US Threatens Revenge on North Korea for Sony Hack

FBI Offers Little Evidence in Declaration of North Korean Guilt

Speaking today, President Obama promised a “response” to North Korea to punish them for hacking Sony Pictures and spoiling the release of comedy “The Interview,” which was scheduled to come out at Christmas.

Obama refused to get into details of the form of the retaliation, but said it would be “in a place and time and manner that we choose.” Obama was asked if a military attack was possible, but declined to answer.

The FBI insisted today that they’ve confirmed North Korea’s responsibility, but they offered little evidence for it, and many experts continue to believe that an inside attack from a disgruntled Sony employee is the more likely explanation.

The hackers’ familiarity with internal Sony networks certainly would be hard for North Korea to have come by, but growing publicity around the incident had the US under growing pressure to assign blame somewhere, and North Korea ended up being that somewhere.

The FBI held off its promised report twice this week, and when they finally issued the statement today, they insisted all of the really convincing evidence was classified, offering only suppositions and circumstantial evidence beyond that.

President Obama was also critical of Sony for not releasing the movie, saying “I wish they had spoken to me first,” and that he would’ve convinced Sony to release it after all. Sony, which previously said they aren’t going to release it, now says they are exploring possible routes for a release after all.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.