cineSOURCE magazine

Will Irate Vampires Hack Sony’s Hotel Transylvania Film?
by Karl Cohen

On the poster for 'The Interview', directed by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen, the Korean text reads 'The war will begin. Do not trust these ignorant Americans! "Awful work by the pigs that created Neighbors.' photo: courtesy of S. Rogen/E. Goldberg

WHILE I CAN'T ANSWER THAT QUESTION,
nor who hacked Sony last year (although I will explore some possibilities below), what I can tell you is that North Korea has one of the world’s largest animation studios and they pay some of the lowest wages in the industry. The studio does a lot of work for France and several other countries, but US companies are forbidden to do business with them.

I doubt that animation workers in the US would be hurt if and when our relationship with N. Korea thaws. (Remember it took 50 years for the US to stop the Cuba boycott, but it finally happened.) The work that can be done abroad is already being outsourced so I doubt sending work to N. Korea will make much of a difference.

Those jobs were lost years ago, mostly to South East Asia, when past US presidents eased trade restrictions and tariffs. For producers of low budget TV shows improved relations and allowing US firms to do business there would cut production costs. That might result in US networks buying more animation series. That would mean more work for writers, designers, layout artists, and others who do the pre-production work in the US.

The cyber attacks on Sony, by a group calling itself "the guardians of peace", interest me because a few friends have expressed serious doubts that they originated in N. Korea. They also feel that the attacks are being used as anti-North Korea propaganda to further the present administration’s desire to get tougher on that country.

While our present government seems to show no interest in being tolerant towards N. Korea, there was a time when President Carter was improving our relationship with them and they had agreed to a halt to their nuclear program. In June 1994 Carter and his wife became the first Americans since the end of the Korea War to go from S. Korea to the North.

Sony's CEO Kazuo Hirai addressed the international imbroglio in Las Vegas January 5, 2015. photo: courtesy AP Photo/Jae C. Hong

In just two days their good will visit resulted with President Kim freezing his nuclear program in exchange for the resumption of dialog with the US. Subsequently two major agreements were reached. In October 1994 and June 1995 North Korea agreed not to restart their nuclear program and not to reprocess fuel rods into weapons grade material. Also construction was stopped on two additional nuclear power plants.

Our relations with N. Korea remained at that level until 2002 when President George W. Bush called N. Korea a member of the “axis of evil” in his State of the Union address. In October 2002 the administration announced the US was withdrawing from the 1994 and 1995 agreements. That resulted in the North expelling the international inspectors who had been confirming that the North has not restarted their nuclear program. Since Bush screwed thing up our relationship with them has continued to decline.

If Obama really believed in tolerance things might once more improve. Carter took a private humanitarian visit to North Korea in August 2010 to see if he could gain the release of a US citizen who was in jail for entering the country illegally. In just two days Carter’s delegation arranged for the release of Aijalon Gomes from jail.

As for the Sony hack, Obama has authorized more sanctions against N. Korea, but apparently the US has already come close to running out of things they can do. They have announced sanctions against ten individuals who work for companies in N. Korea or their government, but apparently the ten people are not in the US.

James Franco and Seth Rogen are shocked—shocked!—in 'The Interview' one of many works of art to cause international political incidents in the last month. photo: courtesy S. Rogen/E. Goldberg

While claiming the hack came from N. Korea is good for anti-N. Korea propaganda, the Hollywood Reporter headlined a Dec. 30, 2014 article with, “Sony Hack: New Evidence Points to Inside Job, Security Experts Say” based on information from Norse, a security firm.

Norse claims it has evidence that shows the Sony hack was perpetrated two hackers in the US, one in Canada, another in Singapore and yet another in Thailand. They add that one of the individuals in the US is a former Sony Pictures employee, a 10-year veteran of the company with a very technical background who was laid off in May, 2014 following a corporate restructuring.

There are lots of former employees as Sony laid off over a thousand people in the US last year and large numbers in other parts of the world. Norse and a lot of other people suggest the hack was an inside job.

How realistic is that theory? I contacted a former hacker to get his opinion. He said that he has never believed the N. Koreans did it. While he has no idea who did it, he doubts anyone can figure out who created a hack in a matter of a few weeks.

What information he has seen suggests it was not pulled off by a team of professionals working with priority software (N. Korea claims to have such a team of experts), but by geeks who developed their hacking software using easily available programs.

Former-President Carter and his wife visit N. Korea in 1994 and got N. Korean President Kim to freeze his nuclear program. photo: courtesy J. Carter

The hackers apparently found their “in” to Sony's network some time ago. It may have begun by hacking e-mail accounts. Their hacks have since expanded their search, “possibly by inserting Trojan worms into their internal network through whatever their 'in' into their network was.”

I was told by my hacker informant that, although the creators of Sony’s software can fix their security gaps, notably a login directory actually titled password, “ultimately the most fundamental flaws in their network protocols remain. They can't be fixed without breaking compatibility with all previous operating systems' network protocol.”

I was also informed that different hackers from around the world use similar methods rather than inventing a new method. That makes tracing how a hack was done and figuring out who did it is an almost impossible task that can take months and that's if the security team is lucky. Apparently many hacks are never solved as hackers are careful not to leave calling cards behind and there is no physical evidence, no fingerprints.

Apparently, the FBI suggesting they have evidence that N. Korea did it is a questionable claim, I was told.

Note to N. Korea: Should we really be taking Seth and James seriously? photo: courtesy S. Rogen/E. Goldberg

Did the Sony hackers slip up in some way or is the FBI saying that to somehow trick them into exposing themselves? If the government says they have proof, but can’t share it for reasons of national security, do they actually have proof or are they playing the old game of “trust us, we’re experts.” It is easy to fake where a message was sent from, I was also told, and the hackers might use foreign language translation software to disguise where an email has been before it gets to the reader.

Another person with a febrile sense of humor suggested a most unlikely origin for the attacks: Sony created them as a publicity stunt! Why? It was a desperate attempt to draw attention to "The Interview", a film they feared would be a major financial flop, although such a strategy would suggest a level of self-effacement heretofore unheard of in the industry.

Dennis Rodman, 53, a former player for the Detroit Pistons, doesn't believe that the notorious hack of Sony Pictures was caused by N. Korea in response to "The Interview".

"If the North wanted to hack anything in the world, anything in the world, really, they are going to go hack a movie? Really? How many movies have there been attacking North Korea? And they never hacked those. North Korea is going to hack a comedy, a movie that is really nothing? I can't see that happening," Rodman told the press recently at the Sundance Film Festival near Provo, Utah.

Indeed, Rodman considers himself something of a N. Korea expert. His last visit to N. Korea was documented in the Slamdance documentary "Rodmans Big Bang in Pyongyang", directed by Colin Offland. It chronicles his adventures there, bringing a team and visiting with the country's supreme leader Kim Jong Un. It premiered in the US on Jan 25th.

I don’t know how much the film has made from downloads, but at the box office it is a complete dud, generating less than $6 million after being out for 18 days. The National Association of Theater Owners believes that Sony will lose at least $30 million on The Interview. Although the movie was released both in theaters and on video on demand at the same time, it was still a box office disaster.

While the film’s budget hasn’t been announced, a news story about the hack reported Seth Rogen was making $8.4 million for writing, directing and starring in "The Interview" and James Franco was getting $6.5 million.

I look forward to Sony’s "Hotel Transylvania 2", whicht opens Sept. 25th. And I hope the undead don't hack it and it makes enough of a profit that Sony can say 2015 was a great year for them.

Karl Cohen is an animator, educator and director of the local chapter of the International Animation Society and can be reached . Posted on Jan 18, 2015 - 03:01 AM