Weakened Links

Note natural waste area (formerly dirt).

Corporate Nippon-America (a Trans-Pacific Partnership):

On Monday, Nov. 3, 2014, a four-man team from Norse Corp., a small “threat-intelligence” firm based in Silicon Valley, arrived early for an 11:30 a.m. meeting on the studio lot of Sony Pictures Entertainment, in the Los Angeles suburb of Culver City. They were scheduled to see Sony’s top cybersecurity managers to pitch Norse’s services in defending the studio against hackers, who had been plaguing Sony for years.

After a quick security check at the front gate and then proceeding to the George Burns Building on the east side of the Sony lot, the Norse group walked straight into the unlocked first-floor offices of the information security department, marked with a small sign reading info sec. There was no receptionist or security guard to check who they were; in fact, there was no one in sight at all. The room contained cubicles with unattended computers providing access to Sony’s international data network.

The visitors found their way to a small sitting area outside the office of Jason Spaltro, Sony’s senior vice president for information security, settled in, and waited. Alone. For about 15 minutes.

“I got a little shocked,” says Tommy Stiansen, Norse’s co-founder and chief technology officer. “Their Info Sec was empty, and all their screens were logged in. Basically the janitor can walk straight into their Info Sec department.” Adds Mickey Shapiro, a veteran entertainment attorney who helped set up the meeting and was present that day: “If we were bad guys, we could have done something horrible.”

Sony & their stockholders certainly deserved it.

More from the business side of the show bidnis; currently not caring enough to find previous linkage on the subject, help yourself (as if you could possibly care more than we do).

Members of the Turtles, whose hits included “Happy Together,”
have sued Sirius contending they are owed royalties. That case remains unresolved.

Spengler Dampniche has risen from the grave to pimp a new tome.

Theme park designer and screenwriter Ben Tripp blew up on the horror scene a few years ago with his incredibly popular zombie novel Rise Again (published in 2010) ...