know if we need more laws but I think we need to think about applying the common law that we already have on the books something like
negligence in a more technological context.
And we're seeing that done right now and I think it's I think it's going to be interesting to see how this plays out.
Well one very interesting development over the past week has been one of the reactions from Sony where they're demanding that journalists not report on the
leaked information.
It's kind of interesting because every day it's sort of like the Edward Snowden leaks except you're seeing what a particular film executive said about
some actor someplace and it's being released as if they were national secrets.
I couldn't care less but it's it's it's it shows to me how how Sony just doesn't get it.
They don't get a lot of things but they really don't get what what free press is all about.
For one thing you can't just tell the press not to report on something that's been released.
I mean that's you know maybe North Korea you can do that but not not in a supposedly free press.
Well you can absolutely tell the press not to report anything you want.
They just don't have to listen.
And Sony's lawyers have to be smart enough to understand that distinction.
They they must be.
But let's let's look at this from a more moral perspective.
So we have all this private information that's now gotten out.
We have e-mails about people saying nasty things about other people.
Is this the kind of thing that that should be printed should be spread around or should we take the high road and just say that's private.
We shouldn't even judge somebody on what they said.
Well the law says that if a journalist is in possession of stolen information so long as they acquired that information by legal means it was
given to them they didn't steal it themselves.
They can publish it so long as it's newsworthy.
So you've really hit the issue on the head here.
And what we're dealing with in some of these leaks I would I would submit is in fact newsworthy when you have high level executives banding around
racial slurs about the president.
I think that's interesting when you have pay disparities between genders being reported.
That I think is quite newsworthy whether or not a script being released out into the public you know the new James Bond scepter script.
I I don't know if that's newsworthy that may border on being a trade secret.
And this is what I think the letter from Sony's counsel is actually the intent of it.
And the attorney is actually David Boies who's a very prominent attorney.
Most people will remember him as the lawyer who represented Al Gore in Bush v.
Gore.
And he actually also represented Napster when they were being sued for copyright infringement as well.
So very very smart guy is here in Manhattan.
Boies Schiller is his law firm.
But the intent of this letter some people are reporting is that it's putting it's to put the media outlets on notice that this information contains our trade secrets.
And if you publish these trade secrets or if you publish information that interferes with our contracts with third parties then we're going to sue you later on.
It's basically putting them on notice that they're watching them.
That's what I think the intent of it is.
I think it may have a chilling effect on some some media agencies but those media agencies probably just need to grow bigger spines or something like that.
Well the way Sony has has reacted is very spine less I think.
I mean if I were Sony right now and God what a nightmare that would be if I were Sony I would not back down.
I would I would say OK you know what you got us but we're releasing the damn film and it doesn't matter who threatens us.
And instead they're just saying OK you know we're worried about liability worried about if if we're told there's going to be a 9-11 attack in every theater in America or whatever there they think is going to happen if they show this film.
What does that say for the future.
Every time somebody is upset with something they do they're going to have to be intimidated by it.
The film is probably really awful.
It probably should never have been made but it has been made.
It's out there and they should back it up.
That's that's what they're there for.
And they're showing just how how spineless they actually are.
Well and they're losing money.
I mean I was listening to the show last week when Mike you brought up the issue of you know whether this could be a you know a very well placed publicity stunt.
And I think it's absolutely reasonable to think about it in those terms.
But now when they've actually yanked the film which I believe they were thinking they were going to rake in you know 90 million dollars in that first weekend alone.
You know this is it.
They're taking a gigantic hit here and they're doing so.
I think too.
Well who knows why really.
But you know it's really about I think the preservation of their reputation.
And what I don't get is why isn't this film among the films that was was packed was was found on their servers.
Was it deliberately deleted or did they some for some reason not even have it on their own system.
Well if it's the goal of the people who did this to not let that movie get out then they're not going to put it out with their own with their own trophies from from this hack.
Oh that's censorship.
We have to fight that.
We have to fight that.
I would agree.
So if anyone has a copy of the interview please email us OTH at 2600 dot com.
Maybe we can take over Times Square New Year's and show it on the big screen just to show that hackers are coming from all different directions on this Mike.
Our friend and colleague Jones writes to report that it is not Sony's decision not to release it or at least not entirely but also the theaters who fear something unclear.
Well OK fine.
So a certain theater chain isn't going to show.
And by the way Jones you should not be texting and driving.
All right.
He's driving on his way driving.
Well it has it has to get here.
He's driving right now I think.
I don't know how long does it take.
All right we're not going to get into this tune to another station to find out what the traffic is.
But yeah it's it's the theater chain but another theater chain could easily show it or they could simply release it on mass.
What I would do if I were Sony other than drink a lot is is basically just release it for free on Christmas Day.
I'd say here you go America.
Here's here's your second 9-11 for you you know and and see what happens.
I think it's pretty clear that no one is ever going to put you in charge of Sony.
No no.
But you know what.
And honestly they would not be in any worse shape if someone did.
So that's saying a lot about their current management.
But going back to this this spineless comment you meant that you just mentioned it.
Have I already been sued for that.
Not yet.
Not yet.
I'm bitter because Sony did sue us.
And you know that's true.
I'm kind of like relishing.
I said we'd we'd you know we'd see the flip side of this one day.
Well the legal defense for slander is the truth.
So if there's truth to what you're saying about them being spineless then then you're all set.
They're a corporation.
Corporations don't they're not humanoid so they don't have spines.
No well that's true.
It's very they are they are people.
Yeah I think they are people but without spines.
Yeah it's a good point.
But what were we saying before.
Oh but what they what they are doing in this final sense is that they're bowing down to these poorly drafted terroristic threats.
And what I think is particularly dangerous here is that that's effective and that people then in the future are going to conflate hacktivism which is you know a portmanteau I'm not really a fan of.
But hacktivism and terrorism and hackers and terrorists.
Exactly exactly.
That's a that's a really bad association to have.
Which is why I think we have to make sure that it's clear that hackers aren't speaking in one voice on this and and threatening anyone.
This is I find it highly amusing what's going on out there.
But it's about it's about bad security.
It's about stupid decisions.
But hackers are not declaring war on freedom and that's what you're hearing in the mass media now that there's got to be a crackdown and we're the ones that are going to feel that not North Korea.
Individual hacker type people are going to feel the clampdown that comes down the road.
Well if you're amused by what's going on and you know if like me you're entertained by what's going on then isn't Sony Pictures Entertainment really just doing what they're out there to do.
They are entertaining us I'll say that.
So I think Alex it's really interesting that you know oppose the as we all should the conflation of hacking and terrorism because they're not the same thing at all.
But just a few moments ago you were saying you're using the word exfiltrate which is a word that like normal people don't use and I might use it but normal people don't.
And and saying you know we have to beef up this sort of like security culture security industry and and who are the opponents of the security industry the people who wish to exfiltrate data.
So I think it's it's difficult.
It's a difficult situation but an interesting one.
It is you know but but not all exfiltrations of data result in terroristic threats.
I mean I think that there are people that go and steal data like Edward Snowden and that didn't and it was released and that didn't have anything to do with terrorism.
But and so I think it's yeah there are people that are breaking the laws and taking this data but they're not so bad as to cross the line into becoming some kind of you know making terroristic threats.
That's what I think.
And I also think that Sony and the media are really jumping on this terrorist angle by by exaggerating it to the degree of absurdity.
Basically if you read the poorly worded statement that somebody made somewhere we don't have any real indications to where that was seen.
They said something about the whole world will see how bad this that's basically saying the whole world will see the film and will be afraid or something at how bad it is.
Remember 9-11 just really disjointed statements.
It's not actually a terrorist threat any more than I imagine threats we get every single day.
But that serves them to point to the fear and say our freedom is under attack and it's the North Koreans it's the hackers and we have to do something about that.
And a nice try.
I don't buy it.
And another thing with the going back to this recent announcement on CNN that North Korea is actually behind this one thing that a lot of people aren't talking about because insurance isn't particularly
sexy topic but cyber liability insurance which I'm sure Sony has which generally would would cover your costs for forensic analysis in a data breach recovery in a re
rejigging your network things like that that almost all of those policies have an exception or rather an exclusion for coverage.
If the person who hacked you or the party that hacked you as a state actor.
So if it is in fact North Korea Sony is going to be losing even more money because they're not going to recoup anything on their cyber liability state actor being North Korea state actor being a government or an agent of a foreign government who hacks into your so insurance doesn't cover that for some insurance doesn't cover because of the level of sophistication implied in those particular attacks.
Interesting.
OK so while my house might be covered by a nor'easter if if say you know Norway comes and destroys my house that's not covered.
That's right.
All right good to know that likely but not not covered.
All right.
Hey we just got this bullet.
Why is everything happened during our show.
This just came in Sony Pictures has no further release plans for the interview.
So that's according to a spokeswoman and worst possible decision I think really.
And what about our offer to show it.
What about our offer to distribute it.
It's going to ignore us.
Come on.
We have a website.
We can put it up there.
I don't know.
There are good points to bad movies.
I like Mystery Science Theater 3000.
And if this now becomes international news every time someone puts out a bad movie it's going to completely change the media landscape.
Absolutely.
Bernie did you have something.
I just said wow.
They're going to stop.
I wonder if the actors in this film are going to get paid residuals.
Not that I really care because the whole thing was canceled.
They're kind of out of the money.
Well I can tell you this.
The sequel is not going to happen.
This is the movie that you can bet there will be no sequel to.
By the way speaking of North Korea the the hackers are part of some elite group known as Bureau 121.
That's according to defectors from North Korea.
Basically defectors from the North said Bureau 121 is staffed by some of the most talented computer experts in the insular state.
It's part of the General Bureau of Reconnaissance which is an elite spy agency run by the military.
They've said it's been involved in state sponsored hacking used by the Pyongyang government to spy on or sabotage its enemies.
Pyongyang has active cyber warfare capabilities military and software security experts have said much of it is targeted at South Korea which is
technically still in a state of war with North Korea.
Military hackers are among the most talented and rewarded people in North Korea handpicked and trained from as young as 17.
As young as 17.
That's kind of old actually for hackers.
Wow.
OK so they are basically treated as as as some of the highest valued citizens and I'm afraid that's how we're going to
look on hackers here as a culture as as as cannon fodder digital cannon fodder.
I'm just thinking what an interesting perspective these people must have on the Internet and not knowing it as the source for cat pictures that
the rest of the world does but as the location of the enemy.
Yeah it's just like a pipeline to to whatever it is that we're doing.
Personally I would have trouble believing that there is a first world country in in the world right now that doesn't have some kind of
department like that full of people throwing quote unquote cyber attacks at each other.
So it's it's interesting that the one about North Korea comes out like this.
All right.
And of course lost in all this story is another film that has been a victim of all this.
Do you know that there was a movie called The Throwaways.
It's about hackers.
Yeah.
Sony Pictures digital arm Crackle has postponed the premiere of its James Caan Kevin Dillon hacker movie The Throwaways due to the parent
company's own messy and sensitive hack situation.
Crackle also appears to have removed the trailers press screener and other materials from the Web.
It never existed.
It was set to premiere on Friday December 19th.
It follows notorious hacker Drew Reynolds who was captured by the CIA and given a proposition.
They ready work for them or spend the rest of his life in prison.
I've never heard that one before.
Wow.
Reynolds agrees to join.
I guess I can give it away.
He agrees to join on the condition that he gets to choose his own team instead of picking from the top agents the CIA recommends.
Again another plot twist I've never seen before.
Reynolds goes with a group of throwaways misfits blown gunmen whatever you want to call them.
Those deemed expendable and seemingly the worst in the organization.
And now we're not going to see it.
Thank you North Korea.
Thank you hackers.
Look what you did.
Entertainment.
Wow.
It's all disappearing.
So so now that now that having the subject of hacking involved gets your movie thrown down the memory hole at Sony.
I'm wondering who's going to make the movie about these events that are happening at Sony now and and what they're going to call it.
And maybe that's the movie we should make.
Maybe it is because I mean no one else is going to make it because they're afraid that even mentioning what happened here might upset somebody.
And they as we said they have no spine.
We have many spines.
So maybe.
And let's take some phone calls to and to to zero nine to nine hundred.
But the the reaction Seth Seth Rogen who is one of the stars of the interview I believe and he actually did he make the film.
He has some some real connection to it.
Sony is getting such good publicity.
They really are.
If they release the film they'd make billions.
And he was on Howard Stern show and they basically said this attack is no different than a 9-11 type attack.
If you are affected personally by 9-11 we all were to a degree.
But if if you had somebody who was a victim of that I would be about the most insensitive thing to say your damn film got hacked.
Your corporation got taken down.
It's nothing like that at all.
It never will be.
That's just that just annoys me.
Statements like that.
OK 2 1 2 2 0 9 2 9 hundred.
Let's see if anybody else is out there has some thoughts on this.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
Good evening Emmanuel.
Hey it's Bobson from Bulgaria.
I was listening about this movie that was going to be not released or whatever and may it may have been shown in L.A.
and I was thinking OK so here's a let's see 8 8 digit budget movie where the monies were spent somehow for something.
And what if the movie doesn't exist.
You think the whole movie might be a fabrication.
No but what if someone spent all this money and there is no movie to show for it and they're trying to cover up the fact that the money was spent and there's no product to be.
Well you know I would I would say there's a good chance of that except for the fact that there was that L.A.
premiere.
There are people out there who have seen this film and I want to hear from them.
I want them to tell us was there actually a film and how bad was it.
But maybe that was the plan all along.
Maybe this is Sony springtime for Hitler.
It's it's a story that I just could not have written in my wildest fantasies.
Bobson will you be at the chaos communication congress this December.
Next week.
Yes.
OK great.
So I'll see you there then in Hamburg and of course anyone else.
I'm not sure if tickets are still available online.
CCC dot D.E. would have the information but it takes place on the 27th 28th 29th and 30th of December in Hamburg Germany.
So Bob's there.
Go ahead.
I think the online sale of tickets ended on the 12th but they may be tickets on site.
Well it's a huge space.
It's somehow somehow the space is bigger than Hamburg itself.
It's in Hamburg and somehow it's bigger than I don't know how they did that.
Well they're German they can do all kinds of magical things.
But in any event you have your ticket.
I have my ticket.
We'll see each other there.
Thanks for your call.
Great.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Great evening.
All right.
We'll talk to you later.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
Yes.
Go ahead.
Well I'm thinking about what this movie is going to be about.
Personally I'm not going to waste my time watching it in the first place.
Besides the threat or not.
Well you'd need you need to really expend some effort to see it because apparently
they're not showing it.
Yeah.
Well you know I mean I don't really you know to me is you've done this once.
Now anybody who has a beef computer line and say you do this and I'll destroy
something and next thing you know if every movie is going to be closing down
like that you know.
Yeah.
Isis the musical.
That's done.
That's off.
They're not going to be sure that I can come and making that.
It's a real shame.
They could do this with a Broadway play next.
You know what.
What's next.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Actually that was a Broadway play Isis the musical.
Yeah.
So what do you what do you advise that we as consumers do.
Well like I said the ideal is you know I mean if it goes to a movie like The Lord
of the Rings most people that's going to say to hell with it.
You go we're going to see it anyway.
You know it all depends on what kind of film that's being presented or what's the
one we're having the biggest beef with it.
You bring up an interesting point I think.
And this was something I think it was in the letter that was published in The New
York Times by Aaron Sorkin who was railing against the media covering this kind of
thing.
But what one interesting point that he made I didn't think he was correct in most of
his arguments that this stuff wasn't newsworthy and and that the media was colluding
with these hacker terrorists in disseminating this information.
But one thing that he did say is these other media outlets all the other motion
picture studios have been really silent about this.
And you know why aren't they all joining forces.
Why isn't there wasn't there some kind of NATO pact that says we're not going to
negotiate with terrorists we're not going to stand for this stuff we're going to
make whatever the hell we want to make and we're going to put it out there and this
is our First Amendment right to do this we're not going to be threatened.
All the other studios are apparently terrified.
Maybe they're also spineless as as Emanuel would say.
Any any final words caller.
Go ahead.
Any final words.
No that's about it.
I just said if this was a blockbuster then I would really be interested in what what
whom will say.
Well it's got to come out for it to be a blockbuster so who knows.
We'll see what happens in the future I guess.
It'd be a long time before we actually get to see it I guess.
Let's go ahead.
Alex did you just call for a NATO of the motion picture industry because that is not
going to end well.
I didn't call for that.
Aaron Shorkin called.
All right.
All right.
Let's take another phone call.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
Hey I'm calling about the movie.
Go ahead.
You're on the air.
Hey how are you.
Yeah.
I'm just you know I think anything on this scale this large it's not I think it's
you know the way that they're covering covering it in the media like you know like
he had said earlier you know on the news we're talking about 130 kids getting blown
up by grenades and then exactly time how much time they're given to to this movie.
I think they're trying to stuff this down our throats so that we're not going to be
on our throats so that we're we're getting this in our head.
They're kind of making this you know something that we're highly aware of or the
next you know justifiable reason why we're going to go to war with it's the
entertainment industrial complex at our throats again.
You know we're about to open an embassy in Cuba for God's sake for the first time
in 50 years and that's not even on the news.
They're talking about this stupid film and and and imagine terroristic threats.
It's it's that in itself is laughable.
Yeah. I mean anything on this scale I don't think something gets to this level
without somebody knowing about it somewhere along the way.
Right. Right. Hey thanks for your call.
All right. 2 1 2 2 0 9 2 9 hundred evening.
You're on off the hook. Hello.
Go ahead. Awesome.
Wanted to change topics from Sony a bit because I'm sure you guys are going to talk
about this next episode but I want to talk about it now.
Make it quick. News that that the Cuba sanctions are starting to become less
that's what we were talking about as well.
Yes. Yes. One of the key factors of that is that that unfortunately a lot of these
agencies are reporting on is that they're they're going to put direct telco in
as far as their plan is to actually establish telco United States telco and update
services to Cuba.
And I was just curious of what your guys based thoughts are on that.
Well I mean having been to Cuba Mike and I actually went there a bunch of years ago.
It would be great to have better communications between our country and that
country to have all kinds of back and forth whether it's auto parts or or the latest
technology or just travel.
You know there is nothing to be gained from not talking to people and from from just
giving them the silent treatment which is what we've been doing for 50 years.
Yeah I mean I disagree with the embargo policy as a whole but the part of it that
really doesn't make any sense is the restriction on communications links.
If the U.S. government's official position had been you know greater communication
will lead to a natural end to the regime than to make phone calls cost you know two
dollars a minute because there's such little capacity doesn't seem to help that goal.
So I certainly welcome any new you know trans Caribbean cables that get built.
Yeah. And you know this is yeah it is in the news a bit but if you're watching
television right now while you wouldn't be listening to us but all they're talking
about is this damn film and they're not focusing on what is actually a very historical
occurrence that happened today.
And that really is what should be taking attention I think in the cycle.
See if we can squeeze in a couple more calls.
2 1 2 2 0 9 2 9 hundred.
Good evening. You're on off the hook.
Oh yeah. Good evening.
I was just turned to the show just a few moments ago.
The conference is coming up in Hamburg.
That's which one is that the chaos conference.
The Chaos Communication Congress CCC.
Well that also be on the Internet.
Oh yeah. Yeah.
If you go to CCC dot D.E.
Last year I did this.
It was amazing.
Actually we did it this year too.
We're kind of inspired by what they did last year.
But every single room that had a talk was being broadcast on the Internet and in HD
and everything. It was like being there.
And in fact in Germany they actually encourage you to stay someplace else so that there's
no overcrowding.
So I think that's kind of cool.
So you can you can experience it if you don't actually go.
But you should go to.
Okay. Yeah.
Well that would be nice.
The one thing I did listen to President Obama's talk at noontime today and the other
thing that bothered me how how they emphasized how they were promoting American
interest. And I'm wondering just what what all that's going to mean in the very end.
Well what they would what they're really looking to grow out of me.
I wonder if like you know if Al Pacino was consulted in all of this.
If if if you look at the reaction so far you know Obama's getting being lambasted for
this and basically being accused of being a you know a red terrorist a communist that's
selling out our country.
He needs to say things like that or it's it's really going to be curtains for him.
Not at all. I mean the poor country I mean the people there.
I've met people from Cuba and and frankly you know they're they're they're a very
savvy. I mean I guess when you take things away from people like you take things away
like that people find a way how to get it.
But once the door is open you know I right right right there you know it's it's going to
be it's going to be amazing for everybody if we actually start communicating and
exchanging and visiting and things like that.
So I'm looking forward to that.
Yes I mean yeah I mean there there are interests that are going to be shared on both
sides like with the telecom situation that our previous caller was talking about.
I'm sure the government officials from both sides will be giddy at the chance to tap to
tap into what's going on on that system.
I just hope they still have the old cars.
I don't want to sound selfish but that was one of the coolest things going to Cuba and
riding in cars in the 1940s that they were because of the embargo they can't get parts
but they really keep these things running and they're very ingenious with with converting
them to diesel and just just maintaining them with no parts whatsoever.
So it's a unique kind of a charm but it's not a very pleasant one for them.
All right let's see if we can have one correction.
CCC.de will get you the main website for the Chaos Computer Club but if you want but it
will be in German and hard to navigate.
If you go to events.ccc.de you'll be a little bit closer to where you want to end up.
A button that says English on CCC.de but it's a little time right.
All right let's take another phone call.
Good evening.
You're going off the hook.
Go ahead.
Yeah.
Hey how are you.
OK.
What's on your mind.
My name is Saul.
I'm from Newark New Jersey.
OK.
I was involved in Cuban crisis in 1960.
But did you start it or what.
How were you involved.
I did 60.
It was 1960 I was 21 years old.
OK.
Castro is the best thing to happen in Latin America.
What Obama did was excellent.
Something that should have done.
Five presidents should have done a long time ago.
OK.
Castro came to America and asked him for help.
And the Americans helped him and they went and won a revolution for the Cuban
people.
OK.
I hear what you're saying but it's really not the topic for this show.
We just were mentioning it as a major news event that I'm sure we'll be hearing a
lot more about here on WBAI.
So please keep listening to 99.5 and let's take one more final call hopefully on
this whole Sony craziness.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook.
Hey howdy.
I always thought it was interesting that it seems like any topic covered in
mainstream media relating to hack events also seems to name a state actor right
around the time whenever respective other disagreements I guess between nations are
occurring.
And it's particularly odd to me considering how common it is for anybody doing an
attack type thing at least from what I've seen around that it's going to be based
from a remote location.
So it's very simplistic to just say hey route all this stuff from there.
We can say it's from China and then it just falls into like the black hole paradox of
everything else and goes into the bucket.
Yes.
And we just have to believe whatever we're told because we have actually no actual
evidence.
Hey we're out of time.
Write to us OTH at 2600 dot com.
Couldn't really find many songs about Sony but here's one from 1985.
The C-Star early.
Rundah on the factory.
Like a vast.
Way baseball games.
Apple pie
Though some will say we imitate
Produce the goods at a cheaper rate
Faster to reduce in size
Our ingenuity's realised
Apple pie
I had to grab a massage cab
I left my briefcase at the lab
Godzilla ate the bullet train
Won't see Kyoto ever again
Papa jumped the gun back in 41
Following the flag of the rising sun
When Tojo did the mojo he was downed in flames
US destroyer and kamikaze planes
Japanese parenting
The worst I've learned from history
Doomed to repeat it endlessly
We've put the past onto Fuji
And we erase it totally
Soon we'll be known as Great Japan
Just like they do in Great Britain
Spell microchip and solid state
The things that made this country great
Now, Sony
A film by
A film by
A film by
A film by
A film by
A film by
A film by
A film by
A film by
A film by
A film by
A film by
A film by
A film by