5 ms·

It's not an empty threat. They completely compromised Sony's servers. Who knows what they haven't leaked yet, or what they are capable of. The movie theaters d

by rjvir 12y ago

It's not an empty threat. They completely compromised Sony's servers. Who knows what they haven't leaked yet, or what they are capable of. The movie theaters decided to not show the movie because they couldn't implement a nationwide security system in every one of their theaters in 2 weeks. Since there is 0 security at movie theaters, I as a moviegoer would be extremely scared to go to watch this movie in it's opening week.

tdicola 12y ago
> I as a moviegoer would be extremely scared to go to watch this movie in it's opening week. Sadly, that's exactly the fear the hackers want you to have. You have much higher odds being hurt or killed in a car accident on the drive to the theater than from some potential terrorist act.
lotsofmangos 12y ago
I as a moviegoer would be extremely scared to go to watch this movie in it's opening week. You are in vastly more danger from other traffic on the drive to the cinema. Hell, you are more likely to die through home carpentry.
michaelkeenan 12y ago
I tried to roughly estimate the risk. There are 18,000 theaters that could be targets. Let's say there are 10 showings over the opening weekend that might be bombed, so if you attend, there's a 1 in 180,000 chance you'll be in the bombed theater (assuming there's only one bombing). Let's say there's a 5% chance it's a real threat (personally I'd estimate around 1%, but let's use 5% to be conservative). That gives a 1 in 3.6 million chance of being in the bombed theater. Compare to car accidents. There are 1.27 fatalities per 100 million miles traveled in the USA. If the movie theater is five miles away, that gives you a 1 in 7.9 million chance of dying in a car accident on the way to or from the movie. If we stop calculating there, it looks like you'd be roughly twice as likely to be in the bombed theater than to die in a car accident on the way to the theater. (Note that this is the chance of being in the bombed theater, not of dying in the bombing. Presumably, most people in the theater would survive.) To me, that seems like an acceptably negligible risk. More detailed calculations could include the chance of dying conditional on being in the bombed theater, and could include the chance of more than one theater being bombed, and adjust for the chance of the bomber being foiled or the bomb not working, and could adjust for which theater you're seeing it in (theaters in major cities are more likely targets than small towns).
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  Yawn...this sort of statistical analysis misses the point and demonstrates a rank ignorance of human psychology. Run the same statistical analysis on the possibility of getting killed at a school in Pakistan and then tell me how the Taliban killing ~130 children and some teachers is just a statistical outlier that people whouldn't pay any attention to. I mention it because that incident wasn't expected either, but it's an excellent demonstration of how much havoc a few bad actors can wreak. given the huge number of movie theaters and the impossibility of predicting which ones might be targeted, nobody wants to be left holding the bag in the unlikely-but-nonetheless-possible scenario of a mini-massacre. On the scale of things you would be willing to assume risk for, a tasteless comedy ranks pretty low.
  - michaelkeenan 12y ago
    > tell me how the Taliban killing ~130 children and some teachers is just a statistical outlier that people whouldn't pay any attention to. My comment didn't mention people not paying attention to a bombing. My comment was about estimating the risk of dying in a bombing, not about people's reactions to it. > Yawn... There are more civil ways to express that.
    - anigbrowl 12y ago
      Comments like this about the remoteness of the risk always carry the implicit argument that one should not pay attention to it because of the low probability. It's certainly irrational to think there's a high probability of it happening to you, but it's eminently rational for stakeholders like movie theater operators to minimize the risk - after all, to the extent that customers consider the showing of the picture to be a risk factor, they're going to stay away from the entire theater even if it is showing other pictures they might want to see. There are more civil ways to express that. There are more civil ways to discuss risk than making statistical straw man arguments too.
      - alexqgb 12y ago
        Actually, he was replying to a comment that centered on the specific threat level that a particular individual thought he may be facing, so a calculation like this is exactly on point.
skuhn 12y ago
I think the likelihood of a physical attack being carried out at these theaters is literally zero. It's one thing to compromise servers from anywhere in the world and it's quite another to build bombs and plant them in movie theaters. This is the ultimate goal of terrorism after all, not to kill people but to make people afraid to go about their normal lives. Part of me wishes that the American public viewed this mess as a cause to be supported, to say criminals and/or a dictator from a third world country doesn't get to decide what harmless entertainment is suitable for us. I, for one, do not want to be threatened because I watched (or made) a movie. Imagine if ticket sales had gone through the roof for this movie, the kind of statement that would make. And whether or not anyone actually watched it is beside the point.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
IvyMike 12y ago
> Since there is 0 security at movie theaters, I as a moviegoer would be extremely scared to go to watch this movie in it's opening week. Think about what you are saying. "There is a group capable and willing to commit acts of terror on American soil... but now that Sony has not released the movie, I am perfectly safe".
Squarel 12y ago
So anyone who is capable of compromising the servers of a corporation, or even a government agency is also capable of blowing up things? Good to know.

by rjvir 12y ago

tdicola 12y ago

> I as a moviegoer would be extremely scared to go to watch this movie in it's opening week. Sadly, that's exactly the fear the hackers want you to have. You have much higher odds being hurt or killed in a car accident on the drive to the theater than from some potential terrorist act.

lotsofmangos 12y ago

I as a moviegoer would be extremely scared to go to watch this movie in it's opening week. You are in vastly more danger from other traffic on the drive to the cinema. Hell, you are more likely to die through home carpentry.

michaelkeenan 12y ago

I tried to roughly estimate the risk. There are 18,000 theaters that could be targets. Let's say there are 10 showings over the opening weekend that might be bombed, so if you attend, there's a 1 in 180,000 chance you'll be in the bombed theater (assuming there's only one bombing). Let's say there's a 5% chance it's a real threat (personally I'd estimate around 1%, but let's use 5% to be conservative). That gives a 1 in 3.6 million chance of being in the bombed theater. Compare to car accidents. There are 1.27 fatalities per 100 million miles traveled in the USA. If the movie theater is five miles away, that gives you a 1 in 7.9 million chance of dying in a car accident on the way to or from the movie. If we stop calculating there, it looks like you'd be roughly twice as likely to be in the bombed theater than to die in a car accident on the way to the theater. (Note that this is the chance of being in the bombed theater, not of dying in the bombing. Presumably, most people in the theater would survive.) To me, that seems like an acceptably negligible risk. More detailed calculations could include the chance of dying conditional on being in the bombed theater, and could include the chance of more than one theater being bombed, and adjust for the chance of the bomber being foiled or the bomb not working, and could adjust for which theater you're seeing it in (theaters in major cities are more likely targets than small towns).

anigbrowl 12y ago
Yawn...this sort of statistical analysis misses the point and demonstrates a rank ignorance of human psychology. Run the same statistical analysis on the possibility of getting killed at a school in Pakistan and then tell me how the Taliban killing ~130 children and some teachers is just a statistical outlier that people whouldn't pay any attention to. I mention it because that incident wasn't expected either, but it's an excellent demonstration of how much havoc a few bad actors can wreak. given the huge number of movie theaters and the impossibility of predicting which ones might be targeted, nobody wants to be left holding the bag in the unlikely-but-nonetheless-possible scenario of a mini-massacre. On the scale of things you would be willing to assume risk for, a tasteless comedy ranks pretty low.
- michaelkeenan 12y ago
  > tell me how the Taliban killing ~130 children and some teachers is just a statistical outlier that people whouldn't pay any attention to. My comment didn't mention people not paying attention to a bombing. My comment was about estimating the risk of dying in a bombing, not about people's reactions to it. > Yawn... There are more civil ways to express that.
  - anigbrowl 12y ago
    Comments like this about the remoteness of the risk always carry the implicit argument that one should not pay attention to it because of the low probability. It's certainly irrational to think there's a high probability of it happening to you, but it's eminently rational for stakeholders like movie theater operators to minimize the risk - after all, to the extent that customers consider the showing of the picture to be a risk factor, they're going to stay away from the entire theater even if it is showing other pictures they might want to see. There are more civil ways to express that. There are more civil ways to discuss risk than making statistical straw man arguments too.
    - alexqgb 12y ago
      Actually, he was replying to a comment that centered on the specific threat level that a particular individual thought he may be facing, so a calculation like this is exactly on point.

skuhn 12y ago

I think the likelihood of a physical attack being carried out at these theaters is literally zero. It's one thing to compromise servers from anywhere in the world and it's quite another to build bombs and plant them in movie theaters. This is the ultimate goal of terrorism after all, not to kill people but to make people afraid to go about their normal lives. Part of me wishes that the American public viewed this mess as a cause to be supported, to say criminals and/or a dictator from a third world country doesn't get to decide what harmless entertainment is suitable for us. I, for one, do not want to be threatened because I watched (or made) a movie. Imagine if ticket sales had gone through the roof for this movie, the kind of statement that would make. And whether or not anyone actually watched it is beside the point.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

IvyMike 12y ago

> Since there is 0 security at movie theaters, I as a moviegoer would be extremely scared to go to watch this movie in it's opening week. Think about what you are saying. "There is a group capable and willing to commit acts of terror on American soil... but now that Sony has not released the movie, I am perfectly safe".

Squarel 12y ago

So anyone who is capable of compromising the servers of a corporation, or even a government agency is also capable of blowing up things? Good to know.