[NewsPoster]

In an interview recorded on Friday, President Obama clarified his remarks last week regarding the Sony Pictures hack. The president denies swirling discussions about the hack being an act of war, and called it "an act of cyber vandalism that was very costly, very expensive." Additionally, late Sunday, tweets purport that hacker collective Anonymous is about to wade into the fray against North Korea for its role in the event.

The interview, filmed on Friday before the president flew to Hawaii for vacation, was aired today on CNN's State of the Union with Candy Crowley. Obama claims that the administration takes the event "very seriously" and "we will respond proportionately." He added that the US has "to do a much better job of guarding against that. We have to treat it like we would treat, you know, the incidence of crime, you know, in our countries."

It is unclear what form of cyber attack the president may actually decide is an act of war. Damages to Sony Pictures, not including the loss of revenue from the withdrawal of The Interview, has been estimated to fall between $100 million and $200 million. The Stuxnet computer worm that assailed the Iranian nuclear program is likely to have come from US sources, so it remains possible that the president is choosing to set precedent responding to this, allowing a similar attack by the US to not require military retaliation by another nation. Sanctions prove to hurt the populace of North Korea more than the government. The country's nuclear program and military doesn't seem to be greatly affected by the 50-year long sanctions.

There is disagreement in Washington as to the scope of the hack. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) opposed the president's line of thought, saying that the attack is just the latest form of warfare. Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Mike Rogers (R-MI) says that if the attack is considered a terror attack, then the response needs to be "very serious. Remember -- a nation-state was threatening violence."

On Saturday, US officials responded to North Korea's demand for a joint investigation. White House National Security Council spokesperson Mark Stroh reiterated the FBI's findings, and said in a statement that "if the North Korean government wants to help, they can admit their culpability and compensate Sony for the damages this attack caused."

Anonymous threatens The Interview release, retaliation against NK

A series of tweets from the "official" Twitter account of the Anonymous hacker group has launched a new operation targeted at North Korea. In the series of tweets, the group notes that it is not allying with Sony, and reminds the picture studio that it had been inside Sony systems before, and the studio didn't fix any of the security issues which led to the attack.

At this time, little information is known other than the operational hashtag #opRIPNK.

[Inkling]

Only silly people would call it an act of war. Sensible people realize that it's yet another illustration that every third-rate dictator on the planet knows he can thumb his nose at the US and get away with it.

This wouldn't be so "very costly, very expensive" if Sony had been responsible about getting hacked the first time.

[daqman]

@And.reg : I thoroughly agree. Along with similar corporations Sony have their entire inventory of assets in digital form. The same is true with the banking industry, who's assets (apart from a tiny fraction in the form of paper money or precious metals) are also entirely in digital. Sony is therefore particularly vulnerable to severe damage by cyber attack. They are just lucky that the hackers didn't just delete everything leaving Sony with nothing. To not have adequate cyber defences when digital media is your bread and butter is just plain foolish.

[ElectroTech]

@And.reg: I agree that it would be nice if Sony had 'locked their doors' better but it is the hackers who are irresponsible and should be punished. Blaming the victim is an old and outdated practice. We should all have enough respect to leave other people's things alone.

In developing nations, they all live behind thick solid fences topped with broken glass or razor wire, have bars on all the doors and windows and are afraid to leave their homes. Sounds like a prison, right? It is the criminals who roam free while the good people live behind bars. Justice must prevail and we must put more effort into stopping rogue states and actors from making victims of us all. Stop blaming women of being raped and stop blaming IT departments for being hacked.

[The Vicar]

I'm still extremely suspicious of all this. Every critic who saw the movie panned it. It would be entirely plausible for Sony to be playing along with this to try and get people to see the film, which they wouldn't have bothered to do otherwise.

[Jeronimo2000]

@The Vicar: I guess it's no surprise that the critics really REALLY don't like this movie. What do you expect: it has Seth Rogen in it, and it contains the premise that exploding heads are funny. Both indicate that you really have to be under 20 and stupid to enjoy this piece of art.

[Steve Wilkinson]

@ The Vicar - No, I don't think so because all of this had little to do with the movie until someone at the State Department decided it would be beneficial to try and pin it on N. Korea***. What the 'hackers' (there were hard-coded paths and passwords in the hack components) did and got (probably partly an inside job) is quite damaging to Sony. The movie thing just happens to be part of it. It's in Sony's best interest to play along as it makes them seem less liable in the public eye, and turns the anger towards an identifiable target.

Here's something you might want to check out:
http://marcrogers.org/2014/12/18/why-the-sony-hack-is-unlikely-to-be-the-work-of-north-korea/

*** It's in the USA's interest to make N. Korea more scary as S. Korea starts to arm itself as the USA backs off in being their military presence/protector. And, Russia has been in talks about pipelines through N. Korea, etc. Not saying N. Korea isn't bad, but like ISIS and Ebola, bad things are being blown out of proportion to scare the public into letting the govt get away with what they wish.