Hackery III

Or IV, or whatever. TAG's mother international says this:

NOTICE TO IATSE MEMBERS WHO ARE WORKING ON OR WORKING FOR SONY PICTURES

As you may be aware, Sony Pictures Entertainment ("SPE") experienced a significant IT systems disruption on Monday, November 24, 2014. The IATSE has been in discussions with the company since then to determine what risk our members may face regarding the potential disclosure of personal information and data.

SPE has determined that the cause of the disruption was a cyber attack. After identifying the disruption, SPE took prompt action to contain the cyber attack, engaged recognized security consultants and contacted law enforcement. SPE learned on December 1, 2014, that the security of certain personally identifiable information about its current and former employees may have been compromised.

SPE has made arrangements with a third-party service provider, AIIClear ID, to offer 12 months of identity protection services at no charge to potentially impacted current and former production employees of SPE or an SPE-affiliated company.

IATSE members should contact AIIClear ID directly to initiate the enrollment process and/or learn more about their services. ...

More info up there at the link. ...

In other hacking news, the terrorists win (again):

Paramount Cancels ‘Team America’ Showings, Theaters Say

Forget those plans by Alamo Drafthouse Cinema and other theaters to run Team America: World Police in place of The Interview. The Austin-based chain says that Paramount has now decided not to offer South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s 2004 satire that focuses on Kim Jong-il, the late father of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Alamo says that the cancellation at its Dallas theater is “due to circumstances beyond our control” and says it will offer refunds to those who have already bought tickets. Cleveland’s Capitol Theater also tweeted that Team America “has been canceled by Paramount Pictures.”

Yesterday Sony pulled The Interview, which depicts an assassination of Kim Jong-un, after hackers threatened theaters that showed the film. ...

And there seems to be some teeth-gnashing at all this. Also teenaged girl type fear. (All due respect to teenaged girls).

As we watched one group be completely vilified, nobody stood up. Nobody took that stand. Now, I say this is a situation we are going to have to come to terms with, a new paradigm and a new way of handling our business. Because this could happen to an electric company, a car company, a newsroom. It could happen to anybody. ...

The truth is, you’re going to have a much harder time finding distribution [for controversial movies] now. And that’s a chilling effect. We should be in the position right now of going on offense with this. ...

So says George Clooney.

Nothing against Mr. Clooney, but Hollywood has always been cowardly. As novelist Raymond Chandler said seventy years ago, "The Hollywood big shots, they're terrified of losing all that fairy gold." Which of course explains why, in the fifties, studios and labor unions could be bullied by the House of Un-American Activities Committee and Red Channels into black-listing artists and writers who didn't toe the "True American" line as defined by HUAC and Red Channels.

The fear of losing big bucks; it's a fabulous motivator, no? What's one movie, more or less? What's a pack of lousy movie actors and writers?

North Korea and/or its agents are simply the latest bully boys to show up in show business's neighborhood demanding that a movie they don't like be pulled. It's not really much different than those earlier power brokers' demands that creators with impure thoughts be banished from the creative landscape. Seeing Hollywood get rolled by thugs with brass knuckles is as old as the movies.

The only thing different this time is the newer technology being employed.