North Korea has verbally fired back at allegations that it is behind the Sony Pictures attack. Calling the recent FBI statement identifying the country as the culprit "groundless slander," the country is demanding a joint investigation into the hack, with the country's experts and US law enforcement working side-by-side. If the US should refuse, North Korea's foreign ministry promised "grave consequences," presumably to US interests. The government of North Korea continues to deny that they hack, which has caused an estimated $100 million of damage to Sony Pictures, not including less tangible problems, can on the country.
The full statement from the North Korean government says that "we propose to conduct a joint investigation with the US in response to groundless slander being perpetrated by the US by mobilizing public opinion. If the US refuses to accept our proposal for a joint investigation and continues to talk about some kind of response by dragging us into the case, it must remember there will be grave consequences."
Sony Pictures has been receiving emails about its
decision to pull the contentious movie from release, supposedly from the Guardians of Peace hackers responsible for the attack, but the contents of the messages vary between reports.
CNN claims the emails sent to Sony executives called the move "very wise," but demanded that the studio still had to prevent the movie from being "released, distributed, or leaked in any form of, for instance, DVD or piracy." It was also commanded that anything related to the movie, such as trailers and websites, had to be taken down as well, with the insinuation that if this is not done, more "private and sensitive data" will be released.
Ars Technica's sources claim the latest GOP message merely consisted of a demand to edit the film to remove the death scene of the ficititious version of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. It is suggested that one or both of the later emails may have come from people posing as the GOP for mischievous purposes, rather than a serious threat.
Obama railed against the removal of the movie in a statement Friday, saying "if somebody is able to intimidate folks out of releasing a satirical movie, imagine what they start doing if they see a documentary they don't like, or news reports they don't like. Imagine if producers or distributors start engaging in self-censorship because they don't want to offend the sensibilities of someone whose sensibilities probably need to be offended. That is not who we are. That's not what America is about."
Sony claims to have not capitulated to the attack, and blamed the theaters pulling the movie for its decision to withdraw the film. Analysts think that the poor financial showing that the movie would have in limited availability, coupled with the threats of further information release, motivated the retraction. Despite the Sony Pictures CEO being verbally defiant, the company has still purged nearly all the promotional materials for the movie from the Internet, with a few still lingering. Hollywood stars are clamoring for a release anyway, calling the move by Sony Pictures cowardly and spineless.
Japan and South Korea are in consultations with Washington diplomats in an effort to control future North Korean hack efforts. China and Russia have been asked as well, but have not officially responded. The China-run media calls
The Interview "vicious mocking" of the North Korean leader, and "a result of senseless cultural arrogance," so Chinese assistance seems unlikely.
Obama did confirm that there would be something done about North Korea's actions. "We will respond. We will respond proportionally, and in a place, time, and manner that we choose." The President also added that it "says something interesting about North Korea" in that it performed an "all-out assault against a satirical film starring Seth Rogen."