Sony Pictures Entertainment has optioned the film rights to the book “No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State” with the James Bond producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli ..
The following slides are taken from a 34 gigabyte leak of internal Sony Pictures data, thrust out onto the internet by maybe-North-Korean-who-knows hackers, and obtained by Gawker. They have not been edited to look like dog shit, but were in fact designed this way by well-paid humans
It could only happen in the movies. A major Hollywood company produces a film starring well-known comedic actors which involves the tongue-in-cheek assassination of the leader of a remote and rather bizarre dictatorship. The “supreme leader” apparently orders a secret group of cyber warriors calling themselves “The Guardians of Peace” (in actuality, the State-run “Bureau 121”) to retaliate by attacking the company’s IT system.
It is mind-boggling to me, particularly when you compare it to real things that have actually happened. Someone killed 12 people and shot another 70 people at the opening night of Batman: The Dark Knight [Rises]. They kept that movie in the theaters. You issue an anonymous cyber threat that you do not have the capability to carry out? We pulled a movie from 18,000 theaters.
Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton is on the board of trustees of RAND Corporation, an organisation specialising in research and development for the United States military and intelligence sector. The Sony Archives show the flow of contacts and information between these two major US industries, whether it is RAND wanting to invite George Clooney and Kevin Spacey to events, or Lynton offering contact to Valerie Jarrett (a close advisor to Obama) or RAND desiring a partnership with IMAX for digital archiving. With this close tie to the military-industrial complex it is no surprise that Sony reached out to RAND for advice regarding its North Korea film The Interview. RAND provided an analyst specialised in North Korea and suggested Sony reach out to the State Department and the NSA regarding North Korea's complaints about the upcoming film. The Sony documents also show Sony being in possession of a brochure for an NSA-evaluated online cloud security set-up called INTEGRITY.
Secret exchanges between the US State Department and Sony have also included a bizarre plan to recruit hip-hop artists to produce a Muslim We Are the World video to support the fight against Islamic State (IS). US diplomats are looking for "the Muslim Bob Geldof" to lead the campaign.
Now with RadarOnline reporting Friday that he took six private jet flights in just six weeks last year, it may prove hard for the actor to justify the need to avail himself of more than $200,000 worth of private travel between LA and New York in such a short period of time.
Emails published this week by WikiLeaks reveal that a senior State Dept. official asked the CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment for help in countering the narratives of the Russian Federation and the so-called Islamic State.
The "importance" of the US television drama Outlander to the political atmosphere of last year's Independence Referendum was highlighted by key TV executives before a meeting with Prime Minister David Cameron.
Sony Pictures Entertainment executives were concerned about a news report that showed one of its cameras being used to guide Israeli rockets bombing Gaza, company correspondance.
emails indicate that Wikipedia is a standard part of film promotion for Sony. Numerous marketing strategy documents contain the instruction "Please create a Wikipedia (or other collaborative website) page if you are able", and Wikipedia is listed on other documents as one of their "standard tactics" for social media promotion
Cameron is said to have met with the executives 10 weeks before the historic referendum to discuss the TV show, which was shown in the US last August but delayed in the UK until several months after the vote in September.
Outlander is based on the multi genre novels by Diana Gabaldon. The story is set between 1945 and the 18th century Scotland, featuring Scottish rebels fighting against British rule as part of the Jacobite risings.