No Right Answer: Did The Sony Hack Prove We're All Hypocrites?

Firefilm

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Did The Sony Hack Prove We're All Hypocrites?

With companies being hacked with increased frequency, it's important that we as geek culture know how to respond. Our track record thus far is not the best. Here's why.

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Jacked Assassin

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Jun 4, 2010
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Maybe its just me but I don't remember getting excited for any of the hacks that happened. Any information that came out from them was kind of interesting. But nothing that made me think any of it was justified or whatever.
 

Canadamus Prime

Robot in Disguise
Jun 17, 2009
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I didn't even know about the Sony hack. Must have missed the article or articles about it or something. In any case I don't condone it or the nude photos being stolen so don't call me a hypocrite.
 

Boba Frag

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Dec 11, 2009
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You two guys (and also Kyle) are the Princes of the Universe.
Haven't laughed like that at something online in ages!

Great video, interesting discussion and what a killer conclusion!
 

Vendor-Lazarus

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Mar 1, 2009
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The only place I've read about it is on here.
Something about Blaming North-Korea and then that it really was a Sony Insider job.
I didn't really pay attention to those articles, sorry.
 

leviadragon99

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Jun 17, 2010
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Ah, so that's the core of your argument.

Going to call bullshit on the grounds that I go out of my way to avoid inside info, because as it happens, I don't care about finding out more info about movies or games I don't like, and I don't want to get spoiled on movies or games I might actually like, as such I've ignored the fallout of the Sony hack as much as is humanly possible.

So no, I myself am not a hypocrite (at least on this particular issue)
 
Jan 12, 2012
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And here comes the people to say they didn't 'profit' from either hack, and thus are not hypocrites, missing the point that Chris made that if you were part of one but condemned the other, that makes you a hypocrite.


The ethics in journalism question is an interesting point here, and it should be directed at the journalists. During the nude picture thing, you could not have found a respectable site out there posting the pictures (those were shared via peer-to-peer and more fringe places), only discussion about the leak, what it means for the people involved, and things about cybersecurity in general.

Meanwhile, with this Sony hack, respectable sites weren't posting the account numbers and e-mail addresses of people in Sony, but they sure as fuck talked about everything else as soon as they could photoshop in some black bars. I mean, not to throw stones, but in the Escapist's "Biggest stories of the Year", in the very first section, there are links to three different articles that talk about the private data (two from the Escapist, and one from Gawker), and there's not a big flag on those articles themselves saying, "HEY THIS IS STOLEN DATA!" They look just like the regular gossip and rumour stuff that the Escapist covers, and consumers have no way of knowing what was "ethically sourced" without clicking through and giving the Escapist the ad revenue.

I'm just using the Escapist as an example we're all familiar with, but everybody else did so as well, and that's where the blame game runs out of steam. People will make a stand against obviously illegal activity, like stealing nude photos or posting Social Security numbers, but things get very murky very fast when journalists take illegally gained information and work it into their regularly scheduled programming.
 

Therumancer

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Nov 28, 2007
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I think scale matters, as does motivation. As a general rule I don't give a crap about celebrity nude photos, but I do care about international hacking attacks.

For those that haven't been paying attention what happened was Sony made a stoner/slacker style comedy about a couple of Journalists recruited to whack Kim Jong Un called "The Interview". Not really a big deal since nations in conflict produce this kind of stuff all the time at various levels. During "The Cold War" the USSR had a communist version of Star Trek the name of which translates roughly into "Cosmos Militia" or "Cosmos Patrol" (http://www.stim.com/Stim-x/0996September/Automedia/soviet.html for more basic information), and while harder to point a finger at there have been plenty of things like that produced by all countries, albeit not always at the level of TV shows and movies. Every once in a while you see travelling displays by groups like "The Smithsonian" that show off collections of anti-US propaganda. What's more certain movies like "Inglorious Basterds" are in part based around the idea of media warfare. North Korea itself has produced videos (some of which have shown up on the internet to much mockery if I recall) mocking the US and it's policies, and Kim Jong Un seems to threaten the US every other Thursday. What's more despite an armistice we're still technically at war with these guys I believe. I spend so much time pointing this out because it seems some people are oblivious to this reality or for some reason seem to try and lionize North Korea. Ironically the trend of the US being one of the only nations that deeply criticizes and insults itself continues.

At any rate what happened was a group of hackers attacked Sony and released all of this information and said it was because of this movie. What's more terrorist threats were issued saying that theaters would be attacked if they showed the film, causing most mainstream theater chains to refuse to carry it. This being a direct threat to free speech due to people being silenced due to the threat of violence. Obama himself said that the attack was traced back to North Korea, and that theaters refusing to show the movie was a mistake, he also said there would be retaliation... before promptly going on another vacation. http://www.mercurynews.com/portal/crime-courts/ci_27169802/sony-hack-adds-security-pressure-companies?_loopback=1 ... there are LOTS of stories about this, this is just a sample.

At any rate while there are a lot of peace at any price liberals who push this being some kind of promotional attempt by Sony, and even supporting the North Korean attacks due to thinking anti-Korean propaganda is wrong, and of course throwing in with the anti-corporate bandwagons... that's pretty much conspiracy fodder at this point, since even King Liberal himself has acknowledged it. Of course there being any real retaliation is in doubt. What's more one of the big reasons why this being a ploy by Sony makes little sense is that it wouldn't have called in direct terror threats against Theaters since it needs those to show the movie. While a lot of people are seeing "The Interview" Sony is not exactly making much, if any, money off of this.

At any rate that kind of thing strikes me as being a big deal on a lot of levels.

Someone putting nude photos of a celebrity, especially of one that makes a living based on her attractiveness, online is no big deal. To me that's more "phrank" material, it is "wrong" but ultimately pretty harmless despite people trying to balloon it into some kind of big issue of platform. People have been passing photos of each other in compromising positions around High Schools and College Campuses for ages. It's embarrassing for about 15 minutes and good for a laugh but ultimately fades away and nobody cares. Heck they even make jokes about it in Teen/College experience movies going both ways. To me it seems like people with leftward leaning politics trying to make a big deal out of something relatively petty.

Now if your trying to blackmail someone with compromising photos, that's an entirely different cup of tea.

Despite how callous this sounds, I'm actually a big believer in women's rights, I just don't feel it goes to the point of putting them on an untouchable pedestal, and honestly issues like this while tied to Women's rights are more universal than directed specifically at them as embarrassing pictures of dudes also get circulated.

To me focusing on things like that are intended to get around addressing the real issues and problems. To be blunt while it's not Utopian (and we will never have a Utopia) women in the US, and the European first world have it great. Women in the rest of the world, Asia, India, The Middle East, Africa, not so much. Indeed it can be argued that the majority of women don't have it very good at all. As a result I find it ridiculous to see celebrity "ambassadors" like Emma Watson QQing before the UN about Women's Rights while addressing relatively petty first world concerns, many of which are little more than political constructs designed to make a mountain out of a mole hill so there is an issue to fight. Basically when you have huge numbers of women basically living in physical and spiritual slavery through The Middle East, and being stoned to death for crimes like "not marrying the guy who raped you", it seems kind of ridiculous to be spending all kinds of energy crying about webcam hackers putting nude pictures on the internet, especially when the complaints come from people who make a career out of throwing high kicks in blue body paint. I find it ridiculous to see Emma Watson getting praise for example while entirely ignoring the real issues, and praise of her "brave speech" coming from China among others when China is one of the nations that this kind of energy should be being spent against.

One of the reasons why I am so militant about wrecking the entire culture of The Middle East is the treatment of women as slaves (granted it's only one of the reasons). Changing things and freeing the women down there was a big part of the selling point when we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, and one of the reasons I supported the efforts. People might deny it now, but when this war was being sold a lot of reasons were given for acting beyond terrorism. It's a big part of why I've been critical of both Bush and Obama in conducting operations in the region and such a supporter of "total war" doctrine with an eye towards long term changes (which I won't go into again here). Many will say this was never what the war was about, but like it or not it was ONE of the reasons we were stated to be there, and it's part of why I feel it was insulting when both Afghanistan and Iraq were allowed o declare themselves "Islamic Nations" in their new charter when we ripped down their regime which meant we didn't even plant the seeds of cultural reform on paper. We should have asserted ourselves a lot more in that process at the very least.

At any rate my basic attitude is that when UN Ambassadors like Emma Watson start leading bands of Royal Marine commandoes to intervene violently when tribes of Muslims decide to stone women instead of the world sitting back impotently, that will be when they start doing some real good. Instead we see feminists talking crap about nude pictures on the internet like it's a big deal, probably because the other issues are too big, and they are safe enough in the first world to not suffer any real retaliation, where if they say intervened overseas where a REAL champion would be, they would be risking a horrible death.

In short women's rights shouldn't be using sheltered celebrities throwing brat attacks over relatively petty things in the first world as it's figure heads. As much as I loathe her at least Jane Fonda had some guts in her crusades and say travelled to Veitnam to protest Veitnam. Amazing how with an issue I agree with (unlike that) all our allegedly "strong women" are a bunch of cowering babies. Tell Jennifer Lawrence if she wants to be taken seriously as a women's lib crusader she can use some of her money to hire bodyguards, and then say wear a painted on costume into a highly fundamental Muslim area and fellate or straddle the Koran or other religious iconography. Then she'll be worthy of using her celebrity status to make a statement (before anyone comments, this is an Analogy to Jane Fonda straddling a missile in Hanoi, as I said I disagree with what she stood for, but she at least had guts instead of just QQing from a relative ivory tower).
 

RedDeadFred

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May 13, 2009
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Wait.... so did they just call out Movie Bob (I think it was him) for reporting on the hack and essentially profiting off of it? Good for them.

For the people who actually read it: it's hard not to when the story is on the front page with most of the important details in the actual headline.
 

Spyre2k

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Lamest No Right Answer Yet. I sat through the whole thing waiting for them to make a single point. And it wasn't until the end where they claim if your against the celeb nude hacks but managed to profit off the sony hacks your a hypocrite. I don't see how that is making "Us all hypocrites".

First off I thought the celeb nudes were proven to be fake. In which case it's not even hacks it's just people Photoshopping celebs heads on other people's naked bodies. Second if they are legit well that's their own damn fault. Only an idiot takes nude photos and expects them never to get released. It happens ALL the time with person pictures getting released to basic common sense rule is don't take nude photos of yourself.

Second on Sony stuff not one really gives a damn about all the personal employee info that was stolen, except those people and the police. All the news media and the masses care about is free movies were leaked online. But that was Sony's own fault. They have had network security issues in the past due to extremely bad security practices. Also those movies should have never been on a server linked to the internet, and even if they were they should of invested in some military grade security procedures since they are worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

I'm in IT and I watch IT security news quite a bit. And a lot of these hacks happen because of exploits in outdated software, and security systems that would be considered substandard for a system built a decade ago. Though sadly nothing really changes because the weakest link in any security system is the user and users constantly want things easier, which means less security and verification hassles.
 

Kenjitsuka

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Sep 10, 2009
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There's only *one* company where the plumbers get all the gold coins!!! Wink back!

Anyway, whoever put those three Blurays on that shelf... I have the same (but in NL they have cooler covers), and those are DEFINITELY my top 3 movies of 2014!!!!

Chris: when you said "This was not a leak, it was a hack!".
That makes a great point AGAINST you imho. A leak is something that would eventually come out (Even stuff on WikiLeaks get's officially released to all, just after 60 or 70 years). Meaning it was meant for public consumption, or was going to be public eventually.

A HACK releases stuff that was meant to never be shared to whoever it eventually ended up with.

Therefore: Hacks and leaks are different (even though some leaks are brought to us via the ACT of hacking, for any nitpickers out there). A leak is just something getting out EARLIER than intended, a hack (in your terminology) is something that was NEVER intended to be "out there".

I also don't like your "That's technically a sex crime!" claim. I'm not too sure lawyers/judges would agree... if it was a MINOR in them, sure; childporn, shouldn't be made nor exist!!! But an adult in a compromising position who was aware of or even made the material? Viewing it without consent would TOTALLY be a copyright violation (thus crime), but not a sex crime imho.

If I would want to sue sites hosting stuff like that I would go with copyright as my suit.

Anyway, maybe you want to take this argument of your up with Moviebob, Chris?
Since he decided to write some stuff based on the Sony hack?
I wonder if The Escapist will be super pleased with you either, since it has released a lof of articles based on leaked info?

P.S.
LOVE the image for "Sony hack" a LOT!!!

P.P.S.
I assume people reading this now know the DDoS attack was NOT done by the leakers?
If it was, it would have never made logical sense to also touche XBLive, since that would hit Sony even harder; competition being online at crucial time when you are offline AGAIN?!!!

Read up on who turned out to be behind it and why if you haven't already....
 

Sanunes

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Mar 18, 2011
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Spyre2k said:
Lamest No Right Answer Yet. I sat through the whole thing waiting for them to make a single point. And it wasn't until the end where they claim if your against the celeb nude hacks but managed to profit off the sony hacks your a hypocrite. I don't see how that is making "Us all hypocrites".

First off I thought the celeb nudes were proven to be fake. In which case it's not even hacks it's just people Photoshopping celebs heads on other people's naked bodies. Second if they are legit well that's their own damn fault. Only an idiot takes nude photos and expects them never to get released. It happens ALL the time with person pictures getting released to basic common sense rule is don't take nude photos of yourself.
To my knowledge for I didn't follow that hack too closely, some of the posted images were fake but that was to cash in on the real ones that were taken from the Apple servers

Spyre2k said:
Second on Sony stuff not one really gives a damn about all the personal employee info that was stolen, except those people and the police. All the news media and the masses care about is free movies were leaked online. But that was Sony's own fault. They have had network security issues in the past due to extremely bad security practices. Also those movies should have never been on a server linked to the internet, and even if they were they should of invested in some military grade security procedures since they are worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
I agree almost all of the news has been on the internal emails, scripts, and films that were released. There have been a few articles I have seen about the personal employees, but a lot of that is based on lawsuits that are being filed because Sony failed to properly protect that data. Which could also lead to criminal charges if what is being alleged is true for there are laws dictating how sensitive employee data is handled.

Spyre2k said:
I'm in IT and I watch IT security news quite a bit. And a lot of these hacks happen because of exploits in outdated software, and security systems that would be considered substandard for a system built a decade ago. Though sadly nothing really changes because the weakest link in any security system is the user and users constantly want things easier, which means less security and verification hassles.
Yeah, but from what I read from an independent study the other day is that this could be also have been caused by a disgruntled former employee who had inside knowledge of the Sony network, which makes it worse because they didn't update anything after a termination. A company I worked for had a policy created for differing level of employee terminations, the IT area was pretty stringent what had to be changed when it was an IT employee.
 

Atmos Duality

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Mar 3, 2010
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"Did the Sony Hack Prove We Are All Hypocrites?"

No, it didn't.
It doesn't really prove shit except that some people apparently can't leave sweeping Genetic Fallacies in 2014.
(-THE BANNER YEAR- for such fallacies)

I won't speak for anyone else, but as a matter of professional and personal opinion, (IT networking and security guy here) the hack and subsequent exposure of Sony's employee records was less of a "ha-ha, this is cool" sort of exposure and more of a "well, Sony is in deep shit over their weak network security, AGAIN".

Yes, there is some interesting glimpses into the business side of things, but I'm far more troubled by the fact that Sony still could not prevent a breach of this magnitude after experiencing a HORRIFYING, large scale intrusion back in 2011.

(that, and celebrity news/gossip means virtually nothing to me)
 

Darth_Payn

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Aug 5, 2009
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I condemned both the hacks of the celebrity pics and Sony's private info, so you can't pin it on me. This whole thing was a dig on MovieBob, wasn't it? All he did was report on the Sony hacks as "a thing that happened, and what it means for we their audience."
 

J Tyran

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Dec 15, 2011
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It doesn't show that everyone is a hypocrite but it shows that sections web based media are, when it came to someones boobs getting exposed it was all "how terrible this is, anyone viewing them is terrible" and all the other sermonising. Particularly from those with a gender politics bias who jumped on the opportunity to soapbox about it, please note that I agree people getting their data stolen is wrong here its just that I don't soapbox about particular kinds of data theft.

All of a sudden Sony gets hacked and certain "personalities" are all "I have been reading through these documents and weeeeee Spider Man!" and blogging/vlogging/tweeting and writing articles about it and websites competing for clicks over it with hardly any mention of morality. The invasion of privacy issues the nude photos represented is damn awful and embarrassing but this Sony hack has disrupted and hurt a lot more people in tangible as well as emotional ways.

But yeah, WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE SPIDERMAN!

Ethics in Journalism indeed, this time its actually valid and it takes a No Right Answer video to highlight it.
 

Sanunes

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Mar 18, 2011
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Darth_Payn said:
I condemned both the hacks of the celebrity pics and Sony's private info, so you can't pin it on me. This whole thing was a dig on MovieBob, wasn't it? All he did was report on the Sony hacks as "a thing that happened, and what it means for we their audience."
It was more then MovieBob that talked about these Sony hacks, so it would be more of a dig on the entire Escapist website if it was designed to be a dig, for I think multiple of their podcasts even mentioned it. To me its more of a dig towards those journalists that are claiming "there needs to be integrity in journalism" and then posted this information and the Escapist itself hasn't really claimed a side in the argument for everyone is allowed to express their opinions as long as they remain civil.
 

FirstNameLastName

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Nov 6, 2014
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Okay, the actual arguments presented were somewhat flimsy and circuitous that said very little.
It's kind of like saying we are all hypocrites because we live in a secular society yet we support the ISIS and their enforcement of an Islamic state. The question is "who is we?" These are two individual groups, it's not like all of us are in both.

Personally, I responded with apathy to both hacks, since it's not a problem I can influence nor is it a problem that influences me.

However, that ending was perfect.
 

Strazdas

Robots will replace your job
May 28, 2011
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The reason people like leaks is because gaming industry is so backwards that basic transparency is not around and if the companies would be reasonable with informing thier costumers and, gasp, not lie there would be no leak chasing culture.

As far as comparing the nude photo leak versus sony hack, i didnt care for either. i did not google the photos nor do i searched for the sony data. I also saw both events reported on same websites, so it was consistent there.

Also, you are working under assumption that people actually said that those photos are not ok. if this is not true, your entire single badly made point falls apart.

The topic may be about ethics in journalism, but you have failed to make a point about it.

Sanunes said:
Yeah, but from what I read from an independent study the other day is that this could be also have been caused by a disgruntled former employee who had inside knowledge of the Sony network, which makes it worse because they didn't update anything after a termination. A company I worked for had a policy created for differing level of employee terminations, the IT area was pretty stringent what had to be changed when it was an IT employee.
This claim is based in its entirely of there being a disgruntled employee that posted his disgruntlement on the internet. nothing else. its little more than a PR stunt by the company claiming it.
 

Firefilm

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Hurray! What a great way to ring in the new year, by being crowned a prince! Thank you!