The initial contact with Sony did not make any mention of the movie, and was more like an extortion attempted related to the lifting of data through Sonys less

The initial contact with Sony did not make any mention of the movie, and was more like an extortion attempted related to the lifting of data through Sonys less than optimal security. Then talk came up of it being related to the movie (in the Press, or from Sony), and unsurprisingly, the next contacts suggested that the movie had something to do with it. The original group also seems to have said that they did not send threats to Sony employees after the docs were uploaded, and the contact to the movie theaters was different than that to Sony. Unfounded basis? Possibly, but no more unfounded than the assumptions being made, which basically amount to "Last saturday, a black Ford Fiesta was involved in a bank robbery, driven by a guy wearing black pants and a blue top. Today, I saw a black Ford Fiesta with a guy wearing black pants and a blue top, he must be going to rob a bank". Fairly nice timeline here https://np.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/2puo8h/bittorrent_offers_distribute_sonys_the_interview/cn0ksh7 https://np.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/2puo8h/bittorrent... Source for the original email, a plain extortion http://mashable.com/2014/12/08/hackers-emailed-sony-execs/ http://mashable.com/2014/12/08/hackers-emailed-sony-execs/ Other sources for skeptical views: http://www.tomsguide.com/us/sony-hack-skeptics,news-20037.html http://www.tomsguide.com/us/sony-hack-skeptics,news-20037.ht... http://www.wired.com/2014/12/evidence-of-north-korea-hack-is-thin/ http://www.wired.com/2014/12/evidence-of-north-korea-hack-is... The original group deny the threats: http://recode.net/2014/12/08/sony-hacker-leaks-more-internal-documents-issues-demand/ http://recode.net/2014/12/08/sony-hacker-leaks-more-internal... The alleged initial group also says here it is not about the movie: http://www.csoonline.com/article/2853893/disaster-recovery/fbi-memo-warns-of-malware-possibly-linked-to-hack-at-sony-pictures.html http://www.csoonline.com/article/2853893/disaster-recovery/f... My reading of it is that it is not 1 attack, but several different ones (no surprise given Sonys crappy security), and people are assuming it is all one group, and taking the first option given to be the actual one, as, let's face it, the group behind it is unlikely to ever be caught, and during this whole thing, since Sony bought up the fact they thought it was about the movie, NK has been low hanging fruit as an obvious choice.