I am ali velshi and this is real money. This appears to be another twist in the holiday drama starring sony pictures, the Obama Administration and kim jung unt the outages began late friday, got worse over the weekend and became a massive systemwide collapse throughout north korea today. Theregime stands accused of stacking sony. The white house is refusing to say if the u. S. Government is responsible. Stay tuned. Earlier today, in the wage of the pledges by president obama that the United States would launch a proportional response, the north korean regime issued a response, our toughest counter action will be boldly taken against the white house and pentagon and the whole u. S. Mainland, the cess pool by far surpassing the counter action declared by obama. The bluster about an aisleating the entire United States comes days after hackers went to north korea, threatened 911 style attacks against any u. S. Theatre showing the movie the interview, a comedy that features the assassination of king jung un. It prompted sony to cancel the movie. The United States is used to north koreas verbal threats over his Nuclear Weapons aspirations. Six years ago, as part of the incentive to get north korea to disclose more, the Bush Administration removed north korea from the state Department List of countries that sponsor terrorism. Now, president obama is considering putting north korea e back on the list with countries like iran t syria and cuba. Being on the list triggers sanctions that limit u. S. Aid defense exports and certain financial transactions. To meet the criteria, the state department has to determine a country has reportedly supported acts of international terrorism. Usually means violent physical attacks rather than hacking. Still, putting north korea on the terror list is just one of many options the Obama Administration has reportedly been considering. Lets dig deeper into north koreas hacking infrastructure and what to expect should tensions between the United States and north korea continue to intensify. For that, we turn to cathy moon, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution for east asia policy studies. How sophisticated is north koreas internet infrastructure and what is their ability to create hackers . The North Koreans have quite a sophisticated infrastructure in terms of human resources, human skills as well as the technological knowhow. They have a large number amounting to about 5,000 to 6,000 people who are trained in Cyber Technology, especially in attacks and other kinds of psychological operations. The best of them are sent to russia and china to be trained in advanced work, and so, they do have the capacity. The question is whether they have the kind of reach and sophistication that was able to bring down a system as large as the sony attack, which took 100 terrabytes 6 information out of public. Now, if the Obama Administration is looking at a range of options for going after those five or 6,000 who might have the knowhow and the skills, can you envision what that kind of u. S. Counter attack might look like . The u. S. Has to be very careful because as much as the f. B. I. And other intelligence agencies in the u. S. Are quite sure that the North Koreans have done it, there are also independent Cyber Security companies, and other cyber followers, technological followers, who believe that this may not have been in the capacity of the North Koreans. So until and unless we are almost positively sure its, its very, very dangerous to go taking on retaliatory measures. Most of the north korean attacks, cyber attacks, are run out of china, through china. North koreas infrastructure within the country does not have the capacity to access the kind of sophisticated hardware and software thats required to do the kind of attacks like the one on sony. So, we know that unit 121, the main unit of the cyber work out of north korea has been based in china in shin yung. So, if the chinese know about this and have leverage over the North Koreans, that is one tract that the u. S. Must take. If the United States is certain, though, that this originated from north korea, perhaps with chinese help, does the kind of counterattack that the Obama Administration might envision including that sort of chinesebation but are the specific things that the administration can do without actually harming the majority of the north Korean People . Well, thats a very good question in terms of safe guarding the wellbeing and the rights of the north Korean People and their ability, also, those who are very adventuresom and curious about the outside world to access the outside world through spillover or elicit signals that they may be able to get from the existing infrastructure. So we dont want to harm their curiosity or prevent that curiosity. People talk about putting north korea back on the terror list. I think right now, its premature to do that because there are various definitions of cyber terrorism according to international norms, and we would have to legally be able to state that north koreas attack, if its north korea, actually meet those norms. Also, it took a long time to get north korea off of the terror track or terror list. So, i am not so sure we want to go backwards in a relationship thats already pretty bad. I think we need to stay positive about this and figure out what constructive ways that we can go, ways to use to go forward, and if we are going to retaliate against the North Koreans in some, quote, proportional way, we need to keep in mind, this attack as part of all of the other attacks that have been happening not only to the United States, south korea, its ally and other friendly countries. China and russia are the two major hackers who have been able to access the u. S. Government and u. S. Corporations. And so whatever action the u. S. Takes, we need to make sure we are fair and that we are proportional not only in terms of the attack on the u. S. Companies but, also, proportional in relation to other countries who have been perpetrating these acts of illegal cyber activity. The north korean government has threatened to an aisle ate the pentagon, the white house, much of the u. S. Homeland if there is, in fact, some sort of retaliation by the Obama Administration. How seriously should we take that rhetoric if i were part of the administration, i would read it symbolically as they are upset but they are also very scared. I just learned that not a long ago today, the north korean internet system has been shut down or severely disrupted, and one question is has the u. S. Already targeted them, or have the North Koreans prehe wouldnt any kind of retaliatory attack by shutting itself down or freelancers or any other source that we might be able to think of . But whats important is that they are more scared of the United States than we are of them, obviously. Their Cyber Technology pales in comparison to what the u. S. Can do. I think we need to be cautious. We need to make sure we have all of our facts and that we take seriously north koreas concern and fears and its capabilities but at the same time not overreact. Catherine moon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Thank you for coming on the program. We appreciate it . Thank you very much. Oil prices plummeting. Thats good news for drivers on the road here at home and bad news for those relying on oil to prop up their economies. Sladz mirror pickup trucks russia. What is saudi arabia doing about this crude awakening . Why . Where things get really interesting. We are back in two minutes. We were talking to a young lady saying she just wanted her voice to get out there. By the thousands, theyre sending their government a message. Ahead of em is a humanitarian crisis where tens of thousands of people are without food, water, shelter. A special one hour look at global attacks on free press. Next monday 9 00 eastern. Protestors are gathering. Theres an air of tension right now. The crowd chanting for democracy. This is another significant development. We have an exclusive story tonight, and we go live. If there is a commodity stealing headline this year, it is oil. Since june, the price of u. S. Crude has fallen more than 48 to a sentenced price a settled price. Opec decided to keep spiggots open rather than cut production. Now their most powerful member, saudi arabia says it intends to stay the course, which is good news for americans filling up at the pump. In an interview with the saudi oil minister, they said opec has no plans to cut production even if prices fall as low as 20 a barrel. That was a topic of discussion at a in abu dhabi. Reporter Petroleum Ministers and economists from all over the middle east in north africa gathered at a time when oil prices have taken a dive hitting their National Budget did hard. Saudi arabia and the United Arab Emirates say they are confident the market will stabilize soon. Other Energy Ministers say help. There is a lot of surplus in the market. Sop, therefore, the supply is much, much greater than the demand. So, i think that approach by opec is a very wise one. Exporters represent around 40 of the worlds oil production. Saudi and the united arab ministers have blamed producers outside the bloc for the slump saying they lack coordination and are acting ires responsibly. Neither specified who they think is most efficient. When you reduce your income, it will affect the this is the negative side of it. But the Positive Side of it is that we are reducing a lot of unnecessary costs. Reporter another positive that they have started exporting from kirkuk following an agreement with the Kurdish Regional government. So kirkuk is functioning once again. Reporter not everyone is suffering from the cut in oil prices. Jordan said its saving millions because diesel and oil is cheaper to import. We saved, i think, for the last four million. Gain. Its worried the longterm Foreign Investment in his country by Big Oil Producers like saudi and the United Arab Emirates may be affected. Its the longterm hard to predict. Economists are saying it could take months for prices to recover. Erica woods, al jazeera, ab abu dhabi. Saudi arabias strategy is having repercussions. Olympic members like venzuela and iran need oil to trade above 100 a barrel to funneled their budget did, or they face severe cash shortfalls. The same goes for russia, which is not a member of opec. Mez are dividing why the saudis will be content to left oil prices fall. Saying they may be using it as a political weapon to affect pain opinion its rivals. Others are adamant that they are letting prices drop for purely economic reasons to protect its market share and to possibly und undercutthe newest players on producers. Patricia sabga splays. Driving down prices to defend market share, a Saudi Arabian strategy aimed skrarl at american shale producers says the baker institutes jim crane. The saudis would like to see what happens in north america and in the shale plays in u. S. And canada when you have an environment of low prize. Are these guys able to sweat it out and tough it out, or does production fall off . Reporter as the Worlds Largest oil exporter and opecs swing producer, saudi arabia can sway prices by reining in prices to push more crude on to the market. The historic Pricing Power is under threat by american shale Oil Producers who have been flooding the market with new supplies at a time when Global Demand is easing. Thanks to shale, the United States is poised today usurp saudi arabias crown as the Worlds Largest oil producer. The kingdom has an edge to control global oil markets, namely, the ability to extract crude more cheaply than the shale rivals. Finding and ex tracting oil averages roughly 31 in the United States versus around 17 in the middle east. With u. S. Benchmark crude falling some 48 since june, american shale producers sprang up in an era of high prices are feeling the squeeze. I think the saudis would like to show these folks that, you know, prices can go up, but they can also come down and the drastically. The Global Benchmark oil is trading below what the saudis need to meet their budget commitments next year, the kingdoms considerable cash reserves give it plenty of cushion to comfortably draw a line in the shale. Atricia sabga, al jazeera. Saudi arabia and other rich oilproducing members of o peck can tax the fortitude. They are willing to draw down on hundreds of billions of dollars to defend their market share. Thats according to steve lavine who covers energy. He joins us from washington. Steve, as far as the u. S. Fracking producers, how much of this can they afford to take . Whats the bottom line price in terms of per barrel when fracking really starts to say uncle . It really depends on which producer you are talking about and which area. I really think that there is a lot more flexibility than people think. The cost, the cost of these drillers to produce their oil is going to drop the salary demands of the drillers, themselves. Will go down. The amount that rig owners are changing, their day rates, that will go down. So this is a flexible item on the ledger there. And i also think that they will pull back from the marginal parts of the fields that they have been drilling, drilling more in the sweet spots. Will mean that they will be able to spend more spend less money and be able to earn more money. So, i think they are going to try to sweat it out. And i think that they can sweat it out for quite some time. These quotes that we heard today from the Saudi Arabian oil minister, this is a declaration of war. This is a different understanding of what saudi arabia was up to until what we understood today. It sounds like the saudis are marking it clear that they believe there is a certain point at which they can really inflict pain on u. S. Domestic Oil Producers and fraccers. You are saying there is a certain flexibility that the u. S. Producers have that maybe the saudis are miss calculating on. They i am sure that they understand this, that they will have to, if they want to have a strategy of sweating out u. S. Shale drillers and incidentally, they are not just trying to sweat them out. They are trying to sweat out brazil, canada, canadian oil sands, who they are calling highcost drillers around the world. They want to the return to very much a central role, but they are going to have to wait a long time, more than one year, maybe two years. Incidentally with, other people who are going to be hurt by this are oil companies. We are not just talking about countries that have high breakeven costs. Companies from exxon to shale to the midrange players, if we have longrange prices of the level that the oil minister was talking about today, they could really suffer. You could see some bankruptcies in the oil patch. Whats the level at which you start to see those bankruptcies . After the fact, there is oil for 20 a barely, as are as he was talking about. Does that put some u. S. Energy companies out of business . Again, it depends how long. If you are talking about 18 months, two years, yes. They would cry uncle before. They would see buyers. So you would see mergers. You would see fire sales, acquisitions of some of these players. Already, you had some of the bigger players last year borrowing money to pay for their for all of their expenses, capex, buy backs and dividends. If they were having to do that to dig in to borrow money on the street to do that, next year is going to be no picnic for them. I think, you know, right now, today, we had 55 a barely for wti. When you start getting down in to the 40s, you are going to see some hurt. You may see some hurt, but you also might see some celebrations among the american consumer. I can hear some of them saying, fine, if some. Bill oiling companies have to go out of business because we can get billions and bill you dont know of dollars in our pockets as opposed to going to them, thats fine. Our economy, the u. S. Economy is going to go gangbusters next year. Gasoline prices, they could be well into, you know, below 2. Incidentally, just again going in to where the rubble is going to be, the blood on the floor in terms of calculation miss calculations, saudi arabia, itself, is sitting fine. It has 750,000,000,000 of reserves. Qatar, kuwait, the uae. After that, everyone is going to be hurt. I just wonder when saudi arabia speaks with great bravery, with great courage, we are prepared to sit this out. Is it prepared for everyone else to basically fall apart . Indeed, falling apart while the u. S. Consumers celebrate, 2 a gallon for gas. It would have a huge impact on the u. S. Economy. Steve levine, thanks for joining us. We appreciate it. Thank you. Up next, something is not right in new england, Energy Prices havent been this,000 cheap in years. Why are people from connecticut to maine paying more to stay warm . That when real money continues. Al Jazeera America presents s