Is it Terrorism or Blackmail? And Now What? Sony and North Korea- Midtown Blogger

Above: Scene from Alfred Hitchcock's Classic movie "Blackmail"-- " The Knife, the knife, the knife.."( heroine kills her would be rapist and is saved by policeman boyfriend in the end from the consequences of her actions-- a rather strange story masterfully done).

I was wondering where the line is drawn here between racketeering, terrorism and blackmail when it comes to Sony and North Korea.

I remember one of the most famous Edgar Allan Poe Stories, "The Purloined Letter" and how it summed up the essence of blackmail of important people-

"Well, then; I have received personal information, from a very high quarter, that a certain document of the last importance, has been purloined from the royal apartments. The individual who purloined it is known; this beyond a doubt; he was seen to take it. It is known, also, that it still remains in his possession."

"How is this known?" asked Dupin.

"It is clearly inferred," replied the Prefect, "from the nature of the document, and from the nonappearance of certain results which would at once arise from its passing out of the robber's possession; --that is to say, from his employing it as he must design in the end to employ it."
"Be a little more explicit," I said.

"Well, I may venture so far as to say that the paper gives its holder a certain power in a certain quarter where such power is immensely valuable." The Prefect was fond of the cant of diplomacy.
"Still I do not quite understand," said Dupin.

"No? Well; the disclosure of the document to a third person, who shall be nameless, would bring in question the honor of a personage of most exalted station; and this fact gives the holder of the document an ascendancy over the illustrious personage whose honor and peace are so jeopardized."

"But this ascendancy," I interposed, "would depend upon the robber's knowledge of the loser's knowledge of the robber. Who would dare--"

"The thief," said G., is the Minister D--, who dares all things, those unbecoming as well as those becoming a man. The method of the theft was not less ingenious than bold. The document in question --

HACKING AS COERCION, BLACKMAIL....WHAT SHOULD WE CALL IT?

We all know about "embarrassing news leaks" and maybe the Sony case is closest to that.

I wonder how Obama would hold up to leaking information on a grand scale of his own and his inner circle's emails ..

Just looking at at what has happened with Snowden and his leaking information...

Cyberattacks

Is this just another form of cyber attack, or is it cyberterrorism?

Embarrassment and Isolation of Sony

As someone has said, "Sony is out there all alone on this"-- they reported that George Clooney tried to get a petition going that condemned North Korea and this kind of act and that he could not find one other person in Hollywood who would sign it...
(they did not mention Angelina Jolie).

See
https://deadline.com/2014/12/george-clooney-sony-hollywood-cowardice-north-korea-cyberattack-petition-1201329988/

Skeletons in the closet etc.

Well, there is a great scene from Clint Eastwood's " J. Edgar" where Hoover blackmails Robert Kennedy with a file on JFK and his dalliance with a Mata Hari-ish Russian spy lady.

Hoover achieved a lot threatening to leak information but never actually had to carry through on his threat, because he made it clear to his opponents what he meant to do.

And, insiders say, The Mafia was blackmailing HOOVER with photos of him in compromising positions ( homosexual) to keep him off their backs.

North Korea in this case just went ahead an attacked.

Censorship- and Hollywood self-censorship

Obama's best point was "what happens when somebody releases a news story they don't like or makes a documentary they don't like?"

Well, we may end up in a world loonier than we now know, with everyone blackmailing/bullying everyone else with cyber stuff.

It looks like it.