Strange coincidence.....not.

North Korea doesn't have internet access. Well, the government may, but ordinary people don't. Have a link somewhere. Will go get it...

Secondly, it was n Korea that cyber attacked the US first, as I understand it. What should the US do? Just lie back and think of the 51?

Why the US retaliated

BBC article

Oh agree entirely re NK, but just find it a little alarming that the US can turn a country off. Imagine if that were directed at a more technological society....or would they have better defences? (Hmm...US didn't). You could bring a country to its knees pretty quickly and effectively without a shot being fired in anger. The NK public have access to an intranet which is strictly controlled by the government, but the government itself has internet access.

There was a story that the FBI were responsible for the SONY cyber attack. Do we ever hear the real truth?

I don't believe we do-or indeed ever will. My father in the latter part of his career worked at MOD in London and always said you wouldn't want to know what really goes on.

If it is thought by some to be outrageous to write a short story on the assassination of a former, now deceased, prime minister, how much more outrageous is it to make a film comedy about the assassination of a current leader?

Though the US government isn't responsible for the actions of its movie industry, it has perhaps created the sort of atmosphere that has encouraged the making of this provocative film. If the leader of North Korea is as unstable as he is reported to be, and it is difficult to make that judgment since we may be getting a distorted picture, why poke a stick into a wasps' nest?

Even though it seems a good probability that North Korea was responsible for hacking Sony Pictures, there is no absolute proof and we have seen recently that not all supposedly democratic countries are beyond playing dirty tricks.

This is a dangerous game to play. The essential services of many countries are reliant on computerized systems - as we saw with the air traffic control problem the other week. Do we really want to get into this tit for tat behaviour that could end in real disaster?

Or maybe very powerful people, such as a leader of an oriental country, shouldn't be so touchy about a satirical movie? Just as whoever thought The Satanic Verses was blasphemous maybe shouldn't be so protective of something that doesn't need protecting?

Why shouldn't films and books and other art forms push the boundaries of what is deemed acceptable? Isn't that partly what The Arts are for? Haven't they always been? Shakespeare upset a few people. So did Milton. And Picasso. The list goes on.....

A strong leader would just react with a snort and join in the laughter. Who was it who was supposed to have said that stories of his death were exaggerated?

In my view it's wrong to look at the world from the standpoint of being easily offended.

Spike Milligan I think, thatbags!

I thought it was Mark Twain. AN was the one who told us he was ill.

Yes, apparently Spike Milligan wanted 'I told you I was ill' on his headstone but it wasn't allowed.

pesky kindle, I typed SM but it wanted AN!

It does now have it written in Gaelic "Duirt me leat go raibh me breoite", or "I told you I was ill", and the English words "Love, light, peace".

Good!

Surprised there hasn't been more conspiracy theories to be honest such as Russia, China, Iran are behind it all.

Could just be one very clever group of hackers out to cause trouble. Will we ever know the truth ?

"Will we ever know the truth ?" Not a dogs chance, I would never believe anything from any government on a subject like this.