Hackers and Insiders

Security expert Marc Rogers suggests that the evidence linking North Korea to the Sony hack is less than overwhelming.  You should read his arguments for yourself.  The FBI links are weak, but it is when Rogers turns to why it might have been done by a disgruntled insider that he is especially convincing.

First of all, there is the fact that the attackers only brought up the anti-North Korean bias of “The Interview” after the media did—the film was never mentioned by the hackers right at the start of their campaign. In fact, it was only after a few people started speculating in the media that this and the communication from North Korea “might be linked” that suddenly it did get linked. My view is that the attackers saw this as an opportunity for “lulz”, and a way to misdirect everyone.  ...

The second reason is one that I have wondered about from the start:

The hackers dumped the data. Would a state with a keen understanding of the power of propaganda be so willing to just throw away such a trove of information? The mass dump suggests that whoever did this, their primary motivation was to embarrass Sony Pictures. They wanted to humiliate the company, pure and simple.

Remember when some "hackers" released all the East Anglia emails about Michael Mann and company "hiding the decline" in global temperatures?  Those kinds of hacks are usually based on inside information.  Somebody knows what's going on, and, for whatever reasons, provides access codes to someone else to get the data dumped.  This looks like the same kind of thing.

Anyway, I've come to the possibly sad point in my life where I would not believe the President of the United States if he said water was wet.  I am skeptical of the FBI, the CIA, the State Department, the BLS, and NOAA.  If someone lies to you not once but multiple times, or, in the case of Obama, every time he opens his mouth, and those lies are exposed only to be defended and justified by other lies, I think it may be time to be skeptical.

I can accept that a trusted friend may tell me something that turns out to be false because he believed it to be true himself.  That's an honest mistake.  There's no intent to deceive.  I also understand that, if I look at a situation with a preconceived idea of what I think I ought to find, I am more likely to find it.

The FBI may be lying to further some agenda of the regime, or the "experts" there may be mistaken, or, having been told that the Norks are behind the hack, they conveniently found confirmation based on their expectation. Or, Pyongyang could really be to blame.  But the initial data dumps had nothing to do with a picture that was probably destined to bomb at at the box office.