back to article WikiLeaks reveals searchable trove of Sony Pictures documents

Wikileaks has decided Sony Pictures is worthy of its attention by releasing 30,000 documents it says were lifted from the company's servers during the infamous 2014 attack. Wikileaks' justification for publishing the new trove is that Sony “is a member of the [Motion Picture Association of America] MPAA and a strong lobbyist …

  1. veti Silver badge

    Nice to see Wikileaks is still in business. Hard as it is to sympathise with Assange, it's a damn' sight harder to see any case for supporting Sony...

    1. Mike Johnson

      Why is it 'hard to sympathise with Assange'?

      The charges against him in Sweden were trumped up by two women with ties to the Social Democrat party and he quite rightly fears that the Swedes with hand him over to the US authorities for rendition if he surrenders himself to the Swedish legal system. There is plenty of evidence that the Swedes will happily hand over even Swedish citizens to the US without judicial review.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Why is it 'hard to sympathise with Assange'?

        Because he defaulted on the hope of the (naive) plebs like me, when he turned out a pathetic narcissist.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          WTF?

          Re: Why is it 'hard to sympathise with Assange'?

          .. it's a damn' sight harder to see any case for supporting Sony...

          Not so sure on that one ...

          Wikileaks - sells other peoples material

          Sony - sell original material

          Surely more of a "toss up" between them both?

          1. JustNiz

            Re: Why is it 'hard to sympathise with Assange'?

            >> Wikileaks - sells other peoples material

            No it doesn't. It doesn't sell anything. Its not even a for-profit organization. its whole existence is for altruistic reasons.

            >> Surely more of a "toss up" between them both?

            only if you have zero sense of morality and are ignorant enough to think a corporatocracy is a good thing.

      2. Naselus

        "Why is it 'hard to sympathise with Assange'?"

        Hundreds of other reasons beyond the (likely nonsense) legal case tbh. Julian Assange is not a very nice man, even if you agree with his stance on freedom of information.

        While I do applaud some of the things Wikileaks has exposed to the public, Assange's absolute devotion to the hacker ethic can be and is harmful and dangerous when applied too broadly (as anyone even obliquely involved in information security should know - including Assange himself). A little editorial oversight (such as that exercised by Snowden, for example) would go a long way to ensuring wikileaks releases information of value to the public without endangering lives; Assange refuses to exercise that oversight.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "The charges against him in Sweden were trumped up by two women with ties to the Social Democrat party "

        Two women who also had no issue until they each found out he was sleeping with the other during the same trip to Sweden. And whilst commonly mistakenly quoted as "rape", what he is actually accused of is not using a condom! So nothing really - not even a crime on most of the planet.

        1. Brangdon

          He's accused of having sex with an unconscious woman, knowing she would not have consented had she been awake. That's rape in UK. The case has been through judicial review here, which confirmed it.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            "He's accused of having sex with an unconscious woman, knowing she would not have consented had she been awake."

            She had already had sex with him that night. So he already had consent. There was no reason to think otherwise.

            As Galloway quite rightly said: "Not everybody needs to be asked prior to each insertion. Some people believe that when you go to bed with somebody, take off your clothes, and have sex with them and then fall asleep, you're already in the sex game with them. It might be really bad manners not to have tapped her on the shoulder and said, 'Do you mind if I do it again?' It might be really sordid and bad sexual etiquette, but whatever else it is, it is not rape or you bankrupt the term rape of all meaning."

      4. Mark 85

        @Why is it 'hard to sympathise with Assange'?

        You really have to ask this? How about it's because he has the same self-serviing personality (asshat) that brings out the hate of Jobs, Gates, Ballmer, etc. here in the comments. Any story about Wikileaks releases also has comments from the asshat about how great he is and what he's doing for the for the world.. Which may be why sites like cryptome tend to get overlooked.

        It's not just the Internet that attracts these types, look at non-tech business and you'll often find that the CEO or owner of said business takes a bigger role in a given article than the business and what happened in the business. Megalomaniacs are everywhere and usually equally hated.

      5. veti Silver badge

        There's a lot of echo chamber on the Internet about the charges against Assange, but as far as I can make out "the truth", they're what we in the XML world would call "well formed", which is to say that there is most certainly a case to answer, the correct legal forms have been followed, and Assange should by rights be presenting his case to a Swedish court, not in the form of tweets and press releases.

        As for "plenty of evidence" - rubbish. The UK is far more in bed with the US than Sweden is, and if Assange really feels the UK is a better shield than Sweden, he could simply request that the UK veto any re-extradition from Sweden to the US, which it would be within its rights to do.

        (Usually at this point someone will mutter "extraordinary rendition". Which would be something to worry about, if only Assange weren't a public figure whose movements will be obsessively followed by a hundred journalists. If he suddenly disappeared from Sweden without due process - well, frankly the Swedish government would be lucky to make it to the end of the week.)

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Releasing documents en masse just because you can is moronic. They could have condensed the release down to a few hundred pages and made their point effectively without endangering Sony employee personal info.

      Wikileaks was a brilliant idea that has been woefully run by a man who prefers to promote himself over his organization.

  2. Mark 85

    I can't really come up with any rational explanation on why the hijackers, if they were Norks as alleged, would turn over emails to Wikileaks except maybe embarrassment but I would think the Norks would assume that their comms and Wikileaks servers were being watched.

    If it were a 3rd party or an insider, embarrassment is a sweet revenge if you can't get money. Remember the first messages were "pay us or else"....

    As an aside, I do note that their statements about "transparency" don't seem to apply to them or to such wunderkind as Dotcom.

  3. crayon

    "Is publishing correspondence between industry and government fair game under those statements?"

    If by this you mean, lobbying, then of course it's fair game.

    Also it's a reminder that Sony is responsible for it's own security just like they point out to their customers:

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/02/sony_holds_gun_to_gamers_heads_over_fraud_charges/

    1. Anonymous Coward
      1. Spaceman Spiff

        Re: correct link

        These users should file civil lawsuits against Sony for theft of services. The fact that Sony will not stand with their customers tells me that they should have no customers... I used to like Sony gear, until the CD root-kit fiasco. Now, I will not purchase ANYTHING they sell. No CDs, DVDs, no gear, and I won't go to any movie that they produce.

    2. Tromos

      I'd go further and say that it is beyond fair game and it shouldn't be down to the likes of Wikileaks to do the publishing. The government itself should be doing it. When two of the most untrusted entities in the world are corresponding in secret it can only reinforce the view that they are up to no good.

  4. MrMeme

    So if there's documents relating to Sony trying to exert influence of the political process (in US domestic & foreign policy) then that's geo-political.

    I wonder if they'll translate & publish any leaks of Japanese communications?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      unicode?

      I searched ぼく (boku) and got an English document, so good luck with that.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So what?

    I did work for a branch of Sony. I also work from a lot of other companies (of different scales).

    They all try to influence the politician (favourable laws being voted, getting public money, etc) either directly or indirectly (e.g. via trade associations).

    They all gather "intelligence" (like competitors budget for similar or new products, etc).

    I see this email as a positive thing in the ocean of negativity at Sony (rootkit, hacking, organization). At least, there are a few things they seemed to (still) do correctly (which does not mean I agree with all the things they do).

  6. DropBear
    Devil

    "Is publishing correspondence between industry and government fair game under those statements?"

    Of course it is! Aren't we being told over and over again that if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear?!?

  7. Spaceman Spiff

    Entirely appropriate

    Sony is a corrupt organization and corrupting influence as shown in these documents. Good for Wikileaks!

  8. Androgynous Cupboard Silver badge

    Hmm

    Am I the only one slightly uncomfortable about this?

    Governments answer to the people and so (most) leaks there are justifiable I think, and much of the other stuff on Wikileaks (the UBS Caymans stuff a while back) was from whistleblowers who believed there was something illegal going on.

    But much as I dislike many of Sony's practices, this isn't from a whistleblower or evidence they've done something illegal - it's just a generic shitload of stolen data with no purpose behind it. The "all transparency is good" argument clearly doesn't fly otherwise they'd have no problem publishing stolen health records. So what's the justification for this one?

  9. Bleu

    Bubble

    Sony buying media assets in the boom years now has the media tail wagging the tech dog.

    Springer was/is a moron.

    Morita would be spinning in his grave if he saw what Sony as a tech-media combo has become.

    They still design and make many great products, video cameras, walkman, phones, game machines, etc.

    That is handled by what is now the Japanese branch, with little support, much hindrance, and giant costs from the overpaid and inept American and European 'manager' types who now appear to be in control (look at the names in the linked articles).

    Another factor for Sony is US media control, so when the latest Playstation doesn't randomly catch fire or crash like the latest X Box, thousands of US trolls raise their voices as loud as they can on the 'net to berate Sony's superior product.

    Likewise, Sony in Japan has made many superior players, media devices, US state-supported Apple push (and I would extend that to MS and Google) means that people in many places are so bombarded by propaganda as not to seek an alternative.

    As for this leak, it is rather amusing, but it would be nice to see the real tech Sony made by Morita separate from the morons controlling the company from the media-holdings side.

    All of the fake claims that Assange did anything wrong in Sweden are the usual crap, groupies were around, he tupped them, they even boasted about it at the time.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Prison will do them good

    Providing access to stolen documents should put the Wikileak's ass clowns in prison for quite awhile. That's a good thing.

  11. david 12 Silver badge

    Sony was <threatened> with the release of these documents. Since the documents have now been released, the threat is no longer effective. Sony is FREE !

    And I guess it wasn't that big a threat in the first place.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like