What is _easy_, however, is determining which country is using a given IP address. Particularly when the searching party is a superpower and the country they're investigating is known for having very few links to the Internet. And what connections they do have are severely restricted. I imagine it would be very difficult to find a reliable, exploitable proxy server inside North Korea that is accessible across the public Internet.

They offered to help investigate the Cheonan after they sunk it. So it's really not uncharacteristic.

And why do you have attack in quotes? Do you believe Sony wasn't actually attacked?

No, I think it's plenty clear that they were. It's just that "attack" has a certain stigma to it, and what happened to Sony was not some grand attack, but rather a run-of-the-mill hack against a company with extremely poor security.

It's flat out wrong to blame some small and non-credible-threat country for something they likely had nothing to do with just to advance a political agenda.

North Korea is not a great country... but that doesn't mean a "global leader" like the USA can just pin something on them with zero evidence.

I'm not a fan of the US' foreign policy in some ways, and certainly place no blind faith in the declarations of the government, but, that doesn't exactly make North Korea the 'good guys'...

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?Ne...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea_and_weapons_of_mass...

Their nuclear program claims it has a range of 4,000KM, but to reach the USA it would take about 10,000KM. Not to mention their last missile launch test could not even escape their border.

That's what I mean when I say non-credible threat; they are incapable of inflicting meaningful harm to the USA. They are really all bark and no bite...

> oesn't exactly make North Korea the 'good guys'.

Of course not. Nobody said they are -- they just simply aren't the "bad guys" we are looking for in this specific case.

I don't think a failed experiment is evidence that they're incapable.

Did you know that a couple of years ago, NK launched their first satellite: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwangmy%C5%8Fngs%C5%8Fng-3_Unit...

and the missile used (Unha 3) has a 10000 KM range and is capable of reaching the western US (with at least a 200kg payload): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unha

Regardless, the flight characteristics of a space-bound launch vehicle are far different from an ICBM, and are very easily detectable and intercepted by just about all countermeasures.

They would be more of a threat to South Korea of an attack than on US soil. To the US, they are a non-credible threat.

You seem to be awfully certain. Frankly, I have no idea and am quite skeptical of people who profess such certainty in the face of so few facts. Seems to be the kind of thinking where you have a conclusion and look around for facts to support it.

Perhaps I overspoke a tad. I'm awfully skeptical is better put.

We're largely a scientific community here at HN. Something is False until proven True. You may have a hypothesis, but it's just that, an educated guess as-to the result.

To prove something True you must present overwhelming evidence. We have none of that here... What we do have is a hypothesis being perpetuated as fact in the face of almost zero concrete evidence.

The FBI first says "there is zero evidence to suggest North Korea has anything to do with the hack". Then some "high level anonymous White House official" "leaks" to the NY Times that they believe it's North Korea, and it takes the FBI 3 full days to change their public announcement, yet present zero concrete evidence. This was a rudimentary hack against a private company, there's nothing that would be classified or kept top secret here. Sony should do a full disclosure. Until then, we can not be certain of anything.