With all the security experts coming out saying that it's really likely it wasn't an attack by North Korea, maybe this is one of those things they call a "false flag" operation.
This seems unlikely. Even if North Korea would not be backed by China, could the US win a war? Probably not and they know it. North Korea has one of the largest armies in the world and they are probably crazy enough to take huge losses. This is not like Iraq at all, to say nothing of Afghanistan.
There is also little to be gained. Syria would be a more obvious candidate. It's just as good for "focusing our attention", probably can get public support easily, would please both, Saudi Arabia and Israel and could even make strategic sense. (To be clear, I would oppose such a war, of course.)
When you have the superiority the US sports, it's not hard to win a war. It becomes a question of what you're willing to do to win it.
The US is one of the only countries in history to have to deal with that question. Defeat Iran? Easy: nukes, or a never-ending bombing campaign that leaves nothing left standing. Throughout most of history, the problem with defeating an enemy wasn't a question of: well, but can we do it without killing too many people.
North Korea's army is worthless. They're extraordinarily backwards, poorly trained, and with mediocre equipment. The problem would be the guerrilla warfare part, much like Vietnam.
Iraq had one of the largest armies as well, and the world watched in shock as the US trivially dismantled it. The US would dismantle the standing North Korean military very quickly, it would be the next stage of the fight that would be terrible.
If the US had a reason to really want to topple North Korea, the easy thing to do would be to make a deal with China: they get Taiwan tomorrow morning, and they allow North Korea to collapse, don't get involved if the US fights a war with North Korea, etc. China would make that deal in a heartbeat.
The biggest problem in fighting a war with North Korea, as everyone knows, is the damage that would be done to South Korea.
> When you have the superiority the US sports, it's not hard to win a war.
The "War on Terror" started in 2001 and is an ongoing clusterfuck. As the "War on Terror" hasn't concluded, the last war that the US won was Kosovo in 1999.
I suggest you read on North Korean military equipment, supplies and operational readiness.
It is all about the details:
They have the largest submarine force in the world; but every one of them is an outdated diesel-electric.
They have a couple hundred fighter airplanes, but their trained pilots get 10-20 hours of practice every year.
And so on...
They aren't capable of a prolonged attack as they don't have enough food( literally ). At best they can defend for a long time and cause a lot of collateral damage with chemical weapons and short range nukes, which is enough to keep their enemies away.
No, I attempted to be very, very specific in what I was claiming.
The US could win the "War on Terror" any time: kill vast quantities of people, as many as it takes, and or whatever it takes (up to and including destroying their culture, wiping out their identity; see: Tibet, or Japan, or what ancient empires did). That's how people were typically truly defeated historically. Whether we're talking about Alexander, the Romans, the Mongols, Nazi Germany, the USSR, etc. One of the few exceptions would be the British Empire, they did a lot less sheer mass murdering.
It is not a question of if the US can win, it's a question of: what is the US willing to do to win.
You can name the number of countries that could stop the US from bombing them perpetually, on one hand. I'm not over-estimating US superiority, I'm proclaiming that the US isn't willing to use any and all tactics to win.
I think you stopped reading Adventured's post too early.
The U.S. defeats conventional armies all the time, and Adventured was responding to the idea that North Korea's conventional army might be a problem for the U.S. It's the guerrilla war afterward that the U.S. might lose, which Adventured goes on to address.
I didn't stop reading. What does "win a war" mean if you only consider initial combat? To that end, let's ignore the last 14 years and declare that the US won the "War on Terror" during the first 6 days carpet bombing of Tora Bora.
Winning a war vs North Korea would be easy for the US: kill very large numbers of people indiscriminately with nukes, or stand-off and just bomb them very heavily and perpetually for a decade until nothing is left. After a very short amount of time, North Korea would be entirely incapable of shooting down high altitude bombers, the US would never have to put boots on the ground, just spend all the money on never-ending bombing raids.
It goes back to what I said: the issue is what the US would be willing to do to win. It's not acceptable to defeat enemies today in a manner in which truly large sums of civilians are killed (I'm talking about killing 1/4, 1/2 of the country, vaporizing them, mowing them down with unrelenting bombardment, and then with starvation).
The US could have easily won the Vietnam war, it won every major engagement. The US could have marched north with a million soldiers and run over the Vietcong, killing however many people were necessary in the process. However it would have required another level of extreme brutality, and potentially (likely?) would have ended in a direct war with Russia or China. The question for the US post WW2 has been what's acceptable to achieve victory in war, because against its adversaries that question has been the only limiting factor, not the ability to achieve victory itself.
As a side note, I consider that the US won the Korean war. Given how South Korea has turned out, I consider it a staggering victory. Especially considering how difficult it was to go into Asia and hold ground with China, Russia and North Korea trying to push you out in one form or another.
Aside from wars which end by formal, unconditional surrender -- where its absolutely unambiguous who "won" -- winning a war isn't a well-defined concept. Particularly not well-defined when one belligerent has ambiguous war aims.
But, I mean, there are few US wars where you can't make an argument that the US won. Certainly, the most recent Iraq War conducted under the authority of the 2002 AUMF (which is distinct from campaign against those parties responsible for 9/11 authorized by the 2001 AUMF) -- in which at least one of the stated war aims was to remove the then-existing Iraqi regime before it could acquire and use WMDs -- was "won" by the US.
Yes. They are an american company that is owned by a Japanese company.
Just the same as the Apple store in your town, which likely has its own LLC or corporate identity, is a company of your state, owned by a company in California.
On the other hand, Sony cameras, for instance, are produced by Sony Japan, rather than an american company owned by Sony. The cameras are merely distributed here.
Apple Sales International, Apple Operations International, Apple Distribution International, and Apple Operations are all headquartered in Ireland, not California. Only a tiny tiny number of specialist Apple people work and pay taxes in the US. All the big tickets (sales/distribution etc) are offshore. Add to that Apple's manufacturing base (China) and I think it safe to say that Apple is no longer an American company.
Wasn't the Benghazi attack more to do with the Iranians and Russians trying to stop the CIA secretly smuggling missiles and other weapons to Syrian rebels?
Several large and respected security companies agree with the FBI's assessment, like Crowdstrike. Crowdstrike claims to have been tracking the NK group that did it for years. They've published information about that group (whom they've codenamed SILENT CHOLLIMA) in the past, so they're telling the truth about that at least.
Obviously that is not proof that they're correct, but it adds a bit of weight.
And of course, the company that Sony hired to investigate and clean up the breach, FireEye/Mandiant, believe it was North Korea. FireEye and Mandiant also track APT groups; Mandiant notably released their report on one of China's state-sponsored cyberwarfare divisions, APT1, some time ago.
There are some dissenting opinions from other companies, like Norse and ErrataSec's Rob Graham. They are skeptical. However, these companies do not share Crowdstrike's or FireEye's niche industry, which is tracking and defending against targeted and government-sponsored groups.
As far as I can tell, the organizations that would best know whether it was North Korea and who have information directly related to the case (FBI, NSA, FireEye, Crowdstrike) believe it was North Korea. The dissenting opinions are from security experts who are undoubtedly intelligent and great in their respective fields, but are really just being armchair analysts.
So unless you think all of these organizations are either incompetent or are colluding to intentionally lie to the public, then NK remains the most likely hypothesis.
It is certainly possible NK retained help from non-NK individuals, and it is possible an insider was involved, but the prevailing hypothesis among a large part of the security community is that NK's government ordered the attack.
Now, from the people who brought you "Iraq was behind 9/11", we have "North Korea was behind the Sony hack". This is embarrassing for the FBI. They used to keep quiet until they were ready to arrest someone.
There were several different leaks or attacks from multiple actors, one of which has signs of being an inside job, but not all do. I recommend reading this analysis of the events for one perspective on the complexity of the situation: https://np.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/2puo8h/bittorrent...
This makes no sense. The original demand was for money and wasn't political.
> Then on Nov. 21, a strange message popped into several Sony executives’ inboxes. It was three days before the hacks debilitated the company. And this was their first contact. But the message didn’t talk politics. It didn’t mention anything about “The Interview.” What did the hackers want? Money.
> “We’ve got great damage by Sony Pictures,” the message said, according to a copy published by Mashable. “The compensation for it, monetary compensation we want. Pay the damage, or Sony Pictures will be bombarded as a whole.” The message was signed: “From God’sApstls.”
We must not forget that they threatened the US. So it would not make sense if they did not react (to the allegations and the movie) in the first place.
Has there been any analysis from network/security communities posted to HN on the Sony hacks? All I've seen is reporting and opinion pieces, none that attempted to do research.
This is the closest I've been able to find, some random guy on reddit from a couple weeks ago:
who quotes the BBC's selective quote of a NK representative saying: "The hostile forces are relating everything to the DPRK (North Korea). I kindly advise you to just wait and see."
down to "Wait and see." with a headline: "North Korea refuses to deny Sony Pictures cyber-attack"
The more I read about this whole controversy the stupider I feel.
This entire fiasco reminds me of 'The Yes Men' and their reality hacks. Claim something loud enough and it becomes the story. The story is then repeated by the media, eventually forcing a change in government policy. The claim is then, for all intents and purposes, a new reality.
An unavoidable downside of democracy is that politicians react to public belief, no matter how easily that belief is manipulated.
I for one support sanctions on NK for voicing threats against Sony.
It's immaterial whether they did it or not. I'm just sick and tired of NK's tantrums and hopefully this will keep the propaganda arm of NK govt keep its mouth shut for a little while.
Where is the proof NK did it ? did the FBI at least made a case against NK? or just because the president says NK did it,it's true? well maybe it's good enough for most people but that's the problem,it shouldn't be.
Are you kidding me? that's what you call concrete evidence? aside from the FBI and the media repeating what the government says there is no evidence.
So please don't pretend this Echo chamber does prove something.It doesn't.There is absolutely no evidence NK did it.
At least during the WMDs madness,the Bush government tried to make a case.Now they don't even bother.Why would they? with people like you,they just have to point fingers at a country and say "let's go get them".
My God, my point was whether NK hacked or not. My point is NK is famous for threatening other nations.
If any nation that doesn't deserve any benefit of doubt is NK. Kim doesn't deserve the title of 'head of a nation state'. I'm sure you are a good liberty minded person and if so, you shouldn't waste any energy defending little Kim.
Wow,I mean,where is the evidence? I don't want to doubt the FBI but come on... So US slaps sanctions just like that? and who do you think it will hurt? the people again.It didn't work for Cuba,doesn't work for Iran,didn't work for north Korea all these years,and while Russia is in trouble,it's not due to US sanctions.
60 comments
[ 1.9 ms ] story [ 43.0 ms ] threadThere is also little to be gained. Syria would be a more obvious candidate. It's just as good for "focusing our attention", probably can get public support easily, would please both, Saudi Arabia and Israel and could even make strategic sense. (To be clear, I would oppose such a war, of course.)
The US is one of the only countries in history to have to deal with that question. Defeat Iran? Easy: nukes, or a never-ending bombing campaign that leaves nothing left standing. Throughout most of history, the problem with defeating an enemy wasn't a question of: well, but can we do it without killing too many people.
North Korea's army is worthless. They're extraordinarily backwards, poorly trained, and with mediocre equipment. The problem would be the guerrilla warfare part, much like Vietnam.
Iraq had one of the largest armies as well, and the world watched in shock as the US trivially dismantled it. The US would dismantle the standing North Korean military very quickly, it would be the next stage of the fight that would be terrible.
If the US had a reason to really want to topple North Korea, the easy thing to do would be to make a deal with China: they get Taiwan tomorrow morning, and they allow North Korea to collapse, don't get involved if the US fights a war with North Korea, etc. China would make that deal in a heartbeat.
The biggest problem in fighting a war with North Korea, as everyone knows, is the damage that would be done to South Korea.
What was the last war the US actually won?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_Unit...
( 3 years ago )
The "War on Terror" started in 2001 and is an ongoing clusterfuck. As the "War on Terror" hasn't concluded, the last war that the US won was Kosovo in 1999.
I think Adventured overestimates US' superiority.
It is all about the details:
They have the largest submarine force in the world; but every one of them is an outdated diesel-electric.
They have a couple hundred fighter airplanes, but their trained pilots get 10-20 hours of practice every year.
And so on...
They aren't capable of a prolonged attack as they don't have enough food( literally ). At best they can defend for a long time and cause a lot of collateral damage with chemical weapons and short range nukes, which is enough to keep their enemies away.
What's wrong with diesel-electric submaries. Here's US superiority vs diesel-electric subs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqFVOL7mLd4
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2006/nov/13/20061113-121...
Winning a war is indeed easy for the US if it's willing to go all out. It's just not willing to go all out.
Then applying logic, it can't win the war.
The answer is: yes, obviously, and the price would be very high in terms of either US soldiers, or North Korean civilians, or both.
The US chooses not to engage in that war, precisely because it already knows the cost equation. Millions would die.
The US could win the "War on Terror" any time: kill vast quantities of people, as many as it takes, and or whatever it takes (up to and including destroying their culture, wiping out their identity; see: Tibet, or Japan, or what ancient empires did). That's how people were typically truly defeated historically. Whether we're talking about Alexander, the Romans, the Mongols, Nazi Germany, the USSR, etc. One of the few exceptions would be the British Empire, they did a lot less sheer mass murdering.
It is not a question of if the US can win, it's a question of: what is the US willing to do to win.
You can name the number of countries that could stop the US from bombing them perpetually, on one hand. I'm not over-estimating US superiority, I'm proclaiming that the US isn't willing to use any and all tactics to win.
The U.S. defeats conventional armies all the time, and Adventured was responding to the idea that North Korea's conventional army might be a problem for the U.S. It's the guerrilla war afterward that the U.S. might lose, which Adventured goes on to address.
It goes back to what I said: the issue is what the US would be willing to do to win. It's not acceptable to defeat enemies today in a manner in which truly large sums of civilians are killed (I'm talking about killing 1/4, 1/2 of the country, vaporizing them, mowing them down with unrelenting bombardment, and then with starvation).
The US could have easily won the Vietnam war, it won every major engagement. The US could have marched north with a million soldiers and run over the Vietcong, killing however many people were necessary in the process. However it would have required another level of extreme brutality, and potentially (likely?) would have ended in a direct war with Russia or China. The question for the US post WW2 has been what's acceptable to achieve victory in war, because against its adversaries that question has been the only limiting factor, not the ability to achieve victory itself.
As a side note, I consider that the US won the Korean war. Given how South Korea has turned out, I consider it a staggering victory. Especially considering how difficult it was to go into Asia and hold ground with China, Russia and North Korea trying to push you out in one form or another.
Aside from wars which end by formal, unconditional surrender -- where its absolutely unambiguous who "won" -- winning a war isn't a well-defined concept. Particularly not well-defined when one belligerent has ambiguous war aims.
But, I mean, there are few US wars where you can't make an argument that the US won. Certainly, the most recent Iraq War conducted under the authority of the 2002 AUMF (which is distinct from campaign against those parties responsible for 9/11 authorized by the 2001 AUMF) -- in which at least one of the stated war aims was to remove the then-existing Iraqi regime before it could acquire and use WMDs -- was "won" by the US.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_...
Now politicians using biased evidence to further their goals, that is far less exceptional.
I thought they were still solidly Japanese with a US presence.
Just the same as the Apple store in your town, which likely has its own LLC or corporate identity, is a company of your state, owned by a company in California.
On the other hand, Sony cameras, for instance, are produced by Sony Japan, rather than an american company owned by Sony. The cameras are merely distributed here.
I seem to remember reading that somewhere.
Maybe I'll just leave this here and people can judge for themselves:
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-secret-cia-mission-in-ben...
Edit: I mean is there some source that would back up the claim?
Obviously that is not proof that they're correct, but it adds a bit of weight.
And of course, the company that Sony hired to investigate and clean up the breach, FireEye/Mandiant, believe it was North Korea. FireEye and Mandiant also track APT groups; Mandiant notably released their report on one of China's state-sponsored cyberwarfare divisions, APT1, some time ago.
There are some dissenting opinions from other companies, like Norse and ErrataSec's Rob Graham. They are skeptical. However, these companies do not share Crowdstrike's or FireEye's niche industry, which is tracking and defending against targeted and government-sponsored groups.
As far as I can tell, the organizations that would best know whether it was North Korea and who have information directly related to the case (FBI, NSA, FireEye, Crowdstrike) believe it was North Korea. The dissenting opinions are from security experts who are undoubtedly intelligent and great in their respective fields, but are really just being armchair analysts.
So unless you think all of these organizations are either incompetent or are colluding to intentionally lie to the public, then NK remains the most likely hypothesis.
It is certainly possible NK retained help from non-NK individuals, and it is possible an insider was involved, but the prevailing hypothesis among a large part of the security community is that NK's government ordered the attack.
Gawker says one security firm thinks it was an inside job by a laid-off Sony employee.(http://gawker.com/researcher-sony-hack-was-likely-an-inside-...)
"Don't embarrass the Bureau" - internal FBI motto, Hoover era.
> Then on Nov. 21, a strange message popped into several Sony executives’ inboxes. It was three days before the hacks debilitated the company. And this was their first contact. But the message didn’t talk politics. It didn’t mention anything about “The Interview.” What did the hackers want? Money.
> “We’ve got great damage by Sony Pictures,” the message said, according to a copy published by Mashable. “The compensation for it, monetary compensation we want. Pay the damage, or Sony Pictures will be bombarded as a whole.” The message was signed: “From God’sApstls.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/12/18...
This is the closest I've been able to find, some random guy on reddit from a couple weeks ago:
http://np.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/2puo8h/bittorrent_...
down to "Wait and see." with a headline: "North Korea refuses to deny Sony Pictures cyber-attack"
The more I read about this whole controversy the stupider I feel.
An unavoidable downside of democracy is that politicians react to public belief, no matter how easily that belief is manipulated.
NK is just getting what it really wanted, attention.
It's immaterial whether they did it or not. I'm just sick and tired of NK's tantrums and hopefully this will keep the propaganda arm of NK govt keep its mouth shut for a little while.
http://variety.com/2014/film/news/sony-hackers-threaten-911-...
So please don't pretend this Echo chamber does prove something.It doesn't.There is absolutely no evidence NK did it.
At least during the WMDs madness,the Bush government tried to make a case.Now they don't even bother.Why would they? with people like you,they just have to point fingers at a country and say "let's go get them".
If any nation that doesn't deserve any benefit of doubt is NK. Kim doesn't deserve the title of 'head of a nation state'. I'm sure you are a good liberty minded person and if so, you shouldn't waste any energy defending little Kim.
I swear we're run by a broken magic eight ball.