Tag: Sony

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Homeland Security Releases Emails Showing Political Influence for Sony, Time Warner Projects

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April 10, 2015 4:15pm PT by Eriq Gardner

The newly released documents buttress a report issued late last month detailing how an immigration director was swayed with respect to hundreds of millions of dollars in film and TV investments under the EB-5 visa program.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general has released hundreds of pages of emails plus other documents in support of its investigation of improper influence on the EB-5 immigration program. Many of the documents discuss hundreds of millions of dollars in financing for film and television productions from Sony Pictures and Time Warner with prominent politicians including former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendall and the office of former Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa interjecting in an effort to get approvals.

Since inception in 1990, the EB-5 visa program allows foreign nationals to become conditional permanent residents upon an investment of at least $500,000 for a qualifying project that creates American jobs. Entertainment studios begun to eye the program to get film investment capital, but some projects have been rejected. For example, in 2009, Lionsgate was denied funding from EB-5 investors because it was determined that the studio was not legally obligated to accept the funding.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/homeland-security-releases-emails-showing-787829

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FBI briefed on alternate Sony hack theory : disgruntled employee

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FBI briefed on alternate Sony hack theory : disgruntled employee

By TAL KOPAN

12/29/14 7:41 PM EST

FBI agents investigating the Sony Pictures hack were briefed Monday by a security firm that says its research points to laid-off Sony staff, not North Korea, as the perpetrator — another example of the continuing whodunit blame game around the devastating attack.

Even the unprecedented decision to release details of an ongoing FBI investigation and President Barack Obama publicly blaming the hermit authoritarian regime hasn’t quieted a chorus of well-qualified skeptics who say the evidence just doesn’t add up.

Researchers from the cyber intelligence company Norse have said their own investigation into the data on the Sony attack doesn’t point to North Korea at all and instead indicates some combination of a disgruntled employee and hackers for piracy groups is at fault.

The FBI says it is standing by its conclusions, but the security community says they’ve been open and receptive to help from the private sector throughout the Sony investigation.

Norse, one of the world’s leading cyber intelligence firms, has been researching the hack since it was made public just before Thanksgiving.

Norse’s senior vice president of market development said that just the quickness of the FBI’s conclusion that North Korea was responsible was a red flag.

“When the FBI made the announcement so soon after the initial hack was unveiled, everyone in the [cyber] intelligence community kind of raised their eyebrows at it, because it’s really hard to pin this on anyone within days of the attack,” Kurt Stammberger said in an interview as his company briefed FBI investigators Monday afternoon.

He said the briefing was set up after his company approached the agency with its findings.

Stammberger said after the meeting the FBI was “very open and grateful for our data and assistance” but didn’t share any of its data with Norse, although that was what the company expected.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/fbi-briefed-on-alternate-sony-hack-theory-113866.html#ixzz3NNfE6sfl

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Critics hate ‘The Interview’

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Critics hate ‘The Interview’

As we had long speculated  , the Interview is a bad movie with great PR , in now looks like Sony concocted the whole North Korea nonsense to deflect form the second serious Hacker breach in as many years , PJ Blogger

Movie critics say the controversy surrounding “The Interview” is much more interesting than the movie itself

The movie is scoring just a 50 percent positive review from critics on the Rotten Tomatoes website.

It’s fairing even more poorly with top critics, who give it a measly 32 percent positive rating.

The film is doing better with regular fans, however. It gets a 73 percent “liked it” audience score from Rotten Tomatoes.

Critics say the satire about a television host and producer asked by the CIA to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jung-un doesn’t deliver the goods.

“Characterizing it as satire elevates the creative execution of the film’s very silly faux assassination of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un far beyond what it merits,” writes Betsy Sharkey in the Lost Angeles Times.

https://thehill.com/homenews/news/228085-critics-hate-the-interview

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Fooled Again : No, North Korea Didn’t Hack Sony

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Fooled Again : No, North Korea Didn’t Hack Sony
12.24.14

The FBI and the President may claim that the Hermit Kingdom is to blame for the most high-profile network breach in forever. But almost all signs point in another direction.

So, “The Interview” is to be released after all.

The news that the satirical movie—which revolves around a plot to murder Kim Jong-Un—will have a Christmas Day release as planned, will prompt renewed scrutiny of whether, as the US authorities have officially claimed, the cyber attack on Sony really was the work of an elite group of North Korean government hackers.

All the evidence leads me to believe that the great Sony Pictures hack of 2014 is far more likely to be the work of one disgruntled employee facing a pink slip.

I may be biased, but, as the director of security operations for DEF CON, the world’s largest hacker conference, and the principal security researcher for the world’s leading mobile security company, Cloudflare, I think I am worth hearing out.

The FBI was very clear in its press release about who it believed was responsible for the attack: “The FBI now has enough information to conclude that the North Korean government is responsible for these actions,” they said in their December 19 statement, before adding, “the need to protect sensitive sources and methods precludes us from sharing all of this information”.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/24/no-north-korea-didn-t-hack-sony.html

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Sony Gets a New Threat– “Anonymous” Says Hackers Aren’t Korean, Release Film Or More Hacks Coming

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Sony Gets a New Threat– “Anonymous” Says Hackers Aren’t Korean, Release Film Or More Hacks Coming

by Roger Friedman – December 21, 2014 12:09 am

I Dear Mr. Michael Lynton (CEO of Sony Entertainment),
 
We shall first-off begin this message with an expression of sympathy as you have failed to release “The Interview” as you believe that hackers shall carry out a new operation to cause malicious damage within your organisation.
 
I would like to inform you that we all know the hacks didn’t come from North Korea (we think everybody knows about this already).
 
What we would like to say is that by not releasing “The Interview”, you are denying us the privilege of the Freedom Of Information Act (1966).
 
Unfortunately, due to your organisation panicking at first sight of trouble, we find this very cowardly of both yourself and your organisation (Sony Entertainment).
 
We know that Mr. Paulo Coelho has offered Sony Entertainment a sum of $100,000 for the rights of the movie; where he shall then be able to upload the movie onto BitTorrent.
 
Obviously, you shall not be responding to his generous offer – so please respond to ours with a public conference, we wish to offer you a deal…
 
Release “The Interview” as planned, or we shall carry out as many hacks as we are capable of to both Sony Entertainment, and yourself.
 
Obviously, this document was only created by a group of 25 – 30 Anons, but there are more of us on the internet than you can possibly imagine.

We are Anonymous,
We are Legion,
We do not forgive,
We do not forget,
Expect us.

https://www.showbiz411.com/2014/12/21/sony-gets-a-new-threat-anonymous-says-hackers-arent-korean-release-film-or-more-hacks-coming