Consider the implications of the North Korea cyber-assault on Sony and its threats of killing those who would go see a Sony movie The Interview, a James Franco–Seth Rogen comedy about killing the perverted, homicidal (runs in his odorous Communist family dynasty) dictator Kim Jong-un, One is obvious -- that the U.S. must do everything it can to undermine -- ''terminating'' would be best -- Kim and his flunkies.
Another is that the cyber-terrorism is yet another reminder that we do too much on computers and not enough face to face. No computer system is safe from criminals such as Kim. Because computers make it easier to lay off employees or cut their wages and make things go faster (0ften pointlessly), we've migrated onto them at an increasing loss of security, privacy and real human contact.
We've made ourselves far too vulnerable. I'd suggest we stop using credit cards, PayPal, online banking and the like so much and return as much as possible to cash and paper checks. We could also make more of an effort to actually go talk to people instead of sending them emails and texting them every five minutes, in what has become mass mental illness.
How much courage can even a huge company like Sony summon in the face of barbarism, expressed in various creative ways by ISIS or North Korea? They must be convinced that civilized nations will do all they can to confront these terrorists.
Will this perhaps otherwise banal comedy find a life outside movie theaters, on TV and the Web (of all places!), now that it's gotten such publicity? Something good could come out of this then.
--- Robert Whitcomb
