Sony Caught off Guard by Hacking; Plans to Bring Information to North Koreans
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Of course, it's good to hear that, but it seems like nothing's ever that easy.</s>EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE REPORTER: Nothing's ever that easy, and especially because this is such a reclusive country. They don't travel outside the country. One of the ways that you sometimes can sanction is to say their military leaders or anybody from Bureau 121, anybody who has a ties to this, whenever they go on vacation somewhere, well, we're going to grab them. Well, that doesn't happen here. This is a country that doesn't really let its citizens go anywhere. So, it's very limited what we can do.</s>COSTELLO: All right, Evan Perez, thanks so much. I appreciate it. As Sony's financial losses pile up, potentially reaching hundreds of millions of dollars, there's a jaw-dropping reality to consider. Sony has been through this nightmare before. In 2011 hackers launched a disastrous cyber-attack on Sony's play station network. At the time it was one of the biggest security breaches in history with tens of millions of customers exposed. Sony settled a lawsuit with gamers. So, why did Sony seemingly not learn from this very expensive lesson? Let's head to Tokyo and ask CNN's Will Ripley. Good morning, Will.</s>WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Carol, yes. It was quite an alarming situation for Sony back in 2011. It was in April when it was announced that some 77 million play station users had their accounts compromised. They had to shut down the entire play station network for nearly a month. And then that same year there was also a hacking incident involving Sony pictures where another 150,000 people had their user names and passwords leaked out. But even after those debacles, Sony was still caught off guard, taken by complete surprise when this group, Guardians of Peace, was able to infiltrate their computer system earlier this year, steal an incredible amount of data. You're talking about e-mails, movie scripts, unfinished movies and movies that hadn't been released yet, that they posted on file sharing sites. They did all of this and they took control of Sony's computers. People showed up to work one day and found red skulls flashing on their computers with a list of all the things that have been stolen off those devices and then deleted. I went to a tech lab here in Tokyo today and asked did Sony do something wrong here? And what they told me is that this attack was so unprecedented in the United States that it would have been very difficult for almost any corporation to fully prepare. But they say what Sony could have done better, Carol, is monitor the leak as it was happening and perhaps stopped it before so much data was stolen.</s>COSTELLO: Can you tell us a little more, too, about this Bureau 121, these cyber workers working within North Korea?</s>RIPLEY: So we know that these are people who are handpicked from the technical universities in Pyongyang, the smartest of the smart in a country that, by the way, from going there myself a few months ago, is full of a large number of very smart people who oftentimes aren't able to fulfill their potential within the system because every person's job is assigned to them. And it's remarkable the level of access that these 1800 people have, that they are allowed to not only surf the Internet, which is unheard of for most North Koreans who even - haven't even heard of social media, never mind websites or the Internet, but these people, they're trained on how to conduct these cyber-attacks. And what North Korea, if they are, indeed, the ones behind this catastrophic hack, as the United States government believes, what they're finding is, is that this is a relatively inexpensive way to inflict a great amount of damage and fear on other countries. South Korea, they've attacked banks, they've attacked broadcasters. Now you see a major American corporation brought to its knees, pulling the release of a movie. This is unprecedented. And it could be, unfortunately, a sign of more trouble to come if there isn't some way to penalize this type of behavior.</s>COSTELLO: All right, Will Ripley reporting live from Tokyo. Many thanks to you. Kim Jong-Un and his oppressed population may be forced to watch "The Interview" after all. The Human Rights Foundation plans to drop DVDs of the movie over North Korea using hydrogen balloons. The goal here to get North Koreans to see what's happening in the outside world. Sadly, though, watching such movies can mean death for North Koreans. So, let's talk about this. Thor Halvorssen is the president of the Human Rights Foundation. Welcome back. I'm glad you're here.</s>THOR HALVORSSEN, PRESIDENT, HUMAN RIGHTS FOUNDATION: Thank you. Thank you for having me.</s>COSTELLO: First of all, I'd like to get your reaction to Sony's decision to pull the movie, "The Interview."</s>HALVORSSEN: I believe, as someone who lives in a free society, that that is - it's their right to do so. But it just shows the gutless cowardice. If the North Korean government now said we'd like you to turn over Seth Rogan, would they do that? If they'd said, we'd like you to change your programs. We want the following shows change. I mean it's blackmail. And it's really sad that Sony did not have the sense and the leadership to say, no, we're not going to do that. We live in a free country and we're not going to do that. There are terrorist attacks on the United States. There are people that say we don't like the way you live your life. We don't like the way you allow women to drive, we don't like the way that you allow gays and lesbians to have the lives that they do. Are we going to give up our freedoms because a bunch of people in a far-away land run by a crazy dictator say you shouldn't live this way? I think what Sony did is shameful actually, really shameful.</s>COSTELLO: How do you think Kim Jong-Un is reacting this morning?</s>HALVORSSEN: Well, I think Jong-Un, what you have to see is, and what a lot of people missed is the reason why the North Korean government hates this film so much is not because it insults their dear leader. Their dear leader gets insulted all the time in the West and gets made fun of. What they're deathly afraid of is that the film is going to make it into the country. Because in the last ten years, there's been a significant development in the black market routes into the country. In the last ten years, North Korea has consumed and has enormous thirst for cultural artifacts like films and like TV shows. People inside North Korea, they know the risks they run. They know that they could get executed. They know that they can end up being arrested or tortured for watching these films, for watching TV shows, for having forbidden material. But they nonetheless are willing to run that risk and willing to take that material. And that is very, very scary for the Kims.</s>COSTELLO: OK, so that brings us to your operation, that the dropping of DVD over North Korea using these hydrogen balloons. First of all, I'd like to show our viewers a picture of the balloons we're talking about. So, explain how this works. How and where do they launch?</s>HALVORSSEN: Well, we launch from the border, the Southern border with North Korea, and right by the river. The balloons are filled with hydrogen, and attached to the balloons are these enormous plastic bags. Inside the bags there are, for instance, hundreds of thousands of leaflets. These leaflets are made of plastic and they are quite durable and waterproof. The leaflets basically say you're being lied to, there's another life, there's another world outside. And they have all sorts of educational material in them. In addition, DVDs and thumb drives. We put thumb drives that have entire copies of Wikipedia, with thanks to Jimmy Wales we were able to raise the technology level here so that they can insert a thumb drive into a computer, and even though there's no Internet in North Korea -- because there is no Internet there. It's why it's known as the hermit kingdom. It's completely closed off. These thumb drives contain a full copy of Wikipedia. So, that's - we put these in plastic bags. There's a timer on the bag. And the bag -- the fastener to the bag detonates and the bags open and they spill the contents.</s>COSTELLO: So, people who help you with this operation have escaped North Korea. How did they tell you that this helps?</s>HALVORSSEN: Well, it's interesting, because obviously like in any defector situation, whether it's Cuban exiles in Miami or defectors from North Korea, people have different opinions about what works and what doesn't work. We take the approach that we should go on all levels trying to use smuggling routes, trying to use radio and at the same time trying to use balloons. Many of the people you actually see in those photographs received a brochure, received a leaflet and realized that they had been lied to or started questioning what their lives were like. And that's really -- the effectiveness of the balloons can be measured by anecdotal evidence for certain.</s>COSTELLO: And I must ask you this, because we know that if a North Korean is caught watching an American movie, a western film, they might face prison, they might face death. Is it worth it?</s>HALVORSSEN: Well, consider the following: there are 25 million North Koreans. Of those, a good 10 million of them have access to something from the outside, whether it's a transistor radio, a DVD player, a cell phone. So they do have a thirst for this. The government, of course, knows that they can't control everyone. So they engage in these very public ways of executing people or saying that people who allow this into their country are besmirching the culture of North Korea. The reality is that the regime has suffered so much in terms of its waste and corruption that it's only a matter of time before more and more ideas cause the downfall of the regime. The North Korean regime will not fall because of missiles or tanks. The North Korean regime will fall because of the power of ideas. And we're just trying in a very small way to assist and to accelerate the education of North Korean people. They want it. They're willing to pay for these things in the black market. So we're certainly not going to stop regardless of their threats. They've threatened us on multiple occasions with theft, with bombing, with slitting our throats. We're certainly not going to stop.</s>COSTELLO: Thor Halvorssen, thank you. I appreciate you being here this morning.</s>HALVORSSEN: Thank you. Thank you for having me.</s>COSTELLO: More breaking news out of Wall Street. Opening bell rang 30 minutes ago, and yes, the Dow continues to skyrocket. Let's bring in CNN money correspondent Cristina Alesci to tell us more.</s>CRISTINA ALESCI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Now, we have got a confluence of factors that's just driving stocks - first and foremost, it's the Fed. Yesterday it says it's going to keep these easy money going for a longer than a lot of investors anticipated. Wall Street loves that. Than you have a bevy of economic data coming out saying that looking like the economy is actually getting better. Jobless claims were lower than expected. Consumer confidence was higher. So, of course, that's going to be positive. Then you have oil coming back just a little bit. And that's helping some of the energy producers get a boost here. And then we can't discount the Santa Rally. December is a pretty strong month historically for stocks. So, you've got all of these factors going on, really boosting the stock markets really around the world today.</s>COSTELLO: We are up like, 261 points.</s>ALESCI: Yes.</s>COSTELLO: I know you'll keep an eye on it for us. Thank you.</s>ALESCI: It will keep going.</s>ALESCI: I hope so. Cristina, thanks so much. Still to come in the "NEWSROOM," secret diplomacy and back room deals, it all led to the emotional homecoming of Alan Gross. Now we get a sneak peek inside the closed door meetings of the United States and Cuba, moving in a different direction.