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Comment by Alupis | Hacker News Reader

Not to mention it's also easy to spoof your IP address if you are traversing out of a DC or node that does not do egress filtering (meaning you don't even have to proxy through the proper IP/country... you just make it up).

Shaky evidence? You bet ya. (and it seems this is the only evidence offered as an explanation so far)

Also, if N. Korea really was behind this "attack" of a private company with no US Gov't ties, why would they not claim responsibility and tout their "Cyber Attack" skills? They do for just about everything else (even failed missile launch attempts). Fear of retribution? No way, this is/was a private company... the US Gov't could not respond with any kinetic weaponry attack and look good on a geopolitical scale.

N. Korea also offered to send personnel to help the FBI in the attack investigation, which is extremely uncharacteristic of N. Korea to say the least... normally they'd just praise the attack flatout.

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It is _not_ easy, or even possible, to "make up" an IP address that works for receiving data across the public Internet. The responses to packets you send from such an address will not come back to you. This doesn't thwart all attacks (DNS query amplification, general flooding, etc), but their hack involved transmitting AND receiving data (ssh, http, etc).

What is _easy_, however, is determining which country is using a given IP address. Particularly when the searching party is a superpower and the country they're investigating is known for having very few links to the Internet. And what connections they do have are severely restricted. I imagine it would be very difficult to find a reliable, exploitable proxy server inside North Korea that is accessible across the public Internet.

You may not need the responses to come to you, particularly if (as is suggested) this is a tiny minority of traffic. Sending something to some /dev/null address in NK? Why not?

N. Korea also offered to send personnel to help the FBI in the attack investigation, which is extremely uncharacteristic of N. Korea to say the least

They offered to help investigate the Cheonan after they sunk it. So it's really not uncharacteristic.

And why do you have attack in quotes? Do you believe Sony wasn't actually attacked?

> And why do you have attack in quotes? Do you believe Sony wasn't actually attacked?

No, I think it's plenty clear that they were. It's just that "attack" has a certain stigma to it, and what happened to Sony was not some grand attack, but rather a run-of-the-mill hack against a company with extremely poor security.

It could be as simple as they saw a bunch of UDP traffic with a spoofed src that was a dprk ip block.

It is quite interesting how so many are hoping against hope that it was not North Korea. I don't really see why they are emotionally attached.

There's no emotions involved -- just like there's no evidence involved.

It's flat out wrong to blame some small and non-credible-threat country for something they likely had nothing to do with just to advance a political agenda.

North Korea is not a great country... but that doesn't mean a "global leader" like the USA can just pin something on them with zero evidence.

Non-credible-threat? North Korea?

I'm not a fan of the US' foreign policy in some ways, and certainly place no blind faith in the declarations of the government, but, that doesn't exactly make North Korea the 'good guys'...

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?Ne...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea_and_weapons_of_mass...

> Non-credible-threat? North Korea?

Their nuclear program claims it has a range of 4,000KM, but to reach the USA it would take about 10,000KM. Not to mention their last missile launch test could not even escape their border.

That's what I mean when I say non-credible threat; they are incapable of inflicting meaningful harm to the USA. They are really all bark and no bite...

> oesn't exactly make North Korea the 'good guys'.

Of course not. Nobody said they are -- they just simply aren't the "bad guys" we are looking for in this specific case.

> they just simply aren't the "bad guys" we are looking for in this specific case.

You seem to be awfully certain. Frankly, I have no idea and am quite skeptical of people who profess such certainty in the face of so few facts. Seems to be the kind of thinking where you have a conclusion and look around for facts to support it.

> You seem to be awfully certain

Perhaps I overspoke a tad. I'm awfully skeptical is better put.

We're largely a scientific community here at HN. Something is False until proven True. You may have a hypothesis, but it's just that, an educated guess as-to the result.

To prove something True you must present overwhelming evidence. We have none of that here... What we do have is a hypothesis being perpetuated as fact in the face of almost zero concrete evidence.

The FBI first says "there is zero evidence to suggest North Korea has anything to do with the hack". Then some "high level anonymous White House official" "leaks" to the NY Times that they believe it's North Korea, and it takes the FBI 3 full days to change their public announcement, yet present zero concrete evidence. This was a rudimentary hack against a private company, there's nothing that would be classified or kept top secret here. Sony should do a full disclosure. Until then, we can not be certain of anything.

but to reach the USA it would take about 10,000KM. Not to mention their last missile launch test could not even escape their border.

I don't think a failed experiment is evidence that they're incapable.

Did you know that a couple of years ago, NK launched their first satellite: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwangmy%C5%8Fngs%C5%8Fng-3_Unit...

and the missile used (Unha 3) has a 10000 KM range and is capable of reaching the western US (with at least a 200kg payload): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unha

They have managed to put a single satellite into low orbit (back in 2012) which is only about 2,000KM (a far cry from the 10,000KM you claim)... and only after several failed attempts.

Regardless, the flight characteristics of a space-bound launch vehicle are far different from an ICBM, and are very easily detectable and intercepted by just about all countermeasures.

They would be more of a threat to South Korea of an attack than on US soil. To the US, they are a non-credible threat.

Except 'orbit' doesn't mean they put a satellite 2000km high and let it fall back down. It means the satellite travelled at least once around the earth, so that's equal to at least 40000km of range.

I wouldn't say it is being emotionally attached to be sceptical of something that is presented without solid evidence.

Fully agree with your technical AND political analysis. I commented along the same lines when the attacks were first announced and got downvoted. When a way of thinking is too far ahead of the crowd, the HN algorithm fails.

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