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Comment by salesguy222 | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if Sony really was "hacked by the North Koreans" then.

This describes a string obfuscation technology. It doesn't do anything to disguise the origin of malware.

They've also found that kids who kill bugs and squirrels go on to become serial killers at slightly higher rates than "normal people" :)

I doubt the CIA is only involved in one technical attack and not others.

We have fairly extensive evidence that Sony was hacked by a Russian-based APT group. It is likely they were paid to do so by the North Koreans. Check out https://www.operationblockbuster.com/wp-content/uploads/2016... for more info. TL;DR attribution is based on shared C2 and staging server infrastructure, a shared code base with unique implementations, and even shared public keys.

Disclaimer: I know and have worked with the people on Operation Blockbuster.

You think the CIA did it instead? Other than it maybe being technically possible, what evidence or motivation would they have for doing that?

Before I answer, I'd like to state that I am an American citizen living abroad and I have no particular allignment to or against any country :)

I don't know if the CIA did or would want to do this specific attack.

But, I could grasp at straws to fit the Sony attack in line with the narrative of what I would call "1950s American Imperialism".

In my view, the Americans took covert or overt actions for many decades now to undermine economically competitive countries. We've bombed Germany, Italy, Japan, Serbia, Korea, China, Vietnam... we've invaded Iraq... we've taken actions against many Latin American governments and Iran...

Over the years, the powers at be have been pretty good at framing other nations for attacks or dangers, in order to drum up public support to attack them. Gulf of Tonkin, WMDs, USS Vincennes...

So, in short, if you had definitive proof that Russian and NK hacking were in fact orchestrated by the CIA...

... then the economic imperialism narrative would hold as pretty plausible motives!

The most blatant endgame here for the US is "NK hacked us. They have nukes! It's time to invade!". And then NK becomes a new market for the West to take over for cheap as they did in Communist Yugoslavia and so on

> The most blatant endgame here for the US is "NK hacked us. They have nukes! It's time to invade!". And then NK becomes a new market for the West to take over for cheap as they did in Communist Yugoslavia and so on

But "They have nukes!" would be reasonable enough reason to invade. Why not work with that narrative as opposed to "They're hacking us!"?

Some might say the US has a moral obligation to pursue regime change in N Korea, but US foreign policy has focused on isolating as opposed to invasion

I do think nukes are the primary reason, much like with Iran. But you see a trend with Iran, Russia, China, NK- when the country is too legitimate to invade (compared to little Serbia or Somalia), isolation and sanctions are pursued.

Perhaps it is convenient fear-mongering and deepening of arguments. America seems to be pretty good at spreading multi-faceted arguments about why you shouldn't even _think_ about the legitimacy of a multi-polar world.

I guess my point is, the American government and official state media seem pretty content to have these multi-bullet playbooks against nations that are quite deeply fulfill the criteria of "non-western", "non-democratic", "non-capitalist", but still quite serious "economic and militaristic threats"

> I do think nukes are the primary reason, much like with Iran. But you see a trend with Iran, Russia, China, NK- when the country is too legitimate to invade (compared to little Serbia or Somalia), isolation and sanctions are pursued.

Stuxnet was (in a sense) a much more interesting topic than this leak. It showed that the retaliation is pursued not only by isolation and sanctioning, but with (subtle & undercover) direct attacks too.

SONY had partnered with the US government to create a film that they thought and hoped could galvinize a revolutionary mood in North Korea (by making a comedy about the CIA assassinating the leadership and showing that mock assassination on screen). The DPRK considered this an attack (similar to the US considering the disclosure of hacked DNC emails an attack) and responded with a cyber attack on the contracting firm.

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