Remember when evil North Korean hackers were blamed by everyone in the administration for penetrating the firewall of one of the wealthiest, most sophisticated, most secretive multi-national corporations in what now everyone realizes was an epic publicity, not to mention, punking stunt? Well, now that Kim Jong-Un has served his purpose, and the Interview has generated far more revenue than it would have otherwise (but not before North Korea got to troll the US [9], showing it too has lost all respect for the leader of the free world after it called Obama "A monkey in a tropical jungle [10]") it is time to milk The Interview for some more propaganda talking points.
And sure enough, here comes the Seattle-based cyber security firm Taia Global, which according to the NY Daily News as cited by the Mail has analyzed the "data" and concluded that not so Lil' Kim was right (the FBI was wrong) and it wasn't North Korea after all. So who was it? Why the evil Russians of course.
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From the Mail [12]:
A new theory has surfaced that downplays North Korea's involvement in the Sony hacking scandal and suggests the people responsible are actually Russian, based on a linguistics study of the leaked emails.
Security experts believe the origins of the now-infamous Guardians of the Peace are Russian after analyzing about 1,600 words attached to the Sony emails the hacking group leaked to a variety of media outlets.
The words were investigated by Seattle-based cyber security firm Taia Global.
'Our preliminary results show that Sony's attackers were most likely Russian, possibly but not likely Korean and definitely not Mandarin Chinese or German,' the company wrote in a Christmas Eve blog post, according to The New York Daily News.
Wait a minute: it was just ten days ago that the infallible FBI announced [13] it "now has enough information to conclude that the North Korean government is responsible for" the Sony hack, and will "impose costs and consequences on individuals, groups, or nation states who use cyber means to threaten the United States or U.S. interests." The statement promptly served as a basis for Obama to do his now traditional press conference demanding that North Korea suffer "costs" - that now most entertaining aspect of US foreign policy (such as the "cost" contained in Europe's triple dip recession as a result of Russian sanctions, or the "cost" to America's imploding shale industry as a result of the "secret agreement" between Kerry and Saudi Arabia to put Russia out of business).
Of course, since the propaganda was incomplete and the now traditional false-flag, fabricated YouTube clip "proving" North Korean involvement was missing, some were dubious. But that didn't matter: the US population, eager to swallow any BS story hook, like and sinker, did just as it was expected, and went out to prove its patriotism by showing those evil North Koreans just who is boss by watching a C-grade comedy flop.
Well, now it is time to move the propaganda goal posts once more. Enter evil Russia.
The firm deducted that while the analysis did not clear North Korea of any involvement in the hack, it was unlikely.
That is based on the phrasing and language used by the hackers, who communicated in English.
The Taia Global study determined 15 out of 20 phrasings in the emails matched the Russian language.
Nine matched Korean, and none were Mandarin or German.
The Mail adds that since their so-called hacking of Sony, "the hackers appear to have turned their attention to the FBI and on December 21 they posted a message which cynically 'praised' the FBI's investigation into the hack, with a link to a video that repeated the phrase 'You are an idiot' repeatedly.
Judging by the latest spin, they were right. But more importantly, they were, drumroll, Russian.
At this point we stopped reading because the lies upon lies were just too much. We do wonder, however, which upcoming movie flop it will be Americans' sworn patriotic duty to watch: Rocky 56, Red Dawn 2, or the sequel to The Hunt for Red October, which the Russians will vocally object to and demand to be banned, only for the producing studio to release the film straight to internet and collect $5.99 for the rental.
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