As last week ended, the big news was that Sony. after being hacked and after the hackers made threats to kill people who went to see “The Interview,” a comedy film about someone trying to assassinate K*m J*ng *n the dictator of N*rth K*rea, well, they pulled the movie.
(You’ll note I have altered certain names throughout this column, so as not to tick anyone off.)
I mean, all references to the movie were eradicated — billboards painted over, signs destroyed, the debut of the movie canceled.
If this was really a case of cyber warfare, well, the American people, thanks to Sony, lost big time.
Supposedly, N*rth K*rea did the hack attack. Suddenly N*rth K*rea is supposed to have an ultra-sophisticated cyber warfare unit called Bureau 121 — 1,800 extremely talented computer hackers dead set on attacking S*uth K*rea and, now it seems, us.
Yes, N*rth K*rea, where everyone dresses like K*m J*ng *n. Where people are starving while the big mahoff lives large. Where hyperbole rules. Where workers in radioactive swat shops laboriously endeavor to create nuclear bombs and warheads. Where they make intercontinental ballistic missiles that, so far, haven’t actually been intercontinental. They don’t even fly very well.
I have said for more than 20 years that the U.S. should have been keeping a close eye on N*rth K*rea, that the N*rth’s regime would be a worrisome problem of larger proportions than anything else that irritates us globally. I still believe that.
But do I believe N*rth K*rea is capable of committing such a sophisticated cyber attack? Or is the cyber attack really all that sophisticated?
Let’s face it. “The Interview” is a Seth Rogen film. How good can it be? And it may have almost gone straight to DVD.
Another film dealing with N*rth K*rea has been scrapped before it even started. And a puppet movie that takes jabs at N*rth K*rea is worrying some folks.
Frankly, I’m not convinced this isn’t all a huge publicity stunt to make “The Interview” one of the biggest box office blockbusters of all time.
But I think YouTube versions of the film will leak out and that doesn’t make Sony a dime.
I am currently reading a Tom Clancy novel, “Full Force and Effect,” written, since Clancy is dead, by Mark Greaney. The plot of the novel revolves around skullduggery involving N*rth K*rea.
I think I may destroy the massive book to make sure N*rth K*rea does not come after me, personally. In this kind of fear-laced environment, anything is possible.
To be safe, let’s stop saying, writing, reading, posting, painting, singing, filming, broadcasting anything that might offend someone else and make someone else mad at us.
It’s every man for himself!