
North Korea's Official Statement - tomkwok
http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2014/201412/news21/20141221-14ee.html
======
speeder
There is lots of rambling on the text.

But from the tone of it, and from the actual text, I could understand:

1) They claim that US State Department helped in the creation of "The
Interview" and that the movie promotes terrorism.

2) They claim that the Sony hack was perpetrated by terrorists, because
terrorism breeds terrorism.

3) They claim they have nothing to do with the Sony hack, although they
approve it.

4) They claim they are really, really angry at US behaviour of accusing them,
and they will retaliate, including militarily.

Interestingly enough, they don't mention their own networking getting killed.

~~~
quink
> 3) They claim they have nothing to do with the Sony hack, although they
> approve it.

Nope, they just say that the US shouldn't jump to conclusions, that they've
never performed a "cyber-attack" on "south Korea" (which is irrelevant here)
and that they don't know who the "GOP" are or where they are. No denials apart
from that.

~~~
speeder
The FBI argument is that they are the culprit because the attack was similar
to the attack on south korea.

So they are denying both attacks.

------
Chevalier
I'm just tired of the Western view of North Korea as a joke. Yes, the Kims are
ludicrous. They're also monsters, some of the worst in human history, who have
crushed one of the world's most beautiful and functional cultures under their
brutality and insanity.

Nobody considered Hitler or Stalin to be laughing matters during their purges.
But somehow we can all ignore the horrific crimes of these bastards because
the father was ridiculous and the son is fat. Nobody gives a damn if the Kims
rape women, torture civilians, or murder innocent families so long as their
victims are Korean. No, the first time we see even vaguely appropriate anger
toward these dictators is when they might have hacked a goddamn MOVIE STUDIO.

MacArthur was right. Truman was horribly, horribly wrong. And innocent Koreans
have paid for Truman's cowardice and vanity with half a century of utter
brutality. The only thing wrong with The Interview movie was that it was a
comedy rather than a true story.

~~~
vowelless
> MacArthur was right. Truman was horribly, horribly wrong

Could you expand on this?

~~~
disjointrevelry
MacArthur publicly stated dropping nuclear weapons on the northern border of
the Korean peninsula to prevent the Chinese hordes from invading was necessary
to secure peace in the Korean peninsula. Truman fired him because the long-
term strategy the US had with the Chinese had a threshold of military conflict
that MacArthur was far surpassing. Truman and the strategists involved
believed the conflict with the Chinese had to remain on the Korean peninsula.
They believed MacArthur's plans to drop nuclear weapons on the Chinese side of
the Korean border would escalate the conflict to a point of becoming an
uncontrollable conflict in the region.

~~~
scarmig
MacArthur also repeatedly tried to goad China into intensifying the conflict,
against the direct orders of Truman.

There's the escalation with China/nuke part of things, and there's the total
rejection of civilian control of the military part of things.

~~~
nemo
Yep, MacArthur was a great military strategist, but very politically naive.
Truman really had no choice but to relieve him after MacArthur went off the
rails and tried taking executive authority he didn't have to further military
goals.

------
exclipy
It's interesting how clearly we see the effects of the English -> Korean ->
English translator. Where Obama referred to "proportional response", this
statement directly quotes it as "symmetric counteraction".

~~~
dmix
Symmetric counteraction sounds more threatening while still somewhat meaning
the same thing.

------
quink
Basically, DPRK is claiming that they didn't do it and that they don't know
who or where the GOP is.

Here are the only two statements that could be assumed to be a denial based on
the broken English present in this:

> though it is not aware of their [GOP's] residence.

> Yet, we do not know who or where they are but we can surely say that they
> are supporters and sympathizers with the DPRK.

Even these two strongest denials are entirely consistent with the DPRK
"hiring" the "GOP" to do this task for them.

Also, two broken images:

* file:///C:/images/kabe-0.gif

* file:///C:/images/02mm.gif

~~~
deckar01
Those images are not unique to this article. They seem to be part of the
site's template.

------
eastbayjake
It seems like that statement was written and translated outside the usual
channels. Other press releases from today were written in much better and
coherent English[1][2]. It would be odd for the English to be so good in all
the other releases but so terrible in this one -- it's like a higher-up wrote
it and ran it through a computer translator, then demanded it be printed
verbatim without editing by an English speaker.

[1]
[http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2014/201412/news21/20141221-01ee....](http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2014/201412/news21/20141221-01ee.html)
[2]
[http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2014/201412/news21/20141221-11ee....](http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2014/201412/news21/20141221-11ee.html)

~~~
dsl
With the DDoS attack taking out the internet, they probably couldn't use
Google Translate and had to use a locally installed tool.

------
edkennedy
>It is said that the movie was conceived and produced according to the
"guidelines" of the U.S. authorities who contended that such movies hurting
the dignity of the DPRK supreme leadership and inciting terrorism against it
would be used in an effective way as "propaganda against north Korea".

This is what I thought the first time I heard about this movie. I thought that
it's either puerile and immature or crafted and malicious (while still being
immature). Then again screenwriters have always been desperate for ideas...

~~~
arrrg
North Korea fascinates people in the US and Europe. (North Korea even knows
that and uses that to its advantage. Just look at the tours they sell and how
much those cost.)

In that context it seems like quite the leap to suspect some sort of
conspiracy here to get this movie made.

Places that fascinate people and get their imagination going will get movies
made about them and that’s that. The plot is also quite obvious. What do
Americans do with tyrants? They kill them. Wow, what an outlandish trope no
one ever thought of before …

Make that a comedy and you get this movie. No conspiracy needed at all.

------
willscott
An interesting takeaway from this, perhaps, is how willing this statement is
to defend and mark the 'defenders of peace' group as supporters of the regime.

If an anonymous hacker attacked a cause that you supported but you didn't know
what they were going to do next, would you publicly support them?

~~~
defen
> If an anonymous hacker attacked a cause that you supported but you didn't
> know what they were going to do next, would you publicly support them?

I can't even begin to contemplate the lulz that would be had if GoP turned
their attention to attacking North Korea.

------
cyphunk
Does anyone have source for the analysis of the "program" used that the
statement claims the FBI used as their grounds for the accusation? I still
cannot find any details

~~~
MDrollette
It's discussed here [http://marcrogers.org/2014/12/21/why-i-still-dont-think-
its-...](http://marcrogers.org/2014/12/21/why-i-still-dont-think-its-likely-
that-north-korea-hacked-sony/)

~~~
cyphunk
thanks

------
aligajani
Why are the North-Koreans using a Japanese TLD?

~~~
etrevino
There's a large-ish North Korean population in Japan that has some significant
links to the DRPK. Many are actually used as a means to get hard currency into
the country. To a limited (very limited) extent they reduce reliance on China.

------
peteretep
I'd always assumed kcna.co.jp was meant to be parody...

~~~
tomkwok
The article can also be found on [http://www.kcna.kp](http://www.kcna.kp), but
the site is currently down, probably due to the attacks reported earlier
today. Note: the IP addresses resolved is in the currently well-known block:
175.45.176.0/22.

>> www.kcna.kp. 5226 IN A 175.45.177.74

>> www.kcna.kp. 5226 IN A 175.45.176.71

------
sosedoff
"Sony Pictures Entertainment which directly sponsored its production and
distribution hastily issued a statement on Dec. 25" \- probably a typo

------
ck2
Every time I see anything out of the mouth of North Korea I think of the 20+
million starving, in forced labor camps, etc.

~~~
rikacomet
please do share, if you found a picture of noteworthy legitimacy that shows
even 1% of the figure quoted above i.e 20 million. (btw the population of DPRK
is 24 million as per wikipedia, thus 20 million seems a lot inflated.)

------
ForFreedom
Funny english And article on a Japanese domain.

------
rustyconover
Are they trying to long troll us? tl;dr people.

~~~
edkennedy
What's the matter you never read Dadaist poetry? Jokes aside I found it
interesting to read something you know is propaganda, the rhythm and efforts
to influence were different.

------
TheAceOfHearts
I'm trying to read it but something about the writing style breaks my brain.
Could anyone provide a translation in American English?

~~~
tlrobinson
Someone should throw it up on RapGenius.

~~~
ProAm
You mean Genius

------
BorisMelnik
Simply hilarious. Each sentence is more ridiculous than the next. The only
reason we (NATO) has not crushed them is because of humanitarian reasons, we
feel bad for their people being enslaved and fear that engaging in war would
starve their people and send their already weak army into a war they are not
equipped to fight.

~~~
kushti
The only reason NATO hasn't crushed them is the absence of oil in North Korea.

~~~
devnonymous
This !

------
dynjo
Sony were pretty dumb to even let this movie get off the starting blocks. Did
they somehow imagine it _wouldn 't_ be controversial?

Free speech or not, it is in poor taste and i'm damn sure that if the
protagonist had been Obama instead of Kim it would definitely not have been
made.

Sony, you made a bad call, you got p0wned. Take it like a man.

Obama, why are you even in this conversation.

DPRK, hire a better translator, yours sucks.

~~~
dragonwriter
Kim wasn't the protagonist, and movies, including comedies, involving the
death of and/or plots to kill actual current world leaders are nothing new.

~~~
dynjo
Not new but very very rare to include current leaders

[http://time.com/3640774/the-interview-sony-north-korea-
movie...](http://time.com/3640774/the-interview-sony-north-korea-movies/)

