"The Interview" Withdrawal Could Be A Turning Point For Terrorism in America

Sony's The Interview movie withdrawal is a HUGE deal. The decision to pull the film from all platforms today could be a welcome mat to terrorists making targets out of large corporations in the United States. This is a very real threat and could lead to more threats like the one made towards the movie premier of The Interview. Unfortunately, the decision could prove itself to be a major turning point for the safety of Americans. This is a HUGE deal.

Yesterday, Sony broke the news that they wouldn't be premiering The Interview, Seth Rogen's film about killing North Korean leader Kim Jung-Un, on December 25th. While this originally seemed like it was in response to many major movie theaters including AMC Entertainment and Regal Entertainment refusing to show the controversial movie in their chains, Sony has announced today that they will not be releasing the film on ANY platform.

The major game changing development that caused this change was not the fact that Sony was hacked. Instead, it is due to an anonymous post on a site called pastebin, where users can post text files anonymously. In a recent post, an anonymous party said:

Warning 

We will clearly show it to you at the very time and places "The Interview" be shown, including the premiere, how bitter fate those who seek fun in terror should be doomed to. 

Soon all the world will see what an awful movie Sony Pictures Entertainment has made. 

The world will be full of fear. 

Remember the 11th of September 2001. 

We recommend you to keep yourself distant from the places at that time. 

(If your house is nearby, you'd better leave.) 

Whatever comes in the coming days is called by the greed of Sony Pictures Entertainment. 

All the world will denounce the SONY.

This threatening post has had many people in fear that North Korea may launch an attack against the United States in response to the film being released. While the movie has been publicly criticized by representatives of North Korea as being threatening to the country as a whole and is opposed to it's release, there is no real evidence that North Korea was behind the hacking or the pastebin post. In fact, there is still no proof that the two incidents are linked in any way. The source of the hacking could be state-sponsored, but it is unlikely because of a few key items:

1. The hackers used pictures of skulls to post to Sony employee computers. It is rare that state-sponsored attacks use skull images on targeted machines.
2. The source IP addresses are outside of North Korea. While this isn't enough evidence alone, it does add to the puzzle.
3. None of the hack attacks had any mention of the film The Interview

Since we've established that there is no connection between the hacks and the postbin text, that leads one to assume that they could easily be from completely separate parties. It could have been anyone in the world who made that post including Kim Jung-Un himself, or your cousin's next door neighbor. No matter who it was, however, this is Sony responding directly to a terroristic threat. The United States has had a policy to not negotiate with terrorists. The reason behind the unwritten rule is more for our safety than anything else. If we negotiate with a terror group and bend to their wishes, it shows weakness in our country and shows that we will submit to fear when the fear is great enough. 

In effect, Sony is making a statement that corporations in the United States will, in fact, submit to the threats of terror. While Sony may in reality be the only company who is weak enough to do this, the action opens the door to other terror groups to test the waters a bit more than they have been in the past.

This is a HUGE deal and shouldn't be taken lightly.