Free Republic

  TRIGGER WARNING* This has to be the best real estate deal since Whitewater.  Through a complex series of events that even our 24-hour news junkies have trouble following, Al Sharpton will now get to produce rap music in Cuba, while the U.S. sets up its embassy on the current site of North Korea’s diplomatic mission in Havana.  And Kim Jong Un will get to share a Cohiba cigar with Dennis Rodman, Al Sharpton, Amy Pascal and President Obama. It’s all in this one infographic.   Sony Pictures greenlights a film titled The Interview, a comedy which depicts the assassination...

Implications of Sony 1. The threat posed by unidentified attackers of the Sony system is not limited to the Hollywood corporation but has broad, even existential, implications for homeland defense, for liberty, especially the First Amendment, and for the economy. 2. Our nuclear facilities, our transportation infrastructure, our communication infrastructure, our banking institutions, Wall Street, our media, system of justice and the rule of law, in short, the whole structure which holds our way of life together and keeps us from anarchy are potentially threatened by any expansion or intensification of this threat. 3. The identity of the hackers is...

Today, the FBI would like to provide an update on the status of our investigation into the cyber attack targeting Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE). In late November, SPE confirmed that it was the victim of a cyber attack that destroyed systems and stole large quantities of personal and commercial data. A group calling itself the “Guardians of Peace” claimed responsibility for the attack and subsequently issued threats against SPE, its employees, and theaters that distribute its movies. The FBI has determined that the intrusion into SPE’s network consisted of the deployment of destructive malware and the theft of proprietary information...

National Review's editorial board, Mitt Romney, and other Republicans seem to be MORE willing to stand for freedom of speech than the Obama administration. Getting pushed around by third world tin pot dictators is modus operandi for Demon Rats.

By gum, he sounds like presidential material to me. Your move, Jeb. .@SonyPictures don’t cave, fight: release @TheInterview free online globally. Ask viewers for voluntary $5 contribution to fight #Ebola.— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) December 18, 2014 More than 13,000 retweets as I write this. Clearly there’s a demand for countermeasures among an American public that doesn’t like the idea of foreigners, especially savages like the Kim cabal, holding veto power over their culture. (Too bad China, Kim’s chief patron, already sort of does.) Am I right, though, in thinking that no major Republican pol aside from Romney has said anything...

Snapchat CEO lashes out after Sony leaks By Cory Bennett - 12/17/14 05:25 PM EST Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel said Wednesday that he was “angry” and “devastated” at the information leaked about his disappearing messaging app as a result of the Sony hack. Good chunks of Snapchat’s business plans were revealed Tuesday when the cyberattackers that hit Sony dumped Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton's email catalogue. Lynton sits on Snapchat’s board of directors and had numerous candid email exchanges with Spiegel about hiring practices, possible acquisitions and potential future products. “I felt like I was going to cry all morning,”...

Yesterday, moments before the North Korea "hacking" tragicomedy escalated into full retard mode with Sony pulling The Interview, or a movie that absent the attention would certainly be a flop, Wired released an article titled: "North Korea Almost Certainly Did Not Hack Sony" (title subsequently changed to the one below as can be seen in the URL alias "http://www.wired.com/2014/12/north-korea-did-not-hack-sony-probs"), which however, and for the better, retains its content as it is quite critical in debunking the latest government "certainty."

Sony Pictures co-chair Amy Pascal, who last week apologized over racially insensitive comments she made in leaked emails posted online, just finished a 90-minute meeting with Rev. Al Sharpton in NYC where the two discussed diversity in Hollywood. Here is Sharpton’s take:

Hollywood star George Clooney said fellow celebrities and industry figures did not want to sign a petition supporting 'The Interview' film featuring the assassination of Kim Jong-un as they were afraid of the consequences. Clooney said he wanted to see the film released on-line to undermine the threats of the hacking gang, who are believed to be supported by North Korean agents. Sony's computer systems were breached following a major hacking attack last month, which saw highly confidential material released as well as a string of embarrassing emails.

Cyberwar: Like a bomb detonating in slow motion, the scale and destructiveness of the Sony hack has only now become fully apparent. Telling Americans to go to the movies doesn't cut it as a government response. At first, it seemed as if Sony was the latest victim of hackers who delight in stealing confidential information and sending it along to WikiLeaks. The hackers called themselves "Guardians of Peace" and claimed, "We want equality. Sony doesn't." Sony initially labeled the event as "an IT matter." For a while, the hack seemed to threaten only the reputations of some Hollywood big shots,...

This is of course about the upcoming movie "The Interview." My wife and I saw this preview the day before it got pulled, and it's a shame because it looks like it's REALLY funny!Also, the reaction across the political spectrum has been unified in a way we rarely see.

Oh, the irony. After Sony cancelled the release of The Interview, a few theaters declared that they would show the 2004 hit Team America: World Police in its place as a protest against threats to free expression. That film also derided the government of North Korea, as well as the liberal Hollywood establishment that catered to anti-American despots in what was a prescient (if irreverent and very R-rated) satire.As if to emphasize the latter critique, two cinemas have announced that Paramount Pictures has forbidden them to show the film publicly: At least two movie theaters say Paramount Pictures has...

"Sometimes, you just need Texas," writes Mary Katherine Ham. How right she is. A brave response to Sony's cave to whoever was threatening to attack theaters that showed 'The Interview." Another film that shows a North Korean leader being killed by Americans, "Team America: World Police," will be screened by the Alamo Drafthouse on December 27. Talking to the Hollywood Reporter, the creative manager and programmer at the Alamo Drafthouse Dallas/Fort Worth location, James Wallace, said ”We’re just trying to make the best of an unfortunate situation.” For someone who may not understand the connection here, Team America: World Police is Trey...

Seth Rogen and James Franco give every indication of being in life something very much like the loveable dopes they play in the movies, and that they should be central figures in a matter of international importance is unlikely indeed. But that is nonetheless where we find ourselves: Hackers working on behalf of the regime of Kim Jong-un, the third-generation dictator of North Korea, stole a trove of documents from Sony Pictures and released them to the public to punish the entertainment concern for commissioning The Interview, a Rogen-Franco comedy in which a celebrity journalist secures an interview with Kim...

A rogue nation targeted a multinational corporation and won.  North Korea has almost certainly ordered the massive cyber-attack on Sony Pictures, stealing and publicly dumping enough data to make a dent in the company’s stock price. North Korea cannot challenge the United States militarily, despite what movies have portrayed.  Regardless of their saber-rattling, and America’s reduced presence on the Korean peninsula, a real attack of any substance against our ally South Korea (or Japan for that matter) would bring a suicidal level of retribution on the North, and they know it.  But they’ve found a vein where they can draw...

Newt Gingrich Interview: Sony Hack Is An Act Of War

Sony Cancels Theatrical Release for ‘The Interview’ on Christmas With theater chains defecting en masse, Sony Pictures Entertainment has pulled the planned Christmas Day release of “The Interview.” In announcing the decision to cancel the holiday debut, Sony hit back at the hackers who threatened movie theaters and moviegoers and who have terrorized the studio and its employees for weeks. “Those who attacked us stole our intellectual property, private emails and sensitive and proprietary material, and sought to destroy our spirit and our morale – all apparently to thwart the release of a movie they did not like,” the statement...

Adding creative insult to corporate injury in the wake of the massive hacking of Sony's computer files, the film that may have triggered the incident, The Interview, is an intensely sophomoric and rampantly uneven comic takedown of an easy but worrisomely unpredictable target, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. In the relatively sparse annals of irreverent major studio comedies that pissed off foreign nations, for big laughs this one doesn't rate anywhere near Borat or Team America: World Police; the latter prominently included the present North Korean boss man's father, Kim Jong-il, among its many targets. Given the unique cloud under...

Sony has pulled the plug on the XMAS release of "The Interview," after a number of theater chains bailed. Sony execs felt their out was if distributors yanked the film because of safety concerns. That would give Sony an out without directly bending to the hackers. Sony just released a statement, saying, "In light of the decision by the majority of our exhibitors not to show the film The Interview, we have decided not to move forward with the planned December 25 theatrical release." The statement goes on, saying, "We are deeply saddened at this brazen effort to suppress the...

Breaking: Sony Pictures cancels 25 December release of North Korea film The Interview after cinemas decide not to screen it.