It's been a brawl months in the making, since Sony Pictures announced the trailer for the upcoming film "The Interview". But now threats have manifested into firewall action, and the US is claiming that North Korea is at fault for some serious feats of cyberterrorism. And while the totalitarian regime is throwing some pretty heavy ammunition via the media our way, President Obama says the "acts of cybervandalism" are just that-vandalism, not war.
Since the announcement of the film, "The Interview" has garnered quite a lot of hate from North Korea, and quite a lot of heat from the US government. A comedy based entirely around the premise of an attempted assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, "The Interview" is far from your G-rated films, yet far from the truth. However, as the release date draws near, many were not surprised to find last week that Sony's computer systems were hacked, nor that finally on Friday, Dec. 19, the FBI confirmed the likely culprits of the privacy breech came from North Korea, or perhaps even its government.
But the evidence isn't quite so cut clear as many would like. While steadfast in their denial that their government had any involvement in the hack, North Korea is also ruffling a few feathers and dropping some noteworthy innuendoes in its recent releases. What does the totalitarian regime have to say about the U.S. and its new film? Well, it's safe to say they're not quite happy, and the threats of impending doom would undoubtedly support that theory.
"The DPRK has already launched the toughest counteraction. Nothing is a more serious miscalculation than guessing that just a single movie production company is the target of this counteraction" state-run media source KCNA reports. "Our target is all the citadels of the U.S. imperialists who earned the bitterest grudge of all Koreans."
"Our toughest counteraction will be boldly taken against the White House, the Pentagon and the whole U.S. mainland, the cesspool of terrorism."
But while the North Korean government is adamant about their threats against the Obama administration's involvement in the making of such a reactionary film, the US government is taking the cyberattacks a bit more appropriately claiming them as not an act of war. Though perhaps an unnecessary inconvenience for Sony, government officials claim that the actions that have taken place in recent days, in light of the hack, are not the sparks of a wartime conflict.
"We've got very clear criteria as to what it means for a state to sponsor terrorism. And we don't make those judgments just based on the news of the day" US President Barack Obama says. "We look systematically at what's been done and based on those facts, we'll make those determinations in the future."
And now it's Sony's turn to take a stand. But while the company initially decided not to "give in" to the pressure from North Korea or its skilled hackers, a studio spokesperson said "Sony Pictures has no further release plans for the film." But that doesn't mean that they're not still looking for ways to distribute the movie...
