Sony Pictures: you morons!
First you set yourselves up for all this by thumbing your noses at high-powered cybersecurity that you easily could afford–even if it did have to be a top-10% level. You’re not Billy Bob’s Auto Repair or Third National Bank of Bugtussle, West Virginia, so don’t treat your data at that “other 90%” level. Beforehand, you even allowed the PlayStation network to be hacked, among multiple past hacks, and obviously didn’t learn from it.
Meanwhile you put sensitive personal information and password lists on servers connected to the Internet (something you also could afford not to do, unlike Billy Bob’s Auto Repair). Then your managers and high-level people say and do lots of stupid, prejudiced, backstabbing, and possibly illegal stuff behind the scenes in e-mails and files exposed by hacker-terrorists. Memo: don’t do such things, and they won’t be subject to exposure by bad guys. Don’t leave unencrypted PII and passwords on exposed servers, and said PII and passwords won’t get released by bad guys to jeopardize the livelihoods and finances of thousands of people. Conduct business in a clean, wholly ethical way, and if your cleanliness and pure ethics are exposed by hackers, then…a snoozefest or even public sympathy, instead of impossible damage control!
Then, worst of all, like the cowards you are, you give in to their demands. Nothing against the innocent employees of that company, but Sony Pictures will go bankrupt and deserves that fate. And the hackers deserve long, long prison terms. I hope and pray all the innocent employees find gainful work elsewhere, no thanks to the dripping conceit of their management. Hollywood arrogance. Hollywood arrogance! Imagine that. Now my tax dollars are going to go to an investigation of this result of said arrogance.
Maybe their capitulation to extortionists was another “valid business decision“. If so, that’s more evidence of Sony’s selfishness and stupidity–it essentially dooms them to a slower-drip torture at the hands of the hackers (who obviously have no morals and probably will keep leaking regardless), slower but unavoidable loss of corporate bottom-line balances until inevitable bankruptcy, and an avalanche of lawsuits that have only just begun (and which will contribute to said bankruptcy).
Sony Pictures is doomed, regardless. Capitulating to these extortionists only emboldens them—and they still have all the remainder of the incriminating info not yet released. This not only does nothing to stop them, it further encourages more hacker-extortionists at all levels. They have thrown all other studios and all of American business under the bus by sending the message that extortion will be rewarded. So shortsighted…
What now? If Sony is going to go down anyway, go down in a blaze of glory. Here’s how:
1. Hire white-hat hackers (they can afford it, for now) to destroy the computing capabilities and expose the identities of those who did this, so they can be brought to justice.
2. Post a big fat image of an extended middle finger on their website with the following announcement overlaid: “We changed our minds. We’re not only going to release this movie, we’re going to do it sooner, and online, for everybody to see, free! Take that.”
Alas, like the hackers, they are what they are: cowards.