Cyberwar: the U.S. vs North Korea: a Hollywood comedy, a computer hack, and a new battle between the U.S. and the world's most bizarre totalitarian state.

• Author: Smith, Patricia
• Position: INTERNATIONAL

To its producers and stars, The Interview is just a Hollywood comedy about an assassination plot against North Korea's ruthless young dictator, Kim Jong Un. But Kim hasn't been laughing. He sees the Seth Rogen movie as an "act of terrorism," and now the United States and North Korea are locked in a political standoff and what may be a full-scale cyberwar.

The crisis began in late November, when the computer systems of Sony Pictures, the movie studio that produced The Interview, were hacked. A huge amount of confidential information was published online, including embarrassing e-mails in which studio executives trashed stars like Angelina Jolie. The hackers demanded that Sony cancel the release of the film, scheduled for Christmas Day.

After theaters planning to show the movie received threats of 9/11-type attacks, several large theater chains refused to screen The Interview, and Sony announced plans to shelve it.

That same day, President Obama accused North Korea of masterminding the cyber-attack on Sony, and he denounced Sony's decision to pull the film. (Sony has since released it in some theaters and online.)

"We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship here in the United States," Obama said.

The White House vowed a "proportional response" just hours before North Korea's already spotty Internet went dark without explanation in December, prompting many experts to conclude that the U.S. had struck back.

An 'Act of War'?

If North Korea was behind the Sony hack-and some cybersecurity experts aren't as sure as government officials seem to be-the standoff could herald a new era in cyberwarfare, with nations battling digitally instead of exchanging gunfire and launching missiles.

Richard Kelsey, an assistant dean at George Mason University School of Law in Virginia, told The Boston Globe that the Sony hack was "an act of war."

"This is a new battlefield, and the North Koreans have just fired the first flare," Kelsey said.

The U.S. and North Korea, a Communist state that is one of the world's most isolated and repressive regimes, have been at odds for six decades. While North Korea's state-run economy barely functions and its citizens face starvation, the government has built a million-man army and a nuclear-weapons program.

In defiance of the international community, North Korea has repeatedly conducted nuclear weapons tests and is thought to have between six and 12 warheads that threaten American...