North Korea blasted the United States for the release of the Sony film ‘The Interview’ just hours before it reportedly suffered yet another country-wide Internet blackout on Saturday.
Analysts at Dyn Research, an international Internet performance firm who are monitoring the country’s web access, spotted the outage late Saturday evening, North Korean time. The blackout comes days after the secretive authoritarian nation experienced a previous country-wide Internet outage from what security experts think was a likely cyber-attack.
Related: Sony releasing ‘The Interview’ online
The outage Saturday came just hours after a North Korean spokesman released a statement denouncing Sony’s release of “The Interview” online and in a limited number of movie theaters. The statement, from Pyongyang’s Policy Department of the National Defence Commission, warned that screening the film would “[hurt] the dignity of the supreme leadership” of North Korea while “agitating terrorism.”
North Korea’s statement accused President Obama of being the “chief culprit” forcing Sony to release the film — saying the president is “reckless in words and deeds like a monkey in a tropical forest” — while also blaming “wicked conservative forces” for the film’s release.
The White House responded to the slur in a comment Saturday night, telling NBC’s Chris Jansing, “this is particularly ugly and disrespectful,” adding that the North Korean government was simply trying to provoke a response.
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The note, full of the usual bluster, threats, and over-the-top rhetoric Pyongyang is known for, concludes by saying: “If the U.S. persists in American-style arrogant, high-handed and gangster-like arbitrary practices despite the repeated warnings of the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea), the U.S. should bear in mind that its failed political affairs will face inescapable deadly blows.”
Pyongyang — which has denied any role in the original hacking of Sony Pictures Entertainment — is also alleging that the United States government is behind its previous Internet outage. When asked about that on Monday, U.S. State Department spokesperson Marie Harf told reporters she would not publicly discuss any details about a “possible response” before adding, “as we implement our responses, some will be seen, some may not be seen.”








