Technical Challenges to a Successful Nuclear Strike

From longtime tech correspondent Ralph Vartabedian, at LAT, "North Korea has made a nuclear weapon small enough to fit on a missile. How worried should the world be?":

Before the age of compact cars, laptop computers and pocket telephones, there were miniature nuclear warheads.

For as long as there have been engineers, they have been working on making complicated things smaller and better. Weapons are no exception.

Now, North Korea apparently has figured out how to make a very big explosive small enough to sit atop one of its mobile-launched missiles, a development that could threaten much of the U.S., according to a U.S. intelligence report that surfaced this week.

North Korea is making progress, showing it can put together competent teams of scientists and solve technical problems, but it is far from proving that it is capable of launching a punishing nuclear strike on the U.S., according to U.S. weapons experts.

Making a miniature nuclear weapon that has a large explosive force involves a lot of scientific and engineering know-how.

The “Little Boy” bomb that the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 9, 1945, weighed as much as two 2017 Cadillac Escalade SUVs, about 9,700 pounds. Three days later, the “Fat Man” bomb, slightly heavier at 10,300 pounds, was dropped on Nagasaki.

Since then, the weight of U.S. atomic bombs has shrunk considerably, as scientists have refined the physics of the devices and streamlined how they are armed.

With the last generation of nuclear weapons designed in the 1980s, engineers at Los Alamos National Laboratory produced the W88, weighing only 800 pounds despite having an explosive force equal to 475,000 tons of TNT — in other words, less than one-tenth the weight of the first atomic bomb, but 400 times more powerful.

What technical capability is necessary to build a missile-ready nuclear bomb?

The first step is understanding how to reduce the amount of conventional high explosives that surround a hollow pit of highly enriched uranium or plutonium. A nuclear detonation occurs when the high explosive implodes the hollow sphere of fissile material next to it to start an uncontrolled chain reaction.

After the war, work progressed on smaller bombs. One of the crucial design steps was to create a small, precisely uniform air gap between the conventional explosives and the sphere of nuclear fuel, amplifying the force of the conventional explosion and reducing the amount needed to trigger a nuclear chain reaction.

It’s unclear that Pyongyang has mastered that precise construction, said Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear weapons analyst with the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, Calif.

What Pyongyang has said so far is that its weapon is a “Korean-style mixed charge” device, indicating “they don’t have a lot of plutonium, so they are mixing it with uranium,” Lewis said.

It is possible the North Koreans are also injecting tritium gas into the hollow sphere to get some fusion energy out of the bomb, as well, he said...

More.

North Korea Missile Provokes U.S.

Pfft.

NoKo would be destroyed in seconds of it tried to fight a nuclear war with the U.S.

No, the regime should not get nukes, but let's keep things in perspective.

At USA Today, "Analysis: North Korea missile launch raises the stakes in a big way. What now?":

North Korea’s successful launch of a missile that for the first time could reach the U.S. mainland ratchets up the pressure on President Trump and other world leaders to resolve a growing nuclear crisis with no easy solution.

The test launch came on the Fourth of July, and just three days before a Group of 20 summit convenes in Hamburg, Germany. The timing is almost certainly not coincidental. North Korea uses such occasions to call attention to its provocative acts — and its test elevates the urgency with which Trump and U.S. allies may feel compelled to respond. Hours after the North Korean launch, the Eighth U.S. Army and South Korean military fired surface-to-surface missiles into South Korean waters in a demonstration of capability, the U.S. Army said in a statement.

Trump has repeatedly called on China to rein in its neighbor and close ally. China on Tuesday suggested a compromise: North Korea would stop missile tests if the United States and South Korea scaled back military exercises in the region.

Tuesday evening, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson confirmed the intercontinental ballistic missile launch and called it a “new escalation” of the threat. He vowed to bring additional international pressure on the regime.

“The United States seeks only the peaceful denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and the end of threatening actions by North Korea. As we, along with others, have made clear, we will never accept a nuclear-armed North Korea,” Tillerson said in a statement. “Global action is required to stop a global threat. Any country that hosts North Korean guest workers, provides any economic or military benefits, or fails to fully implement UN Security Council resolutions is aiding and abetting a dangerous regime. All nations should publicly demonstrate to North Korea that there are consequences to their pursuit of nuclear weapons.”

Trump has said he would be willing to try the diplomatic route, and even agreed to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un face-to-face. Prior diplomatic overtures by two U.S. presidents, Bill Clinton and George W.  Bush, proved failures when the North reneged on the agreements.

North Korea appears intent on developing a nuclear-tipped missile that could hit the United States, saying it needs such a deterrent to prevent a U.S. attack aimed at overthrowing the regime...

More.

Massive Cyberattack Hits Europe

Like I said the other day, "These really are acts of war and it's increasingly apparent that Western states are losing."

Yep.

See the Telegraph U.K., "Live - Petya cyber attack: Ransomware spreads across Europe with firms in Ukraine, Britain and Spain shut down."

Also at Bloomberg, "New Cyberattack Spreads Across Europe, Hits Rosneft, Maersk":

A new cyberattack similar to WannaCry is spreading across Europe, hitting major companies from Rosneft PJSC in Moscow to A.P. Moller-Maersk in Copenhagen while disrupting government systems in Kiev.

More than 80 companies in Russia and Ukraine were affected by the Petya virus that disabled computers Tuesday and told users to pay $300 in cryptocurrency to unlock them, according to the Moscow-based cybersecurity company Group-IB. Telecommunications operators and retailers were also affected and the virus is spreading in a similar way to the WannaCry attack in May, it said.

The intrusion is “the biggest in Ukraine’s history,” Anton Gerashchenko, an aide to the Interior Ministry, wrote on Facebook. The goal was “the destabilization of the economic situation and in the civic consciousness of Ukraine,” though it was “disguised as an extortion attempt,” he said.

More.

British Parliament Hit by Massive Cyber Attack

Hmm...

At the Telegraph U.K., "Blackmail fears after Parliament hit by 'sustained and determined' cyber attack leaving MPs unable to access emails":

Parliament hit by 'sustained and determined' cyber attack https://t.co/gcKA3H7lKX

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) June 24, 2017

Tomorrow's Sunday Telegraph front page today: 'Blackmail fears after MPs hit by cyber attack' pic.twitter.com/Qu9PhfUDS8

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) June 24, 2017

Parliament has suffered its biggest ever cyber attack as hackers launched a “sustained and determined” attempt to break into MPs email accounts.

The “brute force” assault lasted for more than 12 hours on Friday as unknown hackers repeatedly targeted “weak” passwords of politicians and aides.

Parliamentary officials were forced to lock MPs out of their own email accounts as they scrambled to minimise the damage from the incident.

The network affected is used by every MP including Theresa May, the Prime Minister, and her cabinet ministers for dealing with constituents.

Experts last night warned that politicians could be exposed to blackmail or face a heightened threat of terrorist attack if emails were successfully accessed.

MPs also apologised to their constituents and expressed concerns that sensitive and private information shared with them may have leaked.

Fears were raised by cyber specialists that “state actors” such as Russia, China or North Korea could be behind the attack - thought Government sources said it was too early for conclusions...

More.

These really are acts of war and it's increasingly apparent that Western states are losing.

Otto Warmbier Has Died

This makes me sad and angry.

I generally don't "hate," but I hate North Korea. I wish the boy never went there in the first place.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Otto Warmbier, the American released by North Korea last week, has died":

Otto Warmbier, an American college student who was in a coma when he was released by North Korea, has died in Ohio. He was 22.

His family said in a statement that Warmbier died Monday afternoon.

The family thanked the University of Cincinnati Medical Center for treating him but said, “Unfortunately, the awful torturous mistreatment our son received at the hands of the North Koreans ensured that no other outcome was possible beyond the sad one we experienced today.”

Otto Warmbier was held for 17+ months in North Korea. Doctors said he returned with severe brain damage https://t.co/fcoM9CVM32 pic.twitter.com/8ZycvYHFeX

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) June 19, 2017

Oh my god. https://t.co/DPevP6UgeV

— Hadas Gold (@Hadas_Gold) June 19, 2017

God damn it, Obama. This is on you. https://t.co/oTMRfRSWmE

— Kim Priestap (@kimpriestap) June 19, 2017

Statement issued by the family of #ottowarmbier on his passing pic.twitter.com/0loUSdBmrM

— Bret Baier (@BretBaier) June 19, 2017

North Korea Parades New Long-Range 'Frankenmissile' (VIDEO)

I've gotta say, those NoKo military parades are pretty impressive.

I know. I know. NoKo's actually a weak country, and frankly not an existential threat to the U.S. That said, you don't have too many militant ideological Cold War throwbacks around these days, so the gamesmanship is something to behold. Plus, it's Trump in office, and he means business when he says NoKo nukes ain't gonna happen.

At WSJ, via Memeorandum, "Pyongyang displays military hardware, including apparently new intercontinental ballistic missile":

North Korea showed off what appeared to be at least one new long-range missile at a military parade Saturday, as tensions simmer over the possibility of a military confrontation between the U.S. and North Korea.

The weaponry on show, which appeared to include a newly-modified intercontinental ballistic missile and two types of large launchers with never-before-seen missile canisters, is likely to trigger fresh concerns about the speed with which Pyongyang’s missile program has advanced in recent years.

A spokesman for South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense declined to comment on the possible new military hardware, saying more time was needed to analyze the missiles.

But an expert on North Korean weapons said the new hardware appeared to be far more advanced than expected.

“We’re totally floored right now,” said Dave Schmerler, a research associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, Calif. “I was not expecting to see this many new missile designs.”

Mr. Schmerler called the new ICBM, which appeared to have elements of two other ICBMS, the KN-08 and KN-14 missiles, a “frankenmissile.”

Missile experts said the new capabilities, if confirmed, may increase Pyongyang’s options as it seeks to test-launch a ICBM able to deliver a nuclear warhead to the continental U.S., as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un indicated in a speech in January. U.S. President Donald Trump responded after that new-year speech, posting on Twitter: “It won’t happen!”

More.

Also, at the Diplomat, "North Korea's 2017 Military Parade Was a Big Deal. Here Are the Major Takeaways."

Journalist Goes Undercover in North Korea (PHOTOS)

At London's Daily Mail.

No photos of concentration camps (complaints about this on Twitter). But still, it's an amazing, excellent photo-essay:

Journalist goes undercover to capture a side of North Korea we rarely get to see https://t.co/YBDCKGakf1

— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) April 14, 2017

SEAL Team 6 'Decapitation' Strike Against North Korea

That just has a rad ring to it, not to mention it'd be cool to really "decapitate" the North Korean regime, as in regime change Pyongyang.

At Business Insider, via Memeorandum, "SEAL Team 6 is reportedly training for a decapitation strike against North Korea's Kim regime."

Andrei Lankov, The Real North Korea

At Amazon, The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia.

North Korea has been a topic in my American government classes, so I'm intrigued about related readings. Besides, the Hermit Kingdom's in the news. See the New York Times, "A Big Blast in North Korea, and Big Questions on U.S. Policy."

The Reason 35,000 Americans Died in Korea

Here's VDH, for Prager University (via Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit).

A great video!

Fallout from Pyongyang Hydrogen-Bomb: Beijing's Nightmare Is the Collapse of Its North Korean Ally

I never gave any of these h-bomb reports any credibility, although the major newspapers dutifully gave the story front-page coverage, to say nothing of CNN's breaking bombshell news coverage.

In any case, see Andrew Browne, at the Wall Street Journal, "North Korea’s Strategy Puts Beijing in a Bind":

SHANGHAI—The Korean Peninsula stands as a gateway to China. It kept the old emperors constantly on guard—and their successors today are no less vigilant.

Beijing’s nightmare is the collapse of its North Korean ally that might well bring U.S. military forces rushing all the way to the border, controlling routes that lead through China’s northeastern industrial heartland to the doors of the capital.

That strategic reality emboldens the family dynasty that runs North Korea. Wednesday’s detonation is the latest example—and the most outrageous one, if Pyongyang’s claims to have set off a hydrogen bomb are true—of how North Korea works on Beijing’s deepest anxieties. The “Young General” Kim Jong Un knows that his country is an indispensable buffer for China—“lips to teeth,” as the Chinese say. He can do virtually anything, and get away with it.

The dictator has cast what Pyongyang claims is its fourth nuclear test as a challenge to America; it fits into a long-established pattern of reckless antics designed to grab attention in Washington, force a crisis and extract diplomatic concessions.

But he is also playing a familiar psychological game with a neighbor that supplies his impoverished country’s food and energy and keeps his despotic regime alive.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, a stern authoritarian, is hardly a leader with whom to be toyed. And he has gone further than his predecessors in showing his exasperation with behavior that threatens not only peace in the neighborhood but also China’s own economic security. If Mr. Kim is persona non grata in Beijing—and the fact that China has yet to invite him leads to that conclusion—the South Korean leader, Park Geun-hye, has become a favorite houseguest. She is a regular visitor, showing up most recently last year in a front-row seat at a massive military parade to mark Japan’s defeat in World War II.

In a part of the world where politics often plays out in symbols, diplomatic invitations given or withheld have exaggerated significance...

Keep reading.

BONUS: At the New York Times, via Memeorandum, "White House Disputes North Korea's Claim of Hydrogen Bomb Test."

'The Interview' Now Available on Xbox Video

Damn. You gotta love 'Merica!

At the Hollywood Reporter, "'The Interview' Goes to YouTube, Google Play, XBox."

And video at CBS News Los Angeles, "Sony Agrees to Limited Release of 'The Interview'."

Sony CEO Michael Lynton Responds to President Obama (VIDEO)

"We have not caved, we have not given in, we have persevered, and we have not backed down..."

See the Wrap, "Sony CEO Michael Lynton to President Obama: ‘We Have Not Caved’ (Video)."

And watch at CNN:



And ICYMI: "Obama Blames Sony After Failing to Defend Free Speech When it Mattered."

A Reply to Kim's Cyberterrorism

At the Wall Street Journal, "Financial sanctions squeezed the North before and could again":

President Obama vowed in his press conference Friday that the United States “will respond proportionally” to the cyberattack on Sony Pictures, “in a place and time and manner that we choose.” Since the FBI has now concluded the attack was orchestrated by North Korea, a forceful response is essential to deterring future attacks by the world’s rogues. Allow us to offer some suggestions as to what a “proportional” response might be.

As we noted Friday, one good place to start would be for the U.S. government to pay Sony Pictures for the rights to “The Interview” and release the movie for free into the public domain. The comedy, about an assassination attempt on Kim Jong Un, could then be seen by the world and translated into Korean, loaded on USB sticks, and floated into North Korea by balloons.

That would teach Pyongyang a useful lesson in the value the free world attaches to free speech. But the corpulent Korean despot also needs to learn a lesson about the costs of hacking and cyberterrorism, which caused Sony to cancel the movie’s scheduled Christmas release.

The easy place to start would be to once again place North Korea on the list of state sponsors of terrorism—a list from which the Bush Administration unwisely removed it in 2008 in exchange for the late Kim Jong Il ’s fake promises of denuclearization. Putting the North back on the list would be an act of diplomatic hygiene, though it would probably not do much to hurt the Kim regime.

A tougher move would be to reprise the Treasury Department’s 2007 sanctions on Banco Delta Asia, a Macau-based bank that the U.S. accused of being a major money-launderer for Pyongyang. The Kim family is heavily dependent on drug dealing, contraband cigarettes, counterfeit dollars, arms smuggling and other illicit activity for its hard currency earnings, which it then uses as bribes to keep the North’s elite in line. The bank denies the allegations.

The sanctions froze Banco Delta Asia out of conducting dollar-denominated transactions, though their broader effect was to dissuade other banks from doing business with Pyongyang for fear of being similarly sanctioned. It was, by all accounts, the toughest blow the Kim family had ever sustained. “They were not able to pay for gyroscopes for their missile program,” Rep. Ed Royce, the Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told us Friday. “Their missile line just shut down. The dictator couldn’t pay his generals.”

The Kim regime squealed. In one of their worst diplomatic moves, then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and President Bush ultimately relented, and it was back to North Korean business as usual. But at least the sanctions demonstrated how vulnerable the Kims were to having their personal finances squeezed. It can be done again...

America's Craven Capitulation to Terror

I'm posting this one FWIW, considering the significant doubts on the origins of the Sony hack.

From David Keyes, at the Daily Beast, "The Sony Hack and America’s Craven Capitulation to Terror":

Americans are giving in to North Korean blackmail — and it will only get worse.

If the noble experiment of American democracy is to mean anything, it is fidelity to the principle of freedom. It is to champion the idea that all men and women are endowed with certain unalienable rights—free to think our thoughts, speak our minds, associate with whom we want and express our feelings without fear that a tyrant will silence us. Slavery is not only the physical restraining of the body. It is also the imprisonment of the mind—the instinct to quiet one’s thoughts in the face of terror.

This is a degrading and shameful state which no man or woman should be forced to endure.

Yesterday, Americans not only endured it—they enabled it. Anonymous hackers, possibly associated with the North Korean regime, made unspecified threats to conduct a 9/11-style attack on theaters that showed “The Interview,” a feature comedy film which pokes fun at Kim Jong Un. Major theaters announced they would not show the movie and Sony pulled it.

On Christmas weekend, a North Korean tyrant has decided what American teenagers will see on the silver screen. Some sympathize with the theaters. Who can blame them? Why would any business expose their customers to potential terror?

This is wrong, dangerous and shameful.

By giving an artistic veto to a madman, we submit to the mindset of a slave. We are no longer sovereigns of our thoughts, comedy and art. If anything is worth fighting for, it is this...

Heh, a little dramatic (although not necessarily disagreeable).

More, at the New Republic (safe link), "Why Aren't We Retaliating Right Now for the Sony Cyberattack?"

More Questions on Who's Behind the Sony Hack?

The dissenting voices on NoKo's complicity are extremely compelling.

Recall Wired's piece from yesterday, "Who's Behind the Sony Hack Attack?"

Now here's Marc Rogers (via Dana Loesch), "Why the Sony hack is unlikely to be the work of North Korea":

Whoever did this is in it for revenge. The info and access they had could have easily been used to cash out, yet, instead, they are making every effort to burn Sony down. Just think what they could have done with passwords to all of Sony’s financial accounts? With the competitive intelligence in their business documents? From simple theft, to the sale of intellectual property, or even extortion – the attackers had many ways to become rich. Yet, instead, they chose to dump the data, rendering it useless. Likewise, I find it hard to believe that a “Nation State” which lives by propaganda would be so willing to just throw away such an unprecedented level of access to the beating heart of Hollywood itself....

Finally, blaming North Korea is the easy way out for a number of folks, including the security vendors and Sony management who are under the microscope for this. Let’s face it – most of today’s so-called “cutting edge” security defenses are either so specific, or so brittle, that they really don’t offer much meaningful protection against a sophisticated attacker or group of attackers. That doesn’t mean that we should let them off and give up every time someone plays the “APT” or “Sophisticated Attacker” card though. This is a significant area of weakness in the security industry – the truth is we are TERRIBLE at protecting against bespoke, unique attacks, let alone true zero days. There is some promising technology out there, but it’s clear that it just isn’t ready yet.

While we are on the subject, and ignoring the inability of traditional AntiVirus to detect bespoke malware, just how did whatever Data Loss Prevention (DLP) solution that Sony uses miss terabytes of data flying out of their network? How did their sophisticated on-premise perimeter security appliances miss such huge anomalies in network traffic, machine usage or host relationships? How did they miss Sony’s own edge being hijacked and used as public bittorrent servers aiding the exfiltration of their data? ....

The reality is, as things stand, Sony has little choice but to burn everything down and start again. Every password, every key, every certificate is tainted now and that’s a terrifying place for an organization to find itself. This hack should be used as the definitive lesson in why security matters and just how bad things can get if you don’t take it seriously.

Keep reading.

FBI Accuses North Korean Government in Cyberattack on Sony Pictures

I guess this is the authoritative determination, despite the extant doubts that Pyongyang is behind the hack.

At NYT, "Obama Vows U.S. Response to North Korea Cyberattack on Sony":

In describing the United States’ evidence against North Korea, the F.B.I. said that there were significant “similarities in specific lines of code, encryption algorithms, data deletion methods, and compromised networks” to previous attacks by the North Koreans. It also said that there were classified elements of the evidence against the North that it could not reveal.

“The F.B.I. also observed significant overlap between the infrastructure used in this attack and other malicious cyberactivity the U.S. government has previously linked directly to North Korea,” the bureau said. “For example, the F.B.I. discovered that several Internet protocol addresses associated with known North Korean infrastructure communicated with I.P. addresses that were hard-coded into the data deletion malware used in this attack.”

The F.B.I. said that some of the methods employed in the Sony attack were similar to ones that were used by the North Koreans against South Korean banks and news media outlets in 2013.

“We are deeply concerned about the destructive nature of this attack on a private sector entity and the ordinary citizens who worked there,” the F.B.I. said.

It added: “Though the F.B.I. has seen a wide variety and increasing number of cyberintrusions, the destructive nature of this attack, coupled with its coercive nature, sets it apart. North Korea’s actions were intended to inflict significant harm on a U.S. business and suppress the right of American citizens to express themselves. Such acts of intimidation fall outside the bounds of acceptable state behavior.”

The F.B.I.'s announcement was carefully coordinated with the White House and reflected the intensity of the investigation; just a week ago a senior F.B.I. official said he could not say whether North Korea was responsible. But it also puts new pressure on President Obama on how to respond. Administration officials note that the White House has now described the action against Sony as an “attack,” as opposed to mere theft of intellectual property, and that suggests that Mr. Obama is now looking for a government response, rather than a corporate one.

Also, at the FBI's homepage, "Update on Sony Investigation."

George Clooney on Hollywood's Epic Cowardice

Clooney's a leftist.

But he's at least got a pair. Jeez.

At Deadline, "Hollywood Cowardice: George Clooney Explains Why Sony Stood Alone In North Korean Cyberterror Attack":

DEADLINE: How could this have happened, that terrorists achieved their aim of cancelling a major studio film? We watched it unfold, but how many people realized that Sony legitimately was under attack?

GEORGE CLOONEY: A good portion of the press abdicated its real duty. They played the fiddle while Rome burned. There was a real story going on. With just a little bit of work, you could have found out that it wasn’t just probably North Korea; it was North Korea. The Guardians of Peace is a phrase that Nixon used when he visited China. When asked why he was helping South Korea, he said it was because we are the Guardians of Peace. Here, we’re talking about an actual country deciding what content we’re going to have. This affects not just movies, this affects every part of business that we have. That’s the truth. What happens if a newsroom decides to go with a story, and a country or an individual or corporation decides they don’t like it? Forget the hacking part of it. You have someone threaten to blow up buildings, and all of a sudden everybody has to bow down. Sony didn’t pull the movie because they were scared; they pulled the movie because all the theaters said they were not going to run it. And they said they were not going to run it because they talked to their lawyers and those lawyers said if somebody dies in one of these, then you’re going to be responsible.

We have a new paradigm, a new reality, and we’re going to have to come to real terms with it all the way down the line. This was a dumb comedy that was about to come out. With the First Amendment, you’re never protecting Jefferson; it’s usually protecting some guy who’s burning a flag or doing something stupid. This is a silly comedy, but the truth is, what it now says about us is a whole lot. We have a responsibility to stand up against this. That’s not just Sony, but all of us, including my good friends in the press who have the responsibility to be asking themselves: What was important? What was the important story to be covering here? The hacking is terrible because of the damage they did to all those people. Their medical records, that is a horrible thing, their Social Security numbers. Then, to turn around and threaten to blow people up and kill people, and just by that threat alone we change what we do for a living, that’s the actual definition of terrorism...

Keep reading. No one, not a single soul in Hollywood, would sign Clooney's petition in support of Sony. Cowards, the whole lot of them. Pathetic left-wing cowards, kowtowing to tyranny.

PHOTO CREDIT: Wikimedia Commons.

Obama Blames Sony After Failing to Defend Free Speech When it Mattered

Pathetic:

Classic. Barack Hussein blames #Sony for the cyber-attack. Just classic. Let's appease every freakin' U.S. enemy on earth. #NoKo #Hacking

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) December 19, 2014

#Sony "made a mistake"? No the idiot Democrat Party electorate made a mistake electing this modern-day Neville Chamberlin. #NoKo #Hacking

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) December 19, 2014

Obama: We'll respond to #NoKo cyber-attack by making Kim Jong- un Belgian waffles, or something. #Democrat #Appeasement #Hacking

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) December 19, 2014

Hack Leaves U.S. in Quandary on How to Deal with North Korea

Well first the administration needs to prove NoKo's behind the hack. I'd say that Wired piece was a pretty compelling.

But see LAT, "Sony hack leaves U.S. in quandary on how to deal with North Korea":

With U.S. intelligence analysts quietly pointing to North Korea as having a hand in the destructive hack of Sony Pictures Entertainment computers, Obama administration officials scrambled Thursday to consider what, if anything, they should do in response.

Options are limited, partly because the United States already imposes strict sanctions on North Korea's economy and because the country's leader, Kim Jong Un, relishes confrontation with the West. White House officials are wary of playing into an effort by nuclear-armed North Korea to provoke the U.S. into a direct confrontation.

"How do you sanction the world's most heavily sanctioned country?" asked John Park, a specialist on Northeast Asia at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Hackers caused tens of millions of dollars in damage last month to Sony Pictures' computers, destroyed valuable files, leaked five films, four of them  unreleased, and exposed private employment information including 47,000 Social Security numbers.

In response to the cyberattack and a threat against movie theaters, Sony canceled the Christmas Day release of "The Interview," a comedy starring Seth Rogen and James Franco that depicts a fictional assassination of Kim.

The Obama administration has stopped short of saying openly that North Korea was involved in the intrusion. Such an allegation would probably bring about calls for a response, and with an unwillingness to lay out its evidence, lack of available economic punishments and little desire for acts of war, the White House so far appears reluctant to make a public accusation...

Well, yeah.

Obama wouldn't want to rush to war, or anything. The leftists might call for war crimes tribunals.

Oh wait. Wrong president.