President Obama’s latest blunder

I was very surprised to read the news that President Obama has initiated new sanctions against North Korea, after the FBI claimed that they knew that it had attacked Sony.

As a thirty year IT veteran who reads the technical press and bulletins every day, the common thread among the Internet professionals is that the hack was either an inside job, by an ex-employee, or from Russia or Ukraine. Why? Because information about the technical accessibility of Sony servers was almost only available to an IT worker who had worked (or works) for Sony.

It hasn’t been reported, but I suspect that a ransom demand was made by the hacker and ignored. If true and that became public, then the case against North Korea would collapse. If it did, it would embarrass the FBI and the president. So don’t look forward to reading demands for payment to not release additional information.

In its haste to point the finger at North Korea, the FBI neglected to mention that the North Korean IP address that they traced as one of the origination points of the hack was a relay. The relay was (in this instance) a documented North Korean server than was compromised, used before for hacking, and allowed data to be bounced off of it. In other words, it was used in the past to disguise the origins of hackers.

Naturally the FBI, that has jumped the gun, claims to have additional “secret” information that proves that North Korea did it, but must be kept secret. Why? Because the IT community is likely to laugh at the secret and embarrass them as amateurs. So it’s secret.

North Korea rather wants a thaw in our frosty relations and is a brittle country, ready to break at any moment. How did they demonstrate a desire to improve relations? They released United States citizens recently who had been imprisoned in North Korea.

A South Korean politician, Choi Moon-soon, governor of Gangwon province, announced that he wants to share certain aspects of the next winter Olympic games with North Korea. It’s a creative way to make nice with them, not the ridiculous hard line policies with a brittle country that has nuclear weapons.

North Korea didn’t help by using a racist taunt against Mr. Obama. That may have caused the sanctions to be initiated. They should have kept their mouths shut and focused on the facts. In Korean tradition, they slung around insults. It has backfired on them.

I do not think that they would have made a lot of noise about a silly Sony movie just after releasing U.S. prisoners. No, the movie was the hackers clever idea to focus the FBI on North Korea. North Korea is one of our enemies, so to please the Washington hawks will have to remain so. Sanity and Washington is rarely used in a single sentence.

The FBI will not change its mind on who hacked Sony, as President Obama has blundered his way into approving new sanctions. They will not embarrass him by admitting a mistake. Careers at the FBI would end, so the party line will remain so.

In any instance, I had hoped that Mr. Obama would really become a historic figure by finally fixing the problem of a divided Korea. North Korea is the world’s last country to be isolated the way it is. Instead he has made it worse… with North Korea’s help.

Here’s a president that won the Nobel Peace Prize and is encouraging and risking hostilities between North and South Korea. That puts our troops in the middle at a much greater risk.

Shame on the president for being so naive.