The point of North Korea’s lengthy, rambling denial of involvement in the recent Sony hacks is pretty clear – but the way they get to that point is anything but.
Per usual, broken English is the method of delivery for “The Policy Department of the National Defence Commission of the DPRK”, which has released a statement of sorts re: Sony Hacks and the recent blame placed on them by US officials.
The statement, titled “U.S. Urged to Honestly Apologize to Mankind for Its Evil Doing before Groundlessly Pulling up Others”, begins by calling the US an “ill-famed cesspool of injustice” and doesn’t really let up from there.
According to North Korean officials, the US is wrong to blame the country for the recent cyberattacks that targeted Sony Pictures, and eventually led to the dissemination of private documents and had everything to do with the indefinite postponement of the film The Interview.
“The NDC of the DPRK highly estimates the righteous action taken by the ‘guardians of peace,’ though it is not aware of their residence,” reads the statement.
Last week, the FBI said it had enough evidence to say that North Korea was behind the attacks.
“We are deeply concerned about the destructive nature of this attack on a private sector entity and the ordinary citizens who worked there. Further, North Korea’s attack on SPE reaffirms that cyber threats pose one of the gravest national security dangers to the United States. Though the FBI has seen a wide variety and increasing number of cyber intrusions, the destructive nature of this attack, coupled with its coercive nature, sets it apart. North Korea’s actions were intended to inflict significant harm on a U.S. business and suppress the right of American citizens to express themselves. Such acts of intimidation fall outside the bounds of acceptable state behavior,” said the FBI.
Although the North Korean government denies involvement in the hacks (as it would no matter their level of involvement), it praises the so-called “Guardians of Peace” for their actions.
“The grounds cited by the FBI in its announcement were all based on obscure sci-tech data and false story and, accordingly, the announcement itself is another fabrication. This is the DPRK’s stand on the U.S. gangster-like behavior against it,” said the statement.
But it’s not just denial it’s going for. The threats begin late in the response.
The DPRK has already launched the toughest counteraction. Nothing is more serious miscalculation than guessing that just a single movie production company is the target of this counteraction. Our target is all the citadels of the U.S. imperialists who earned the bitterest grudge of all Koreans.
The army and people of the DPRK are fully ready to stand in confrontation with the U.S. in all war spaces including cyber warfare space to blow up those citadels.
Our toughest counteraction will be boldly taken against the White House, the Pentagon and the whole U.S. mainland, the cesspool of terrorism, by far surpassing the “symmetric counteraction” declared by Obama.
Though President Obama has called this an act of “cybervandalism” as opposed to using the “war” word, he’s said that the US will have an appropriate response to the act – but what that means, exactly, is yet to be seen.
Image via Wikimedia Commons
