Talk:2014 Sony Pictures hack

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Neutrality[edit]

There's been a request for a POV check. Apparently, the objection is to including the opinions of cybersecurity experts who doubt that North Korea was responsible, but no explanation has been given here. I think it would be POV not to include those assessments.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:14, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Going by the text removed [1] I think the POV comes from trying to pin blame on Sony employees in the lead. It is a possible theory, of note, but we should be a lot more careful of stating that in the lede without context. --MASEM (t) 23:30, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Well, since the text has been removed, why the tag?--Jack Upland (talk) 00:14, 26 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

References

Quoting Hector Monsegu adds nothing of value[edit]

The subsection on 'attribution' and 'doubt' carries this sentence:

Former hacker Hector Monsegur, who once hacked into Sony, explained to CBS News that exfiltrating one or one hundred terabytes of data would have taken months or years, not weeks, "without anyone noticing".

It was established a long time ago that the hackers first gained access to SPE's computer system months earlier in 2014. To repeat what was previously stated in a now archived discussion:

"[Monsegur] seems to be arguing with himself in this sentence. The FBI are well aware that the hack comprised two stages. Systems were breached and data was copied before the hackers returned and uploaded wiper malware. [Monsegur's] inclusion implies the FBI themselves have suggested the hack was short and quick affair, possibly lasting a few short days, which is simply not the case."

Quoting Hector Monsegu adds nothing of value to our article and serves only to confuse the reader. I propose that we remove his sentence. — TPX 13:40, 2 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's a valid comment. If what he says is true, then it's hard to believe the hack was about The Interview.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:31, 29 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see any issue with it either. It is to give the impression that transferring 100 TB of data without notice is not something that can be done on a dime, which he as a former hacker would be an expert in. --MASEM (t) 14:53, 29 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that Hector Monsegu's quote is not being advanced to crystallize our understanding of the situation. Nor is he being quoted to support the FBI's own conclusion that the hackers were inside Sony Pictures for a considerable period of time. Instead, he is being quoted to support the strawman argument that the hackers could not have acted so rapidly, and therefore North Korea cannot be held responsible. Just look at Jack Upland's reply above: "If what he says is true, then it's hard to believe the hack was about The Interview". Monsegu is refuting a claim that nobody has made; that the hackers transferred an impossible amount of data in a short period of time. I mean, where does this claim even originate from? Our article is quite clear that the hackers went undetected for months before returning to commit criminal damage. — TPX 20:10, 29 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The article says, "The duration of the hack is yet unknown", and the source for that is an article in Wired magazine which raises doubts about North Korean involvement.--Jack Upland (talk) 22:06, 29 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think importantly we're not trying to beg the question "The hack would have taking so long that it is wrong for blame to be placed on the imminent release of "The Interview" for the hack." The Wired piece plus this add to say "No one yet was sure when information first started to be taken but was likely at least a year." and leave it at that. It is very close with some additional languages to be an improper begging of the question regarding the Interview timing, but the article doesn't try to frame that question. That's up to the reader to decide if there's a connection or not. --MASEM (t) 00:35, 30 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
CBS quotes Monsegur as saying "Look at the bandwidth going into North Korea. I mean, the pipelines, the pipes going in, handling data, they only have one major ISP across their entire nation. That kind of information flowing at one time would have shut down North Korean Internet completely." Source: [2]. To me Monsegur comes across as an idiot in the CBS interview. If the CBS interview is the only source for Monsegur's (off-the-cuff?) comments, we should exercise the discretion to remove it. The alternative would be to quote Monsegur's weird argument long enough so that the reader can understand what Monsegur's point actually is, which IMHO is wasting the reader's time. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 05:33, 8 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I think that section could be reworked because the second paragraph repeats the first. I think it is notable that a famous former hacker doubts the claim. I also think the fact that a large amount of data was exfiltrated over a long period isn't clearly indicated elsewhere in the article. We really have very little information about the hack itself. You might think Monsegur is an idiot, but other people think the FBI are idiots. The US government decided that North Korea was responsible right away. There seems to have been minimal investigation, and after the initial burst of publicity there has been silence. It's a bit odd when this was supposedly the biggest hack in history.--Jack Upland (talk) 11:53, 8 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
If all the page editors believed the FBI were idiots (we don't), it would still carry WP:WEIGHT. Monsengur's interview carries small but non-zero weight; if we agree Monsengur adds nothing useful to the discussion, we can exercise discretion to remove it, and just say that he doubts the claim. The problem is not saying a large amount of data was exfiltrated over a longer period, but Monsengur's implication that this is inconsistent with the NK theory. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 18:28, 12 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Why? An expert opinion that that much data transfer would have overwhelmed the NK Internet, and thus why he doesn't think NK was directly involved contrary to the FBI's stance, is a valid opinion to include, alongside several others that have pointed out the fallacy of assigning blame to NK for the hack. --MASEM (t) 18:46, 12 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I guess there are two "straw men" then, the first is that as TPX pointed out, exfiltration over months or years is consistent with the FBI's stance. The second straw man is that there's no particular reason that the full data would have had to go through the NK Internet. The NK agents could (as even Monsengur acknowledges) have been stationed in China; and even if they were physically in NK, the data could be stored anywhere in the world and they can just search and access it remotely. Heck, they could even have tossed an encrypted copy on Amazon Web Services for <$10k per month. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 05:06, 23 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 22 November 2016[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved (non-admin closure) Fuortu (talk) 23:00, 29 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sony Pictures Entertainment hack → Sony Pictures hack – See Talk:Sony Pictures#Requested move 28 October 2016. Per WP:CONCISE and WP:COMMONNAME. 2A02:C7D:561D:1D00:45A4:FE85:E725:556E (talk) 21:09, 22 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support to be consistent with the mentioned move. We used "SPE" originally only because that was the article name for the company on WP at the time, as to avoid the far-too-simple "Sony hack" that news sources preferred to use. --MASEM (t) 22:51, 22 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per nomination. —Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 22:59, 22 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per consistency with Sony Pictures. CookieMonster755 𝚨-𝛀 23:16, 22 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would prefer "Sony hack". People know what that means, even though it's semantically inexact.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:26, 23 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • That's too imprecise because that could then refer to a hack that happened across Sony's Playstation Network, a isolated incident from this (though far less reported), as at least one example. --MASEM (t) 14:52, 23 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Funny paragraph[edit]

"Seth Rogen also expressed doubts about the claims that North Korea was behind the hack. Based on the timeline of events and the amount of information hacked, he believes the hack may have been conducted by a Sony employee. "I've also heard people say that they think someone was hired to do the hack as a way of getting Amy Pascal fired. I don't know if I subscribe to those theories, but I kind of don't think it was North Korea.""

Does anyone give a shit what Seth Rogan thinks about this? Just a thought... Mercster (talk) 08:41, 5 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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