for display only
Big Blue Interactive The Corner Forum  
Back to the Corner

Archived Thread

NFT: Sony Cancels Seth Rogen and James Franco's The Interview

Mr. Nickels : 12/17/2014 5:14 pm
First it was the premiere, then major theaters, now it has outright canceled its release to theaters
Pages: 1 2 3 <<Prev | Show All |
RE: It is as though no one realizes his last 2 movies were This is the End  
Sonic Youth : 12/17/2014 10:20 pm : link
In comment 12040480 bhill410 said:
Quote:
And neighbors, easily 2 of the better comedies of the last 4 years. Of course it's a silly concept he makes raunchy R rated semi stoner flicks - he isn't exactly tackling serious topics. What a bunch of strange self righteous blow hards are on this site.

Haha, I'm with you on that one. I don't really see what's bad about Seth Rogen movies go, as far as popular comedies with a wide audience. James Franco is in some good stuff as well.

For some reason people are acting like it's a mid 90s Jim Carrey movie.

Anyway, I think this is a perfect storm combination of a number of factors, but don't think North Korea's ability to pose any threat was one of them. To varying degrees:

1) that movie theaters refusing to show it anyway, since they felt it would keep people away from ALL movies/theaters in general
2) pressure from said movie theaters
3) spectre of releasing more and increasingly damaging emails as threatened. There was most likely some VERY damaging and disastrous emails that were threatened to be released.
4) chance of some whacko/mentally ill person actually uses this as an excuse to shoot up a theater anyway
5) pressure from people who thought there was a chance something may happen, however small that may actually be.
RE: The South Park movie  
eclipz928 : 12/17/2014 10:29 pm : link
In comment 12040590 GShock said:
Quote:
Featured Saddam Hussein as Satan's gay lover, and music from the movie was nominated for an Academy Award.


The key difference is that there was never the suggestion to assassinate or kill off Saddam Hussein in the South Park Movie. That's really the line that shouldn't be crossed even in comedy and satire.

As a matter of fact, this is very reminiscent of the episode of South Park that they were planning to have depict an animated version of the prophet Muhammad. A lot of Muslims were infuriated, and there were some terroristic threats against Comedy Central by extremists. South Park was forced to edit the final product dramatically because of it.

Even South Park, which is probably the most relentless source of satire in the mainstream, made the calculus that sticking to their guns on something like this just wasn't worth the backlash.
. . . actually I take that back about killing off people in satire.  
eclipz928 : 12/17/2014 10:39 pm : link
I did find myself laughing quite a bit when South Park electrocuted George Zimmerman last season. In context it was funny, but I'm sure plenty of people were offended. There probably still should be a line drawn at assassination though.
This is a dynasty...  
Dunedin81 : 12/17/2014 10:43 pm : link
that has apparently chained people to stakes and dropped mortars on them. I'm not terribly concerned that entertainment "crosses the line" by making light of Kim the Younger's life and death.
RE: . . . actually I take that back about killing off people in satire.  
RC02XX : 12/17/2014 10:43 pm : link
In comment 12040643 eclipz928 said:
Quote:
I did find myself laughing quite a bit when South Park electrocuted George Zimmerman last season. In context it was funny, but I'm sure plenty of people were offended. There probably still should be a line drawn at assassination though.


So satire about killing a sadistic and murderous dictator = in bad taste and not right

Satire about killing a man tried and found innocent = in bad taste but still funny

Gotcha.
Does the US do anything about NK  
Knineteen : 12/17/2014 10:57 pm : link
hacking a US corporation? Is there any course of action by the government?
RE: The South Park movie  
Mr. Nickels : 12/17/2014 11:07 pm : link
In comment 12040590 GShock said:
Quote:
Featured Saddam Hussein as Satan's gay lover, and music from the movie was nominated for an Academy Award.


Great post lol just a hilarious sentence to read aloud
RE: Does the US do anything about NK  
jcn56 : 12/17/2014 11:08 pm : link
In comment 12040658 Knineteen said:
Quote:
hacking a US corporation? Is there any course of action by the government?


Well, we'd hack them back, but seriously - who'd fucking know?
I never said that stuff like that can't be funny.  
eclipz928 : 12/17/2014 11:27 pm : link
I'd assume that everyone here has laughed at a distasteful joke at some point in their life - the level of humor of the material is not the issue.

Btw, George Zimmerman wasn't actually "killed" per se in the South Park episode - he was sentenced to death by electrocution. I'm not going to try to explain the actual plot behind it, but I can guarantee that any depiction or suggestion of someone actually trying to assassinate Zimmerman, even a cartoon caricature of him, likely would have never aired.
There must be some real bad shit the hackers are holding  
montanagiant : 12/17/2014 11:59 pm : link
That Sony does not want out there.
I am curious what the reaction in this country would be  
steve in ky : 12/17/2014 11:59 pm : link
towards it if someone made a movie about assassinating President Obama?
RE: I am curious what the reaction in this country would be  
RC02XX : 12/18/2014 12:28 am : link
In comment 12040687 steve in ky said:
Quote:
towards it if someone made a movie about assassinating President Obama?


Yeah...from the shit I've seen online, sadly many would welcome it. So what's your point?

Having studied that entire family along with NK history, the world would be far far better off if that entire line was eliminated swiftly.
RE: I am curious what the reaction in this country would be  
montanagiant : 12/18/2014 12:32 am : link
In comment 12040687 steve in ky said:
Quote:
towards it if someone made a movie about assassinating President Obama?

You don't think there are parodies mocking President Obama out there? Or calls for his death?
There are huge points here...  
manh george : 12/18/2014 2:32 am : link
that many seem to be missing. Namely, that the current environment of massive, accelerating technological change carries with it risks that didn't exist even a few years ago, and that corporations (and others) have not yet figured out how to deal with. And, that these risks could continue to expand in ways that are difficult to impossible to predict in advance.

Entire industries are going to be devoted to dealing with accelerating cyber threats, and to creating the best possible barriers against them. It's really unfair to blame Sony because, after being the first in a likely long line of corporate-directed cyber-attacks, they may not have immediately determined the optimal response--if there even is an optimal response.

I believe that some day relatively soon, there will be much better defenses against hacking and other cyber attacks than currently exist. It's just a guess, though.

Plus, there is the threat against theaters playing the movie. Would you want to be the executive who gave the "full speed ahead" signal and then had even one serious incident occur?

And btw, this has nothing to do with the first amendment. It isn't about the making of a law. Self-censorship, for any reason, is constitutional--of course.
this whole thing is a mess from start to finish  
WeatherMan : 12/18/2014 4:48 am : link
if I were SONY, I'd leak the whole damn film in response - let the death scene of Kim Jong Un go viral in unedited bloody glory, fuck em.
RE: I am curious what the reaction in this country would be  
jimfinn81 : 12/18/2014 5:37 am : link
In comment 12040687 steve in ky said:
Quote:
towards it if someone made a movie about assassinating President Obama?


Not a comedy by any means but in 2006 there was a movie that was set up to be a documentary that takes place in the future about the assassination of George W Bush.
Death of a President - ( New Window )
So North Korea is censoring U.S. Movies?  
jeff57 : 12/18/2014 6:46 am : link
They can be upset all they want, but that doesn't mean the movie shouldn't be released.

Then again, Sony is not a U.S. company. So we have no national control over our "art."
Exliptz - south park by no means edited that episode  
bhill410 : 12/18/2014 6:58 am : link
Comedy Central blocked out Muhammad as a result of the threats and Matt and Trey almost quit as a result of that.
As usual,  
Randy in CT : 12/18/2014 7:14 am : link
BBI jumping to conclusions and referencing the pussification of America. News this morning reporting that NK got a ton of data from the hacks and some of it makes Sony look real bad apparently.

They are scrapping the movie
If Sony's already screwed  
NYerInMA : 12/18/2014 8:46 am : link
Then they may as well release the movie. As it is, they lost everything for nothing.
RE: Exliptz - south park by no means edited that episode  
eclipz928 : 12/18/2014 8:54 am : link
In comment 12040731 bhill410 said:
Quote:
Comedy Central blocked out Muhammad as a result of the threats and Matt and Trey almost quit as a result of that.


I thought that South Park made the bleeps and edits because Comedy Central asked them to, but I could be mistaken about how that all went down.
RE: There are huge points here...  
jcn56 : 12/18/2014 9:28 am : link
In comment 12040702 manh george said:
Quote:
that many seem to be missing. Namely, that the current environment of massive, accelerating technological change carries with it risks that didn't exist even a few years ago, and that corporations (and others) have not yet figured out how to deal with. And, that these risks could continue to expand in ways that are difficult to impossible to predict in advance.

Entire industries are going to be devoted to dealing with accelerating cyber threats, and to creating the best possible barriers against them. It's really unfair to blame Sony because, after being the first in a likely long line of corporate-directed cyber-attacks, they may not have immediately determined the optimal response--if there even is an optimal response.

I believe that some day relatively soon, there will be much better defenses against hacking and other cyber attacks than currently exist. It's just a guess, though.

Plus, there is the threat against theaters playing the movie. Would you want to be the executive who gave the "full speed ahead" signal and then had even one serious incident occur?

And btw, this has nothing to do with the first amendment. It isn't about the making of a law. Self-censorship, for any reason, is constitutional--of course.


mg, you're very close in a lot of ways with this post, but there are a couple of adjustments needed.

First, Sony - it's easy to point to Sony as an early victim in this war that could not have avoided being hacked, but remember that they were hacked several times a few years ago (in a very public way, with customer data walking out the door and their own gaming network being taken down several times).

Instead of learning from that experience, Sony marched on - not only not bolstering it's cyber defenses, but making further cuts to an already stretched thin IT budget. This took taking down Sony from moderately difficult down to a walk in the park.

As for entire industries - they've already sprung up, and it's big business. You're already seeing a move in most security related functions from one of compliance to corporate policy to threat intelligence based defenses, trying to quickly adjust on the fly based on information seen in the wild or from the results of ongoing, massive analytic examination of a company's network traffic.

You're also seeing the first wave of "militarization", with former law enforcement and military cyber personnel moving into private sector roles. Former FBI, CIA, NSA high and mid level people moving into leadership roles in big banks, insurance companies, etc.

The problem - these are slow moving orgs, and budgets are a problem. And historically, despite the fact that budgets haven't been slashed with some others after the crisis in 08, they haven't grown in-line with the risks either. For most companies, the risk was worth the reward. For a company like Sony, the thinking was probably more often than not that even if someone did get in, what would they really take? Hell, I've been telling customers for years that corporate espionage should be a bigger concern - if I were an unscrupulous Hollywood competitor, you can bet I'd have contracted some hackers in Estonia to see what they could get out of high level Sony exec e-mails.

The Russians went after JPM. The North Koreans after Sony. It's widely believed that the Chinese were responsible for a bug on the SCADA system that caused the to malfunction, leading to the 2006 blackout. Who's next, Iran? It's only a matter of time. Countries that could never mount a military offensive due to limited resources can easily build a high functioning cyber warfare unit.
Sony seems to regularly suffer cyber attacks.  
Ten Ton Hammer : 12/18/2014 9:31 am : link
Their online service for Playstation has been hacked constantly. credit card info has been breached multiple times.

RE: So North Korea is censoring U.S. Movies?  
Sonic Youth : 12/18/2014 9:36 am : link
In comment 12040726 jeff57 said:
Quote:
They can be upset all they want, but that doesn't mean the movie shouldn't be released.

Then again, Sony is not a U.S. company. So we have no national control over our "art."

Sony Pictures is pretty much an autonomous company within the US.
RE: Sony seems to regularly suffer cyber attacks.  
jcn56 : 12/18/2014 9:36 am : link
In comment 12040887 Ten Ton Hammer said:
Quote:
Their online service for Playstation has been hacked constantly. credit card info has been breached multiple times.


Yes - and after the last round, they called in a few experts, and they were told the same thing by multiple parties - they don't spend enough on security infrastructure and don't have enough headcount dedicated to it. What Sony did was basically wave it off, and go ahead and cut back further.

Shame on me, because I still bought a PS4 for my son anyway, but I'm really reluctant to go the online gaming route for that reason. That's a major leap of faith that neither my billing information would be compromised, or that a vulnerability in the PS4 couldn't lead to an internal breach of my own network by way of Sony's (which I offset by putting my gaming consoles in an isolated network segment off my own network).
Yeah, I would rightfully be leery of that.  
Ten Ton Hammer : 12/18/2014 9:45 am : link
Microsoft is certainly not perfect, but what they've done with live is solid. They are really dedicated to making sure hackers don't ruin the experience.
We need to get North Korea on the menace of Nicholas Sparks movies  
BeerFridge : 12/18/2014 9:48 am : link
.
RE: RE: So North Korea is censoring U.S. Movies?  
jeff57 : 12/18/2014 9:50 am : link
In comment 12040891 Sonic Youth said:
Quote:
In comment 12040726 jeff57 said:


Quote:


They can be upset all they want, but that doesn't mean the movie shouldn't be released.

Then again, Sony is not a U.S. company. So we have no national control over our "art."


Sony Pictures is pretty much an autonomous company within the US.


I'm sure the suits in Tokyo made this call.
jcn...  
RC02XX : 12/18/2014 9:50 am : link
Very nice posts.

Having worked in the cyber field for a long time, I couldn't agree with you more regarding cyber being the new battleground for our adversaries.
Here's the deal  
Stan from LA : 12/18/2014 1:24 pm : link
No theater chain wanted to touch it as it was perceived as keeping away movie goers from the other films. Sony is not, as I hear, going to release it via streaming or any other way fort now(or maybe ever) because of liability concerns. As Sony is 70M into it heads will be rolling over there big time.
What I don't understand is how a company that reported $8bn  
Ten Ton Hammer : 12/18/2014 3:31 pm : link
in revenues in 2014 can continue to have substandard security.

It's not like data security is a new frontier. They've been getting hacked for at least 3 years. Films have been taken off their data and leaked to the internet.
RE: What I don't understand is how a company that reported $8bn  
jcn56 : 12/18/2014 3:46 pm : link
In comment 12041743 Ten Ton Hammer said:
Quote:
in revenues in 2014 can continue to have substandard security.

It's not like data security is a new frontier. They've been getting hacked for at least 3 years. Films have been taken off their data and leaked to the internet.


Believe me - this is my bread and butter, and I can tell you honestly that this is more common than you can possibly imagine.

The problem in most cases is that it's difficult for most companies to quantify the losses. In many cases, it's purely reputational (a company gets hacked, information leaves, it's news, but no actual money was directly lost). In others, companies have never had a breach (or one that they know of), so they simply assume staying with the status quo means they'll be safe (despite the fact that this threat is growing exponentially each year).

As a result, most companies don't dedicate nearly enough to security. Sony is an example of how bad this gets, because they've been very publicly breached before, and customer data stolen. You would think they'd have gone to extreme lengths to ensure this didn't happen again, but from the looks of it little changed since the last time they were taken down (albeit via different channels and different attackers).
....  
BrettNYG10 : 12/18/2014 3:48 pm : link
jcn, I'd be curious as to what companies you think benefit from this (strong security) the most?

I've heard a great deal about a company called FireEye.
*movement to stronger security.  
BrettNYG10 : 12/18/2014 3:48 pm : link
.
RE: RE: The South Park movie  
Fox : 12/18/2014 4:06 pm : link
In comment 12040633 eclipz928 said:
Quote:
In comment 12040590 GShock said:


Quote:


Featured Saddam Hussein as Satan's gay lover, and music from the movie was nominated for an Academy Award.



The key difference is that there was never the suggestion to assassinate or kill off Saddam Hussein in the South Park Movie. That's really the line that shouldn't be crossed even in comedy and satire.

As a matter of fact, this is very reminiscent of the episode of South Park that they were planning to have depict an animated version of the prophet Muhammad. A lot of Muslims were infuriated, and there were some terroristic threats against Comedy Central by extremists. South Park was forced to edit the final product dramatically because of it.

Even South Park, which is probably the most relentless source of satire in the mainstream, made the calculus that sticking to their guns on something like this just wasn't worth the backlash.


I think Comedy Central mad that call, not South Park. My recollection was that Matt and Trey wanted to press on. A minor distinction but worth noting.
yes, it was Comedy Central who pussed out  
Greg from LI : 12/18/2014 4:12 pm : link
.
RE: ....  
jcn56 : 12/18/2014 4:23 pm : link
In comment 12041780 BrettNYG10 said:
Quote:
jcn, I'd be curious as to what companies you think benefit from this (strong security) the most?

I've heard a great deal about a company called FireEye.


Just about anything that has a 'cyber' in it's description is going to benefit from all this, but I think the companies that will really rake it in (and might ultimately become household names) are still in their infancy.

The more established guys like FireEye, Fortinet, Splunk, Palo Alto Networks would all be good bets if you were thinking of buying stock. They've all been on a good run recently and I don't think they'll be slowing down any time soon.

A lot of the smaller companies I'm thinking of will end up being acquired (like Silvertail by EMC, Sourcefire by Cisco, etc.). I'm thinking there's a lot to be done in the mobile space (and one early player here, Mocana, makes an interesting product and is part of the In-Q-Tel portfolio, the venture cap firm that was started by the CIA and who backed the FireEye startup - another is Tenable, whose founders created the Nessus network scanner).

Another open source vet in the security space founded Bromium, who have an interesting product that attempts to put a wrapper around a PC to prevent the spread of malware. Early returns in the lab with that one have been interesting.

Then there's the intel space, which is picking up. You're going to see a lot of monitoring of social media and the internet to determine where emerging threats (or existing intrusions) might exist. Companies like CrowdStrike or DataMinr might be interesting here.

Finally - incident/event management - lots of players here, but CO3 Systems and Mandiant are two I like (and of course I just realized that the latter was acquired by FireEye before they were bought up). CO3 will probably be snatched up by someone soon (don't be surprised if that's EMC as well to be part of their RSA product line).
Thanks, jcn.  
BrettNYG10 : 12/18/2014 6:03 pm : link
That's really helpful. I appreciate your insights.
or as jcn  
pjcas18 : 12/18/2014 6:13 pm : link
suggested what happens is the start-ups, innovators etc will get gobbled up, and you could buy EMC stock.

EMC announced the acquisition of three companies today Maginatics, Cloudscaling, and spanning. two of the three are in the data protection space, and the third is in the cloud infrastructure which is a peripheral space.

As an ex-employee I've been doing this for a while (and I did as an employee).

if stock speculation was your angle.

I think EMC is criminally undervalued, but wall street doesn't agree, so the stock stays flat to slight increase (although I won't complain about my $9 options).
My pleasure Britt, glad you found it useful  
jcn56 : 12/18/2014 10:46 pm : link
pjcas - EMC's kind of a strange animal. I can't say why the stock doesn't move more, but it seems like they've had CA disease for awhile now, acquiring companies faster than they can integrate them (and even worse, come up with a strategy for integration that makes sense when compared to their existing portfolio).

I thought for sure they'd be doing better (and I'm not holding any options I was given, I bought my stock), but when you talk about where the company might be in 5 years from today, you really wonder whether they haven't gotten too big to operate efficiently. Reminds me a lot of Cisco in that way, another company that I've held for a very long time and drives me nuts sometimes.
It's Brent, not Britt.  
Cam in MO : 12/19/2014 8:10 am : link
Great info pj and jcn. Thanks!
RE: or as jcn  
BrettNYG10 : 12/19/2014 8:23 am : link
In comment 12041941 pjcas18 said:
Quote:
suggested what happens is the start-ups, innovators etc will get gobbled up, and you could buy EMC stock.

EMC announced the acquisition of three companies today Maginatics, Cloudscaling, and spanning. two of the three are in the data protection space, and the third is in the cloud infrastructure which is a peripheral space.

As an ex-employee I've been doing this for a while (and I did as an employee).

if stock speculation was your angle.

I think EMC is criminally undervalued, but wall street doesn't agree, so the stock stays flat to slight increase (although I won't complain about my $9 options).


pj, I only follow EMC tangentially, but some very smart investors started buying the stock recently - largely on the basis that the Company is absurdly cheap when you net out the VMWare stake. It's been on my list of companies to work on for awhile.
Completely on a tangent...  
RC02XX : 12/19/2014 8:24 am : link
but even ISIS is getting involved in "cyber operations" against its enemies/critics.

Quote:
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • A target email speaks to victims who are opposed to ISIS and asks for their help
  • It contains a link to a file sharing site, where a malicious file is hidden among photos
  • The malware is artless, and the writer encrypted it wrong
  • But it's dangerous: Being bare-bones makes it hard for security software to detect

Link - ( New Window )
RE: RE: or as jcn  
RC02XX : 12/19/2014 8:25 am : link
In comment 12042390 BrettNYG10 said:
Quote:
pj, I only follow EMC tangentially, but some very smart investors started buying the stock recently - largely on the basis that the Company is absurdly cheap when you net out the VMWare stake. It's been on my list of companies to work on for awhile.


Hey Brent...can I get some insider trading information from you to expand my portfolio? TIA!
RE: It's Brent, not Britt.  
jcn56 : 12/19/2014 9:23 am : link
In comment 12042379 Cam in MO said:
Quote:
Great info pj and jcn. Thanks!


D'oh! Sorry Brett, looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue. Also sorry to hear about the whole 'chained up in Cam's basement' thing.
Brett and all his one-percenter buddies  
Greg from LI : 12/19/2014 9:28 am : link
.
I think Greg's upset he didn't get an invite to  
jcn56 : 12/19/2014 9:30 am : link
Monoclethon 15.
Woah, woah, woah.  
Cam in MO : 12/19/2014 9:30 am : link
Only wimmins get chained in my dungeon, not girls.

Wimmin pretending to be girls is okay , tho.

Either way, Brent doesn't qualify. Maybe once she's older.




I've liked FireEye's story for a while...  
BurberryManning : 12/19/2014 9:38 am : link
it'll be interesting to see how succesfully they can leverage their service model to capture a larger market.
Anonymous is claiming they will release the movie  
montanagiant : 12/21/2014 12:20 pm : link
Quote:
It was only a matter of time before the hacker collective Anonymous put their two cents in regarding the Sony hack. Early on Friday, Anon set their sights on North Korea, the hacker group known as #GOP (aka Guardians of Peace) and Sony Pictures regarding the decision to pull The Interview from theaters. From the looks of things, they are planning on releasing the movie to the world themselves. From Twitter:

TheAnonMessage @TheAnonMessage
Follow
About the @SonyPictures hack by North Korea, well let's just say that—

Oh hold on, popcorn's ready.
6:08 PM - 18 Dec 2014
link - ( New Window )
Pages: 1 2 3 <<Prev | Show All |
Back to the Corner