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CNN NEWSROOM

Funeral Held for Slain New York City Police Officer; Interview with Congressman Charles Rangel; President's Plan to Close Guantanamo Bay Examined; Company Harnesses Energy from Walking to Power Low Voltage Devices; Video Game Technology for Capturing Human Movement Profiled; Homeless Man's Generosity Caught on Camera; North Korea Personally Insults President Obama Over Release of "The Interview"; Nature of Modern Cyber-Attacks Assessed

Aired December 27, 2014 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: Catch the "Top 10 of 2014" special on CNN hosted by Brooke Baldwin tomorrow night at 6:30 eastern.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(SINGING)

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO, (D) NEW YORK CITY: This family has shown us so much in these last days and has given us so much hope even amidst the pain.

(MUSIC)

JOE BIDEN, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: I'm sure I speak for the whole nation when I say to you that our hearts ache for you.

COMMISSIONER WILLIAM BRATTON, NEW YORK POLICE DEPARTMENT: We know who Rafael Ramos was. He was a father, a son, a brother, and a husband. He was a New Yorker. He was a New York City police officer. And he was, he is, a hero.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAVIDGE: Hello, I'm Martin Savidge in for Fredricka Whitfield. And that was a look at some of the sights and the sounds from the funeral service for fallen NYPD Officer Rafael Ramos. And estimated 30,000 people were there including 25,000 police officers from all across the country. Several people spoke at the service including Vice President Joe Biden, New York City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, and Mayor Bill de Blasio.

As the mayor was speaking, some of the officers outside the church turned their backs. It was reminiscent of an incident last week. Officers turned their backs on the mayor when he visited the hospital after the shooting. They're expressing their frustration with how the mayor is handling antipolice protests in the city.

Miguel Marquez was at the funeral today and he just spoke to a union representative for the police officers, and it was a pretty interesting conversation, Miguel.

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We spoke to the union representative who was at the center of the controversy here. Shortly after those police officers turned their backs on the mayor at the hospital, a man named Patrick Lynch, Patty Lynch as he's called here, and he is a 31-year member of the New York Police Department. He also happens to be the president of the PBA, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association. This is one of several police unions here. It's the one that represents the beat level cops. He's over here in the crowd. He was one of those many thousands and thousands of police that attended this funeral today, made a point of coming over to talk to us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PATRICK LYNCH, PRESIDENT OF THE PATROLMEN'S BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATION: It was overwhelming the show of support from not only the good citizens of New York and the residents here of Glendale, but from across the country, and especially the 25,000 fellow police officers of all ranks, of all departments that came out and showed respect and bowed their head in respect for this hero's family today.

Although our uniforms may be different colors, our shields different shapes, the dedication and sorrow felt today was overwhelming for this hero's family. But we also remind all our good citizens that we have one more hero to shoulder, Police Officer Liu. And we ask for that same respect, and we ask for those same departments to come out to a street like this again and bow their head in respect as we shoulder another fallen police officer.

MARQUEZ: This was an unbelievably impressive show.

LYNCH: I have 31 years on the job. I've never seen such a show of support as we saw here today. We're eternally grateful.

MARQUEZ: You know how tough things are and I know your words earlier in the week kicked off quite a bit here. A lot of police officers, hundreds if not thousands of them, turned their back as the mayor spoke. Do you think that's OK?

LYNCH: The feeling is real. But today is about mourning. Tomorrow is about debate.

MARQUEZ: What would you tell those police officers?

LYNCH: We have to understand the betrayal that they feel, but today we also come to bow our head in mourning and tomorrow we'll debate.

MARQUEZ: How does the city get going?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LYNCH: Now, perhaps this is the beginning of a conversation between Patrick Lynch, the other heads of the other unions here that represent other sections of the NYPD and the mayor's office. The mayor gave a very solemn and simple message today, that we are all one New York, that he put himself in the position of NYPD officers. He went to great lengths to explain in his eulogy that what was done against these two officers was done against the city of New York. Martin?

SAVIDGE: Miguel Marquez, thank you very much.

So just who was Rafael Ramos? CNN's Randi Kaye takes a look at the life of this fallen hero.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Officer Ramos worked as a school security officer before joining the NYPD, and reportedly loved the Mets. He was married with two children. On Facebook his 13-year-old son wrote, "He was there for me every day of my life. He was the best father I could ask for. It's horrible that someone gets shot dead just for being a police officer. I will always love you, and I will never forget you. Rest in peace, dad."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was god because the heart he has is un-compared to other people's heart.

KAYE: Ramos' cousin told the "Wall Street Journal" that God was a priority in Ramos' life. The 40-year-old officer in recent years grew more passionate about his church. On his Facebook page, a quote reads "If your way isn't working, try god's way." The same page said Officer Ramos had been married since 1993 and once studied at a seminary.

Before his death, Ramos was studying to become a chaplain. In fact, later that Saturday afternoon, the day he was killed, he was scheduled to graduate from a chaplain program. The pastor at his church told us Ramos had an infectious smile and loved his wife Maritza and his two boys, Justin and Jaden.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I would like to thank all those who shared their sympathy and support for our beloved family member Rafael Ramos, who will always be loved and missed by many.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE: Our thanks to CNN's Randi Kaye with a look back there.

Plans for the funeral of Officer Ramos' partner Wenjian Liu are still being arranged. Officer Liu was 32 and he'd been on the force for seven years. He leaves behind a wife along with other family and friends. His wife attended a news conference yesterday and learned that a 9/11 charity will pay off the Liu family's mortgage. Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani was on hand for that announcement.

We'll have more on the coverage of the funeral of Rafael Ramos coming up in just a bit.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SAVIDGE: The Obama administration is stepping up its effort to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center. As many as five detainees could be released in the next few days. CNN's Michelle Kosinski joins us live now from Honolulu where the president is spending the holidays. Michelle, this has been a longstanding goal of Obama's. How is he planning to accomplish it before he leaves office?

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's not a definite that it is going to be closed. The president has made it very clear, in fact just last week in an interview with Candy Crowley he said he would like to see it closed. He wants to do everything he can to close it.

But there is opposition not only from leadership within the Pentagon but also from Congress because the question becomes, what do you do with some of these people there, especially the higher level ones? Not that they've necessarily been charged with a crime even after being held there for more than 10 years, but there's controversy about bringing them back to the U.S. and trying them, controversy about possibly setting up a military tribunal for them. So the problems continue.

But what President Obama has been trying to do is steadily release the noncontroversial ones. We saw four released just a week ago back to Afghanistan, people who, again, have not been charged with a crime, and were considered pretty low level, not dangerous, not very controversial. So he's going to keep releasing other groups of these prisoners. You mentioned five possibly within the next couple of weeks. That could go up to dozens over the next six months. It may not get down to zero in a year's time, which is what the president originally wanted, and it's been more than a year now. But that's his plan, to get to the point where it might finally be closed, Martin.

SAVIDGE: On another subject, I want to ask you about North Korea and how that government has slammed the U.S. for releasing the movie "The Interview." They released a statement saying Obama always goes reckless in words and deeds like a monkey in a tropical forest. Any reaction from the president?

KOSINSKI: No, not at this point. You look at these statements, several of them now that have come out from North Korea over the past couple of days. Depending how you want to call them, bizarre or inflammatory, just kind of ramping up this rhetoric that they put out.

Well, initially the U.S. was responding. I mean, first we saw the president's national security team say, well, if North Korea's offering help on this hacking, they're denying responsibility, well, they ought to apologize for it. Then we heard North Korea put out another statement saying, well, the U.S. ought to apologize. So it was almost becoming this back and forth.

So finally the White House said, you know what, we're not going to respond to everything North Korea says and get into a back and forth that way. So on this latest statement, and in fact, the last two or three that we've seen, the White House has been quiet.

SAVIDGE: All right, Michelle Kosinski in Honolulu, thank you very much for joining us.

And we'll have more on our coverage of the Rafael Ramos funeral coming up. But first, our look into the future, today, powering our world with feet. Here's Richard Quest. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICHARD QUEST, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Coal -- it fired the steam engines of the industrial revolution, and fossil fuels have powered and transformed our world ever since, until the 1970s energy crisis triggered the search for alternative energy forms -- solar, wind, hydro, and now pavement pounders.

Today, we can harvest electricity from human activity. Special tiles on the ground are charged by our footsteps and movement, making people perhaps the ultimate renewable energy of the future.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People walk up to 150 million footsteps in their lifetime. When I was walking through a busy train station in London, I thought what if we could convert energy from every single person walking in a station to a meaningful amount of power.

QUEST: Literally a light bulb moment, which led to Pavegen, footfall harvesting flooring that can turn the kinetic energy of footsteps to electricity off the grid. The technology is designed to run low voltage equipment, and it's most effective in places with high footfalls. Schools, train stations, even the football stadium of the future.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Suddenly we've become our own power generators. And that's that feeling of independence and excitement.

QUEST: It's the science which could provide an alternative energy source to power to power tomorrow's cities.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SAVIDGE: Thousands attended the funeral for Officer Rafael Ramos today, among them Police Commissioner Bill Bratton. He told the crowd that Ramos was assassinated because he represented all New York police officers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRATTON: Every time I attend a police officer's funeral -- and I've attended way too many -- I always pray that it will be the last, but I know it won't. As I watch the casket carried past all those salutes, I wish it weren't real. But it is. And as I look into the faces of loved ones left behind whose worst fear has been suddenly realized, I silently hope, never again. But here we are.

We're here because your dad was assassinated. It's a different word than "murdered," which is awful enough. It speaks of the prominence of the person killed. It makes the crime intentional and symbolic. Your dad was assassinated because he represented something. And that's true. He did. He represented the men and women of the New York City Police Department. He was the embodiment of our motto, Fidelis ad Mortem, Faithful unto Death. He represented the blue thread that holds our city together when disorder might pull it apart. He represented the public safety that is the foundation of all our democracy. He represented the best of our values, as anyone can see by looking at you and at your family. But he was also your dad, a good man who tried hard and sacrificed and had a desire to serve, to serve his department, his city, his family and certainly his God.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAVIDGE: Commissioner Bratton promoted Officer Ramos and his partner Wenjian Liu to detectives first grade posthumously.

We'll take a break, be back with more in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SAVIDGE: The funeral for Officer Ramos took place in Queens at the church he and his family attended. And joining me now is Melinda Katz who serves as president of the Queens borough. She also attended the funeral today. Thank you very much for joining us.

MELINDA KATZ, QUEENS BOROUGH PRESIDENT: Good afternoon, thank you for having me.

SAVIDGE: How has this incident affected your borough?

KATZ: It's been an extraordinary few weeks. Since the death of the two officers, really the murder of the two officers, it was amazing to see how the city came together, especially the borough of Queens. We are a very diverse borough. There are a lot of interests. But the one thing the whole city really felt was the mourning of these murders of these two police officers.

And what struck me this morning at the funeral, especially with Vice President Biden and the governor and the mayor speaking, was that it was a tribute not only to the NYPD and the job that they do every single day of protecting us, but it also reminded us that Officer Ramos was a father and a husband and a son. His mother was at the funeral. It was extraordinary. And it was a great thing to see the city just come together, the seas of blue that were out there to pay tribute to the job that the man did, but also to the man himself.

SAVIDGE: You've been a public servant for nearly 20 years now representing many different neighborhoods. So where do you see the relationship between the NYPD and the citizens of New York?

KATZ: I think there's a lot of healing to do. The good thing about it is that we're discussing it. The good thing about it is that the conversation is an open conversation. I think every single day there's men and women in uniform that are protecting our streets.

And the one thing that the speakers noted this morning, that the same police officers may not agree with some of the protesters were out there defending their right to protest, were out there protecting the streets and making sure that the right to protest continued. And that says a lot about the city of New York. We have a heart, we have a soul. And when we are challenged by difficult times, horrible times, we come together and we work as a team. And we like to show the rest of the nation that we can come together and we do, with all the different languages that we speak in our city. And it's interesting the commissioner noted that over 64 languages are spoken by the NYPD officers that protect our streets every day. And we make it work. Not only do we make it work, we celebrate it every day. And nothing was clearer than this morning.

I had the opportunity to speak to Mrs. Ramos last night at the wake. And I noted to her two unbelievable boys. I mean, they're men in the way they're acting, but they really are boys. They're 13 and 17 years old. And they were welcoming everyone at this wake for their father, a man who was clearly such a great part of their life. I have a three-year-old and a six-year-old, and you can't help but think of your own children when you look at that and the future that these children have ahead of them and how difficult it's going to be.

SAVIDGE: Yes. I know that very well. Melinda Katz who is the president of the borough of Queens, thank you very much for your insights today.

KATZ: Thank you for having me.

SAVIDGE: And we'll have more of the coverage of the funeral of Police Officer Rafael Ramos in just a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SAVIDGE: At today's funeral for NYPD funeral Rafael Ramos, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo paid respect and tribute to a force known as New York's finest.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO, (D) NEW YORK: To the NYPD family, which lost two brothers, I say you are a force of true professionals who protect our people with the highest level of skill and dedication. As the vice president said, you are New York's finest and you are probably the finest nationwide.

The NYPD has done an especially extraordinary job these past few weeks. I watched on television the scenes of people hurling physical objects and verbal insults at the NYPD, and I, frankly, was amazed at the discipline and professionalism that the NYPD demonstrated. The NYPD protected the right of freedom of speech even though they themselves were the target of false and abusive chants and tirades by some. What a beautiful testament to their professionalism.

(APPLAUSE)

CUOMO: To the NYPD.

(APPLAUSE)

CUOMO: And we want every NYPD officer to know that they were not alone. When the NYPD stood in formation every New Yorker stood with them. And every New Yorker stands with you today.

(END VIDEO CLIP) SAVIDGE: More than 25,000 police officers attended the funeral of slain NYPD Officer Rafael Ramos. It was a sea of blue as they said goodbye to a husband, father of two, who thought of policing as a ministry.

New York Congressman Charles Rangel joins me now. And, Congressman, thank you very much for being with us today.

REP. CHARLES RANGEL, (D) NEW YORK: Thank you, Martin. You're doing a good job for all of us.

SAVIDGE: Thank you, sir.

You were raised in New York and you know that city, you know that area, and you attended the funeral today. So what were you thinking as you watched this service?

RANGEL: I guess like most family feels when they lose somebody. Why did it take a tragic thing like this for New Yorkers to come together to realize how important and how much we appreciate our New York City Police Department? I never felt more proud as a New Yorker. And every speaker made it appear as though they were talking through us to the family saying things that we all wanted to say.

I think it's going to make us stronger and realize the obligations that we have to each other to communicate with each other, but, you know, it always happens that when a tragic event happens, you wish you had said "I loved you" more, you wish you had paid more attention. But, fortunately, we have an opportunity to make up for that. We've lost two heroes, and their loss remind us of the obligation that we have to respect those that each and every morning or afternoon or night go out there and put their lives on the line, and their families just hope and pray they return home.

SAVIDGE: You know, we saw some of the officers who turned their back towards the church where inside Mayor de Blasio was speaking. Some might say that took attention away from the funeral and from the death of Officer Ramos and his partner. Your thoughts?

RANGEL: Well, it was poor judgment. And today was such a beautiful homecoming that for those people that had bad taste or put a bad face on a terrible situation, I for one got a spirit out of that service that we should be more considerate of each other and not be pointing fingers at each other and try to improve our behavior and our communication and appreciate what we've got, so that it's going to be hard for me to respond to any question that would be a critique of some things that has been wrong. We've lost two heroes. Now is not the time to be pointing fingers but coming together and seeing what we can do to work better together, because one thing is clear, that while we lost two heroes, every speaker made it clear that we, too, have a short period of time on this earth to do the right thing.

And it was a sad thing, but the way the New York City police were lauded by people from all over the country just made us proud to be New Yorkers and to have the New York City Police Department. SAVIDGE: Right. I was in New York. I got the witness that

personally. We know that there is a divide, of course, between the mayor and his police force. But how would you view the relationship between the police and New Yorkers?

RANGEL: Well, you know, we -- it's like any family. You don't say everybody is having a problem. In every family there's always an uncle that says the wrong thing and everyone tolerates him. And there comes a time you have to say either you got to be a part of the family or you're not going to be a part of the family.

What we do have to do, however, is not just to point out to those people that don't communicate and don't respect New Yorkers, we have to point out those people that are around them that are silent when this is happening. You and I know that we tolerate listening to people doing the wrong thing and it's the people who are silent when we see these things happen. So right now we're burying our heroes. That doesn't mean that the family's not going to have a reunion, and at this time I hope it's going to be at a much higher level. But people who can't admit in their own families they have some people they're not proud of, they've got a problem themselves.

SAVIDGE: That's a remarkable way to sort of equate all of this. What do you think needs to happen next between the mayor and the police department? As a person who knows so much, what advice would you give?

RANGEL: Well, they have to get over it. You know, there's certain people that represent the unions and times of re-election and contract negotiations, sometimes they are not as responsible as people would want them to be. I can't think of anything that the mayor could say or could do that I would not want a mayor of my great city to be doing.

But when people have made up their mind that they're looking for a fight and not reconciliation, then we just have to pause and let them talk themselves out of it. But with the coverage that CNN has given to this and the fact that policemen, their family and friends, are watching this very sacred day, I don't think we're going to see too much of the hostility against the mayor or against community leaders as some of the people who felt pain and responded in a way that right now they shouldn't be too proud of.

Right now all of us should set aside where we've been and concentrate on where we're going. This is a great city. God has blessed us and being a great city. And I've been around long enough, I've been through riots and storms and floods and blackouts and 9/11. And one thing always happened. New York comes back stronger than before, and that's going to happen now.

SAVIDGE: So true. Congressman Charles Rangel, thank you very much for your dedication and thank you very much for talking to us today.

We'll have more on our coverage of the funeral of Rafael Ramos in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SAVIDGE: We know that many of you are traveling for the holidays. And, unfortunately, some of you could get hit by potentially treacherous weather. Meteorologist Karen Maginnis is at the CNN Weather Center. And will the weather cause any travel headaches, that's what we always want to know, Karen.

KAREN MAGINNIS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes. And we've got snow, and Oklahoma is now picking up significant snowfall. A look at these temperatures, bone-chilling cold air, teadings in the teens and the 20s, that's the actual outside air temperature. But here's what it feels like. In Minneapolis, 14 degrees, that's the wind chill factor. Fargo feels like it's seven degrees outside. The wind is blowing between 20 and 35 miles per hour. We've got a big dip in the jet stream with these back-to-back storm systems coming through. And an Alberta clipper, or a clipper system, will move across the Midwest and into the Great Lakes really plunging those temperatures pretty far to the south where it's been recently mild.

Temperatures in the southeast in the 60s, way above normal for this time of year. But now already in Oklahoma a little bit of snow. Lawton, six inches of snowfall being reported there. Earlier we were looking at Odessa and in Midland, some snowfall as well. And just about 24 hours ago in El Paso a little bit of snow well.

Interior sections of the U.S. from the Dakotas all the way down to the panhandle of Texas, 20 to 30 degrees below where it should be for this time of year. But a good swath of the United States are expected to see temperatures well below normal. Here's the setup. Area of low pressure with the frontal system connecting the Great Lakes all the way down towards Texas. Right along that boundary, that's where most of the wet weather is located. Some thunderstorms, some trees down, and here comes that little clipper system. "Little" puts it mildly. Batches of cold air will dive well to the south. There you see the snow kind of lined up in Oklahoma and into Missouri, also the U.P. of Michigan picking up some snowfall. Most of the snow we have seen has been between three and six inches while three to five inches of rain right along the Gulf coast. Marty, back to you.

SAVIDGE: Karen Maginnis, All right, thanks very much.

And $100 in the hands of a homeless man, cameras secretly recorded how he spent the money. Alison Kosik shows you what happened.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALISON KOSIK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: When YouTube star Josh Paler Lin, famous for making prank videos like "Sex with your Girlfriend" and "Mafia Murder" came up with the idea to give a homeless man $100. It wasn't charity. He wanted to track how the homeless man would spend the cash.

JOSH PALER LIN: Hey. I'm Josh. Nice to meet you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I am just trying to make a buck to get me something to eat. LIN: I just want to give back to people. It's not going to be that

much.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, anything's appreciated.

LIN: Oh, good. This is $100 here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, no way.

LIN: Yes, just keep it. It's your money now. Yes, yes.

KOSIK: With the promise to spend the hundred well, Lin waited secretly filming. The man's first stop after getting the money, a liquor store. What did he get? Let's go across the street. Loaded down with two full bags from the liquor store, the man makes his way to a park followed all along by Lin and his camera. Inside the bags, no liquor, no booze, just food.

LIN: He's giving them food. I'm going to talk to him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, what are you doing here?

LIN: I was following you the entire time. Do you see the camera? Did you know them?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.

LIN: I feel like I owe you an apology. You went to a liquor store, right, earlier?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You thought I was going to get all smacked up drunk?

LIN: I thought you were going to buy alcohol or something.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But there's things money can't buy. And I get a happiness out of what I'm doing.

LIN: A man with nothing to give caught giving all that he has, and Lin, the famous YouTube prankster, left speechless. A video made with the idea of exposing the homeless left simply exposing a man who defied stereotypes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE: A fundraising page has been started to help the man get back on his feet. So far more than $100,000 has been donated.

Next, the North Koreans respond to the release of the Sony movie "The Interview." But first, if you haven't seen videogames lately, well, you might be surprised at how lifelike they are. CNN MONEY's Zain Asher shows us how they get so real.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAIN ASHER, CNN MONEY CORRESPONDENT: I'm Zain Asher inside EA Sports capture lab in Vancouver. It's here where hundreds of artists, engineers, and soccer addicts make the world's most popular sports video game, FIFA. So I've got roughly around 65 of these tiny little markers on me, and what they're going to do is capture my movements on the field if they can get an accurate representation of how I move when I'm playing soccer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're jumping as high as you can and heading the ball. There you go. Every marker is placed at a very specific point on your body.

ASHER: The joints.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, the joints primarily so we can get the rotation and the positional movement of your body parts, and that can be translated into 3-D space.

ASHER: And so what this means is that when you have real players in the video games, their actual movement is like accurate in terms of how they move in real life.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, so they look believable and lifelike and so that anyone playing the game will be lost in this sense of I'm looking at a real person. It's not something that's been created.

ASHER: Precision movement is just part of what makes FIFA's animated characters lifelike. I'm getting my head scanned using EA's bleeding edge 3-D technology. This 14-camera rig has been transported all over the globe during FIFA 15's development to capture the likeness of over 200 of the world's biggest soccer stars. Details like this aren't lost on the hypercritical gaming community. With each annual edition of FIFA fans want more than just a new title.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're always nervous about fan reaction. Before if you released a game that had been lazily put together, wasn't innovative, wasn't addressing the concerns or the desires of our fans, they would let us know on Twitter and Facebook, and trust me, they do a lot of that.

ASHER: When it comes to trying to make each version each year better than the last, how do you keep yourself innovative and not just sort rely on the fact they're going to buy it no matter what?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That level of character believability, physics, movement, the motion of the ball, the motion of the players, the interaction between players is so rich and challenging to simulate, we're never going to run out of ideas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SAVIDGE: OK, here's a bit of a change from what you might have heard. U.S. cyber security experts now say it is highly unlikely North Korea is responsible for the Sony pictures hack. They say the evidence just isn't there. Meantime, North Korean leaders are still fuming over the release of the film "The Interview." Pyongyang released a statement blaming President Obama, claiming that he forced Sony to release the film. As our Paula Hancocks explains, North Korea even personally insulted President Obama.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We knew Pyongyang Washington going to be furious about the release of "The Interview" movie. And sure enough they haven't disappointed. We have a statement this Saturday from the all-powerful National Defense Commission. The fact that it's come from such a powerful institution within North Korea shows how seriously the regime is taking this issue.

Now, they're not just blaming Sony Pictures for releasing the movie. They're also blaming personally the U.S. president Barack Obama. Let's read a little bit of the statement. And it says, "U.S. President Obama is the chief culprit who forced the Sony Pictures Entertainment to indiscriminately distribute the movie and took the lead in appeasing and blackmailing cinema houses and theater."

They also have personal insults for Barack Obama, saying that he's reckless in words and deeds like a monkey in a tropical forest. That's not the first time that they have insulted the U.S. president personally. They've insulted many leaders around the world, in particular the South Korean president. But once again they are holding him personally responsible for the fact that "The Interview" was allowed to go ahead and be distributed.

Now, once question Pyongyang has said that they had nothing to do with the hacking of Sony Pictures. This was claimed by a group called Guardians of Peace. And they're effectively saying to Washington "Show us the proof. Show us the evidence that you have that makes you believe that North Korea was involved."

Now, the FBI has said that they believe North Korea was involved because the malware used in the attack was similar to other alleged cyber-attacks that they believe North Korea was involved in. Pyongyang also saying that they've had Internet troubles of their own over the past five days. It's not clear whether or not they have been hacked, but they believe that Washington is behind that. We're not hearing any comment from Washington at this point.

And, of course, all this controversy, all this news, the fact this is in the headlines is PR gold for this movie. We are seeing hundreds of thousands of downloads around the world, especially here inside Korea, where most people probably wouldn't have even gone to see the movie as it didn't have a distributor before all this controversy started. But certainly this is helping sales somewhat. The question now, though, is, is that it? Has it run its course, this controversy? "The Interview" is out, and North Korea has reacted. Or will we see more cyber-attacks in the future?

Paula Hancocks, CNN, Seoul.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE: Paula, thanks very much.

I'm joined by Ben Feinstein, a security expert for Dell SecureWorks, a subsidiary that is based here in Atlanta. So let me start by, well, welcome.

BEN FEINSTEIN, OPERATIONS DIRECTOR, SECUREWORKS: Thanks for having me.

SAVIDGE: Let me start off with that, the courtesy. And then, what's your reaction to this new take now that North Korea had nothing to do with the hack?

FEINSTEIN: Well, I'm not personally or professionally in a position to speculate exactly on the attribution, but you're exactly right. There's a lot of controversy in the information security community about the attribution that's been put out there.

In incident response and digital forensics, attribution is one of the most difficult things that we do. And there's obviously evidence that the United States government does not want to release due to protecting their own sources and methods. You know, what has been released does have some connections to prior attacks that have been allegedly attributed to North Korea, so there's some overlap there, but there's some valid concerns being raised in the information security community and the skeptical feedback that's out there.

SAVIDGE: I want to talk to you, too, about the other hack that's now occurred, and this is the one that's impacting Microsoft and Sony's gaming networks, that would be Xbox, and interrupted the PlayStation programs. And I'm wondering, this seemed to coincide right with Christmas Day because that's of course the day that everybody gets that new game, maybe the new gaming system, and, boom, they can't go online and play. Getting online, though, is actually important for many of the new modern games. So what happened?

FEINSTEIN: You're right. Many of the games today require the ability to phone home back to either Xbox's network or Sony's PlayStation network in order to function at all. So there's a lot of disappointed kids and a lot of disappointed adults on Christmas morning.

You know, if you are going to pick a time to launch a denial of service attack and impact these networks, Christmas Day is about the highest visibility day you could pick. So I would speculate this was the day that was chosen because it was going to offer the highest visibility and the most PR value.

SAVIDGE: Now, was this merely an interruption of service or do we know if some damage or something was taken from these players?

FEINSTEIN: What we've heard at this time is that there was no actual damage or hacking, per se. It was what we know as a denial of service attack, what we call a denial of service attack, rather, where these networks were flooded with bogus Internet traffic that basically they were unable to cope with and it impacted their ability to serve their customers.

SAVIDGE: OK, so as the expert here, what should a gamer do to protect themselves?

FEINSTEIN: As a gamer, I've seen recommendations of, if you're a parent, set up the system several days in advance, let all the games download their updates and update themselves so that potentially there's less bandwidth that needs to be used during Christmas Day itself. But unfortunately in this case I think there wasn't a whole lot that individual gamers can do other than track the status online of the impact of these networks and try again later.

SAVIDGE: And do you expect more of this?

FEINSTEIN: Absolutely. At Dell SecureWorks we've been observing denial of service attacks many times for years and years and years, and there's a variety of motivations behind them. There's hack- tivism, which may be someone is trying to prove a point. Sometimes there's geopolitical conflicts that can cause denial of service attacks. Other times it's pay for hire denial of service where in the cyber-criminal underground you can actually go out and hire someone to launch a denial of service attack on the victim of your choice.

SAVIDGE: Now, we're talking about companies here. But I'm wondering, is there a role for the government? Can the government do something?

FEINSTEIN: Well, due to the architecture of the Internet today, the government is somewhat limited in their ability to actually mitigate denial of service attacks. The Internet is a highly distributed system that, you know, for better or worse, the governments of the world don't have direct control over the global Internet. Really it's up to individual organizations to plan and prepare for resisting denial of service attacks, looking at ways they can reduce their attack surface, and being proactive in a way they communicate to their clients that they are under attack.

SAVIDGE: For gamers everywhere, including myself, I hope both the government and private industry can come up with an answer.

FEINSTEIN: Absolutely.

SAVIDGE: Ben Feinstein, thank you very much for joining us.

FEINSTEIN: Thanks, Martin.

SAVIDGE: And thank you for joining me. I'm Martin Savidge on what's been a somber day for NYPD and the country. They said goodbye to a fallen police officer, Rafael Ramos. Our news coverage continues right now with Poppy Harlow.