It's certainly true that a ransom was demanded first, giving Sony a few days to respond, and then only after the compromise was completed were demands made to remove 'The Interview'.
It truly is difficult to attribute and only with more evidence and a more careful analysis of timeline, the malware, and the communications will things come into focus.
One thing I have not yet been able to find are numbers for the ransom. I've seen the emails demanding ransom and the defacings demanding the same, but nowhere have I seen a number of dollars being demanded. Have you seen that anywhere?
It truly is difficult to attribute and only with more evidence and a more careful analysis of timeline, the malware, and the communications will things come into focus.
One thing I have not yet been able to find are numbers for the ransom. I've seen the emails demanding ransom and the defacings demanding the same, but nowhere have I seen a number of dollars being demanded. Have you seen that anywhere?