N.Korea's Internet collapses after Sony hack

North Korea's Internet went dark for several hours amid rumors of US retaliation over its alleged hacking of a Hollywood studio, just as the pariah state came under attack at the UN over its rights record. It was not clear who or what had shut down Pyongyang's web connections, but cyber experts…

AFP

N.Korea's Internet collapses after Sony hack

AFP

Jo BiddleDecember 22, 2014

North Korean students work on their computers at Kim Il-Sung University in Pyongyang on April 11, 2012

North Korea's Internet went dark for several hours amid rumors of US retaliation over its alleged hacking of a Hollywood studio, just as the pariah state came under attack at the UN over its rights record.

It was not clear who or what had shut down Pyongyang's web connections, but cyber experts said the country's already limited Internet went completely offline overnight from Monday to Tuesday local time.

One of the most repressive nations on the planet, the vast majority of North Koreans have no access to the Internet.

Piling further pressure on Kim Jong-Un's regime, UN members debated North Korea's brutal treatment of its huge prison population after China, its sole ally, was rebuffed in a bid to shelve the issue.

US-based Internet analysts Dyn Research said Pyongyang's four online networks, all connected through Chinese telecom provider China Unicom, had been offline for nine hours and 31 minutes before services resumed on Tuesday morning.

Dyn Research said Pyongyang's very limited infrastructure could be vulnerable to power outages but that the way it had collapsed "seems consistent with a fragile network under external attack."

US President Barack Obama and the FBI have accused North Korea of being behind the hacking of Hollywood studio Sony Pictures, which was intimidated into canceling a comedy film mocking Kim.

Washington officials refused to comment on speculation that the North Korean Internet blackout was the first stage in what Obama has warned will be a "proportionate response" to the hack.

North Korea has angrily insisted that it had nothing to do with the theft and leaking of Sony company secrets nor threats against moviegoers, but it has also condemned the madcap movie "The Interview."

United Nations Ambassadors vote during a Security Council meeting regarding human rights violations in North Korea on December 22, 2014 at the United Nations in New York

US officials, however, called for compensation for Sony Pictures from North Korea.

"If they want to help here they could admit their culpability and compensate Sony for the damages that they caused," State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters.

Dyn Research said earlier Monday that Internet connectivity between North Korea and the outside world, never good at the best of times, had begun to show signs of instability over the weekend.

"This is different from short duration outages we have seen in the past," Earl Zmijewski, vice president of data analytics at Dyn, told AFP.

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N.Korea's Internet collapses after Sony hack

I think attacks directly on North Korea would be from private free world hackers around the world. I think the U.S. government would secretly attack China who trained (along with Russians) the Section 121 people who attacked (and likely still are attacking Sony now) from a location or locations in China.