title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: The first series of the original "Life on Mars" was broadcast in the United States on BBC America from July 2006 to August 2007 and was broadcast in 2010 on some public television stations, with the second series being broadcast from December 2007 to January 2008. Acorn Media released both series on DVD in 2008.


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: The original version also was broadcast in Canada from September 2006 to April 2007 on BBC Canada, and from 8 January 2008 to 23 April 2008 on Télé-Québec in French and Showcase in English.


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: In New Zealand the original series was broadcast on TV One from February 2007, being described as "sensationally well-made" by an NZ website. Series two was broadcast from June 2008, with the final screening on 4 August 2008.


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: In Australia the original British version was broadcast on ABC1 from 20 May 2007, with the second following during February 2008. The US version broadcast on 5 February 2009 on Network Ten.


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: In the Republic of Ireland RTÉ Two broadcast the series from June 2007 in a late evening slot, following RTÉ News on Two.


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: The show has also been transmitted in Croatia (Croatian Radiotelevision), Sweden (a cut version on SVT 2), Netherlands (Nederland 3), in Germany (Kabel 1), Greece (Skai TV), Spain (Antena.neox), Israel (Hot), Italy (Rai Due), Japan, Serbia (B92), Norway (NRK) and Estonia (ERR). Sub began broadcasting "Life on Mars" in Finland in April 2008, and ATV World started broadcasting the show in Hong Kong on 13 July 2008, France (13ème Rue). In Hungary (Duna TV) "Life on Mars" started in March 2011.


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: Spanish Television network Antena 3 bought the rights from the BBC and has remade the show as "La Chica de Ayer" (English: "The Girl from Yesterday", the title taken from a 1980 pop song), set in 1977 post-Franco Spain.


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: The Russian broadcaster Channel One has remade the show as ("The Dark Side of the Moon", after the Pink Floyd album of the same name). The series began on 5 November 2012, running for 16 episodes. It tells the story of Moscow police captain Mikhail Mikhailovich Solovyov (Михаил Михайлович Соловьёв), who is hit by a car in 2012 during pursuit of a suspect, and wakes up in hospital in Soviet Moscow in 1979. Soon Mikhail is released, and takes the place of his father, Mikhail Ivanovich Solovyov.


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: Czech national TV channel ČT1 has made a TV series heavily inspired by "Life on Mars", called ("World under the head"). It tells the story of an elite policeman Filip Marvan, who is hit by a car and wakes up in a hospital in 1982, in Communist Czechoslovakia. The name of the series refers to a line from a song "V stínu kapradiny" by . The first episode of the series aired on 2 January 2017, scheduled to run for 10 episodes in total.


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: A South Korean adaptation developed by Studio Dragon and produced by Production H for pay TV network OCN aired from 9 June to 5 August 2018.


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: The programme's soundtrack features mainly early 1970s songs which were played as part of "Life on Mars", as well as an original score of the theme music as part of the title sequence composed by Edmund Butt. The show's title is in reference to the David Bowie song, "Life on Mars?", which plays on an iPod in Sam's car while he is run over, and on an 8-track tape in a Rover P6 when he awakes in 1973; it is used again at the climax of the final episode, and fleeting moments of the song are periodically used throughout the third series of the programme's sequel, "Ashes to Ashes", to allude to Sam Tyler's fate.


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: Matthew Graham stated that initially there were some concerns over whether the production team would be able to license the song, which, had they been denied, would have necessitated retitling the series. Another Bowie song, "Space Oddity", is used in BBC trailers advertising the series. In several episodes, Gene Hunt adopts the name "Gene Genie", in reference to yet another Bowie song, "The Jean Genie", used in . Another Bowie track, "Changes", is played over the end credits of .


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: The show's creators were initially refused permission to use "Live and Let Die" by Paul McCartney and Wings but, according to Graham in the "Radio Times", "We sent the episode directly to Paul McCartney. Almost immediately, his assistant phoned back and said, 'Paul loves it. You can go ahead and use it'".


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: The methodology and techniques of modern policing that Sam Tyler employs during "Life on Mars" lead him into clashes with other characters. Gene Hunt and the rest of the CID appear to favour brutality and corruption to secure convictions, as shown by their willingness to physically coerce confessions and fabricate evidence. In both series, Tyler clashes with Hunt the most frequently, usually because Tyler values forensic evidence whereas Hunt often resorts to traditional methods and gut instincts. In one episode during Series 1, in which doubt is cast on several suspects, Hunt insists that "the first to speak is guilty" and frequently refers to the 'Gene Genie'.


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: Sam describes Hunt as an "overweight, over-the-hill, nicotine-stained, borderline alcoholic homophobe with a superiority complex and an unhealthy obsession with male bonding", to which Hunt responds, "You make that sound like a bad thing". Hunt is supported by his fiercely loyal subordinates, Chris Skelton and Ray Carling, with the latter portrayed as a character similar to Hunt. Ray and Sam often disagree with each other and Sam and Gene have a love-hate relationship. Chris, in contrast, becomes friendly with Sam and respects his modern methods, finding his loyalty torn between Gene and Sam.


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: Given Sam's predicament, he avoids revealing his suspicion that he may have travelled back in time, for fear that others will think he is insane. The only person in 1973 to whom Sam fully reveals his story is Annie Cartwright. According to Liz White, the actress who played Cartwright, "She gets very tired of his constant talk about how this situation is not real, that they are all figments of his imagination — she can only explain it as psychological trauma from his car crash".


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: After the premiere, each of the remaining fifteen episodes begins with a short teaser before a monologue in which Sam repeats, as part of the moving imagery of the title sequence:


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: My name is Sam Tyler. I had an accident and I woke up in 1973. Am I mad, in a coma, or back in time? Whatever's happened, it's like I've landed on a different planet. Now, maybe if I can work out the reason, I can get home.


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: This questioning is a central plot device throughout the series, displaying both the character's and the audience's uncertainty about what has happened.


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: Throughout the course of "Life on Mars", Sam's uncertainty is reinforced by frequent paranormal phenomena, such as hearing voices and seeing images from 2006 on radios, telephones, and televisions. The voices discuss his medical condition, leading him to partially believe that he is in a coma. Other elements suggest to him that he is insane, such as his frequent and unexpected encounters with the Test Card Girl from Test Card F, who speaks directly to him. Annie Cartwright partially persuades Sam that he is truly in 1973, arguing that his mind would be unable to fabricate the amount of detail and tangibility in the world where he finds himself, evidence that he is in fact in 1973.


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: Sam's uncertain situation is not the focal point of most episodes, remaining a sub-plot. In most episodes, the main plot centres on a particular crime or case relating to the police, such as , , and . For this reason, most episodes follow a conventional police drama format. As the series progresses, Sam focuses on how he will get home in almost every episode.


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: A recurring motif throughout the series is the overlapping of the past and present. For example, during Series 1: Episode 6 Sam hears the voice of his mother in 2006, telling him his life-support will be switched off at 2:00 pm. At the same time he is called into a hostage-taking situation, where the perpetrator states that he will kill his victims at precisely the same hour. Sam also encounters as their younger selves people whom he knows in the future, including suspects, friends, his own parents, and himself as a child.


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: Sam comes from an era in which suspects' rights and the preservation of forensic evidence are stringently observed. His background leads Sam into conflict, as other characters exhibit openly sexist, homophobic, and racist behaviour, and often indulge all these prejudices while carrying out their police duties.


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: The series frequently makes use of Gene Hunt's comical rudeness in the form of jokes and dramatic irony about a future which the audience already knows, but which the characters in 1973 do not. For example, in Series 1: Episode 5, Hunt declares, "There will never be a woman prime minister as long as I have a hole in my arse." However, in line with the ambivalence of the Hunt character, the irony is qualified by the fact that, in the real 1973, Margaret Thatcher herself told the BBC's Valerie Singleton in an interview, "I don't think there will be a woman Prime Minister in my lifetime." The clip of this remark had often been replayed on British TV and the audience would be familiar with it.


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: Another theme in the show is Sam's confusion about police work in 1973, as he often mistakenly mentions techniques and technologies that were not used in 1973, such as two-way mirrors. One such theme is that Sam continually gives criminals the updated version of the right to silence warning, which was changed in 1994. When he does so, someone around him usually points out that he is giving the warning incorrectly.


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: It is revealed in the final episode that Sam's coma had lasted so long because he had a tumour of the brain. Tyler comes to believe the tumour is embodied by Hunt, and begins to think that by bringing Hunt down, his own body can recover. To this end, Tyler begins to collaborate with Frank Morgan (Ralph Brown) to bring Hunt down. While Tyler and the team are engaged in a firefight with armed robbers, Sam returns to 2006. He eventually comes to realise that he has become used to, and enjoys, the 1970s, seeing it as his "real world". In an attempt to get back to 1973 to save Annie and the rest of the team from death, Sam leaps off the roof of the police station, arriving back in 1973 and saving the team, promising never to leave them again. Writer Matthew Graham wrote the scene to indicate that Sam is now in the afterlife, but acknowledged that the ending is ambiguous and open to other interpretations, such as lead actor John Simm's belief that Sam may not have returned to the present. One way this could work is that Sam is actually the Hyde detective that Frank Morgan says he is, who had an accident on the way to Manchester. The doctor treating Sam in the future is the same as Frank Morgan, but Sam couldn't have seen him in the future since he's in a coma. The only way they could be the same is if the Frank Morgan in 1973 is the real one, and Sam is hallucinating the future doctor.


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: In the final scene, the team drive off, with Sam and Gene bickering as usual. Children run past, including the girl from Test Card F who symbolizes the death that has been stalking Sam since the beginning. She looks directly into the camera before reaching out and "switching off" the television the viewer is watching, signifying that Sam's life has come to an end.


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: The first episode of sequel series "Ashes to Ashes" shows that the protagonist, DI Alex Drake of the Metropolitan Police, has been studying Tyler's notes and 2006-era personnel file, in which his photograph is overstamped with the word "SUICIDE" - consistent with what happened in the series finale. "Ashes to Ashes" implies that Gene Hunt's world is in some sense real, and states that Sam lived on in that world, during which time he married Annie but had no children.


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: In the final episode of "Ashes to Ashes" a fuller explanation for Sam Tyler's experience is provided, when the role of Gene Hunt in both "Life on Mars" and "Ashes to Ashes" is revealed.


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: During an interview John Stalker, Deputy Chief Constable of Greater Manchester in the early 1980s and himself a Detective Inspector in 1973, has stated that the depiction of the police "has got nothing to do with real policing in the 1970s. It could not be more inaccurate in terms of procedure, the way they talk or the way they dress. In all the time I was in the CID in the 1970s I never saw a copper in a leather bomber jacket and I never heard an officer call anyone 'guv'. ... Actually, there were a few police officers in London who started to behave like Regan and Carter in "The Sweeney", but that was a case of life following art, not the other way round". The journalist who interviewed Stalker, Ray King, remarks that the depiction of the police can be defended if we assume that Sam is indeed in a coma and that we are seeing his imaginary idea of 1973, filtered through 1970s police shows.


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: Upon Sam Tyler awaking in 1973, he finds himself on a building site, beneath a large advertising board, proclaiming the construction of a new motorway, the Mancunian Way. In reality, construction of Mancunian Way was completed in 1967. According to Matthew Graham, writing in the "Radio Times", the error was deliberate. "We knew that this road was built in the 1960s, but we took a bit of artistic licence". Minor historical anachronisms such as this are present throughout "Life on Mars". Some, as above, were made out of artistic licence whilst others were deliberately inserted to confuse the issue of whether Sam Tyler was in a coma, mad or really back in time. Many inaccuracies were visible such as modern street furniture, cable television cabinets, satellite television dishes, CCTV cameras, LCD digital watches and double-glazed uPVC window frames, which were all unintentional. During DVD commentaries for the series, the programme makers acknowledge these as errors but also point out they are perfectly feasible, given Sam's situation. As the popularity of the series grew, the hunting of such anachronisms became a favourite pastime among "Life on Mars" fans.


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: Greater Manchester was formed in 1974, consequently the show references the police officers working for Lancashire Constabulary, rather than Greater Manchester Police. However, in 1973 Hyde would have been covered by the Cheshire Police area. Therefore, an undercover officer from Hyde working in Manchester would suggest Lancashire Constabulary was being investigated by a different police force.


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: The brown Ford Cortina used by Gene throughout both of the seasons was a 1974 model, which makes it anachronistic. In production, three different cars were used.


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: Hyde, a town to the east of Manchester, is used as Sam's former police division as a clue that his 1973 self is an "alter ego", as in Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde".


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: Critical reaction to the first series of "Life on Mars" was extremely positive. Steve O'Brien, writing for "SFX", declared, "It looks like BBC One has ... a monster hit on its hands ... It's funny ... and dramatic and exciting, and we're really not getting paid for saying this". Alison Graham, television editor for the "Radio Times", described the series as "a genuinely innovative and imaginative take on an old genre". James Walton of "The Daily Telegraph" commented, "Theoretically, this should add up to a right old mess. In practice, it makes for a thumpingly enjoyable piece of television — not least because everybody involved was obviously having such a great time". Sam Wollaston of "The Guardian" wrote: ""Life on Mars" was more than just a jolly, tongue-in-cheek romp into the past ... Once there, in 1973, we find ourselves immersed in a reasonably gripping police drama — yes, "The Sweeney", perhaps, with better production values ... Or put another — undeniably laboured — way, as poor Sam Tyler walks through his sunken dream, I'm hooked to the silver screen". Critical reaction remained generally positive throughout the programme's run. Of the second series, Alison Graham believed that "Sam Tyler and Gene Hunt are shaping up nicely as one of the great TV detective partnerships ... It's vastly enjoyable and manages to stay just about believable thanks to some strong writing and, of course, the two marvellous central performances".


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: Nancy Banks-Smith, in "The Guardian", felt that the time-paradox aspect of the programme had become somewhat confusing. Banks-Smith summed up the programme's success as "an inspired take on the usual formula of Gruff Copper of the old school, who solves cases by examining the entrails of a chicken, and Sensitive Sidekick, who has a degree in detection.".


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: Two days after the final episode's transmission, "Life on Mars" was attacked in the British press by the National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers (better known as NASUWT), who claimed that Gene Hunt's use of homophobic insults in the programme could encourage copycat bullying in schools. The BBC stated that "Life on Mars" was targeted at an adult audience, and argued that Hunt's characterisation was "extreme and tongue-in-cheek".


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: "Life on Mars" was a ratings success. The first series achieved an average audience figure of 6.8 million viewers and regularly won its timeslot, despite competition from ITV1's popular comedy-drama series "Northern Lights". The gained 7.1 million viewers and a 28% audience share.


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: Viewing figures for the second series were initially low, with only attracting 5.7 million viewers, slumping to 4.8 million viewers by , despite being heavily trailed and publicised. These figures were blamed by "The Stage" on "poor scheduling and unfortunate sporting fixtures, possibly combined with high expectation". Audience figures picked up during the second series' run, however, with the gaining an average of seven million viewers (a 28% audience share), despite competition from UEFA Champions League football on ITV1.


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: The series twice won the International Emmy Award for Best Drama Series in 2006 and 2008. In January 2007, it won the Best New Programme category as part of the "Broadcast Magazine" awards. In March 2007 it won two categories, Best Drama Series and the Writers' Award, at the Broadcasting Press Guild Awards.


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: The first series was nominated for a British Academy Television Award (BAFTA) in the Best Drama Series category. John Simm was also nominated as Best Actor for his work on the show. The programme won the audience-voted "Pioneer Award".


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: In October 2007, series two was nominated as the Most Popular Drama at the 2007 National Television Awards.


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: There have been 2 official tie-in books to accompany the series featuring episode summaries, cast and character profiles, music listings to each show, script extracts, plus behind-the-scenes content and never before seen photos.


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: A parody of a police manual that made fun of the conventions of 1970s British police procedurals like "The Sweeney". It also contained a glossary of British 1970s slang terms. The actual author of the text is Guy Adams.


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: On 12 March 2012, Kate Bradley, Commissioning Editor at HarperCollins, secured a deal with Kudos Film and Television to publish four brand new "Life on Mars" novels. The "Life on Mars" books were published exclusively as eBooks at roughly three-month intervals, but were successful enough to generate the release of hard copy, trade paperbacks in August 2013. The author of the series is Tom Graham, Matthew Graham's brother. (Despite earlier speculation that the brother identity was a pseudonym for another writer—based on a preponderance of misleading evidence that turned out to consist of improbably high coincidence—the by-line, and the familial relationship, are absolutely authentic.)


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: Content-wise, the novels begin to explore the continuity gap between "Life on Mars" and "Ashes to Ashes", picking up approximately where the first TV series leaves off; but it is not necessary to know both series to enjoy the books. Said Tom Graham in a pre-publication interview: "…I made a very conscious decision to move on from the show, not to tinker or play around with pre-existing story lines. There is more than enough new and unused material for my books without me going back and plundering previous episodes. Also (and this is one of the realities of publishing) my books had to in some way stand apart from the show and be accessible to readers who only vaguely remember "Life on Mars" but haven’t seen it since it was first aired. There were times I felt like Peter Jackson making "The Lord of the Rings" Trilogy – like him, I have to appeal to the hard core fan, the semi-fan, the part-time fan, and the casual passing punter who’s never even heard of the thing. Unlike Jackson, I didn’t have a half a billion dollars budget riding on it, but the principle's the same. So, I have very deliberately written books that recall the TV show, jog memories of characters and events from the show, recreate the atmosphere and ethos of the show, but don’t require an in-depth knowledge of minor characters and plot points. We don’t (yet) plunge into the finer details of the LoM mythology that would mystify the general reader, but if further books are commissioned, there will be plenty of room to get stuck into the minutiae!"


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: Though each book can stand on its own, the four are best read as a tetralogy, in order of listing below, as there is a superstructure linking them together. They are:


title: Life on Mars (British TV series)

text: (Each of the book titles is a play on a pop culture phrase or film title that is of, or relevant to, the '70s, those being "Blood, Bullets and Babes", "A Fistful of Dollars", "Borstal Boy" and "Get Carter").


title: Jeremy Boreing

text: Jeremy Danial Boreing (born February 5, 1979) is an American screenwriter, director, producer, and political commentator. He was a member of Coattails Entertainment, a production company, with Kurt Schemper, Joel David Moore, and Zachary Levi from 2006 to 2010. Boreing was the producer and co-writer of the 2007 horror film "Spiral" with Moore, as well as Jeff Mizushima's 2009 comedy film "Etienne!". After the dissolution of Coattails, Boreing co-founded the independent film studio Declaration Entertainment with Bill Whittle. He was also a guest columnist for the conservative websites Big Hollywood and Newsbusters, and is a founder, contributor and co-chief executive officer at the conservative news and opinion website "The Daily Wire". In March 2022, Boreing opened a line of subscription-based shaving razors called Jeremy's Razors, openly competing against former "Daily Wire" sponsor Harry's Razors.


title: Jeremy Boreing

text: Born in Slaton, Texas, to a Christian family, Boreing started his career at a local historic regional theatre, the Garza, as a writer and producer. In 2002, Boreing met future writing partner Joel David Moore, a friend of a friend, who helped move Moore's couch with his pickup truck. Boreing eventually made the move to Los Angeles in the mid-2000s to work as a film producer and screenwriter. His first job in Hollywood was with Zachary Levi, another friend from Lubbock, and Eric McCormack for a television pilot with Michael C. Forman's Big Cattle Productions. Boreing subsequently signed with the literary department of the William Morris Agency. He wrote his first short film, "Miles from Home", in 2006. A Christian pastor, he established a home church in Los Angeles.


title: Jeremy Boreing

text: In June 2006, Boreing joined Kurt Schemper, Joel David Moore, and Zachary Levi to form Coattails Entertainment, a film production company. He produced and co-wrote the company's first feature film, "Spiral", with Moore who also directed alongside Adam Green. In addition, Boreing had an uncredited role in the film as an extra. The four men (Boreing, Green, Levi, and Moore) were all personal friends and the filming process was described "a movie by committee". Christopher Stipp of Asitecalledfred.com praised the film writing that "the combination of Moore's directing/writing and of Jeremy Boreing's writing with Levi and Amber Tamblyn's performances should prove to be the reason why this movie stands above most of the other independent fare that passes as film". He was later interviewed with Levi, Moore, and lead actress Tricia Helfer on "Up Close with Carrie Keagan" to promote the film.


title: Jeremy Boreing

text: That same year, he produced Jeff Mizushima's comedy film "Etienne!", which won the Jury Awards at the CineVegas and Oxford International Film Festivals, and the western "Shadowheart" directed by Dean Alioto. He also wrote a second short film, "Byron Phillips: Found", in 2009. An outspoken critic of bias in entertainment industry, Boreing was a columnist for Big Hollywood and Newsbusters during this time.


title: Jeremy Boreing

text: In early 2010, Boreing formed an independent film studio, Declaration Entertainment, with television editor and screenwriter Bill Whittle. The two met at a luncheon with conservative writer and publisher Andrew Breitbart and together produced some of Whittle's early internet videos. On March 16, 2010, Boreing and Whittle guest hosted for Larry O'Connor's BlogTalkRadio podcast "The Stage Right Show". The company used "citizen producers" to finance its film projects. In August 2012, the studio completed filming for its first feature film, "The Arroyo", which he directed and co-wrote with John Bickley, which had a limited release in January 2014.


title: Jeremy Boreing

text: In 2013, Boreing and Ben Shapiro founded the conservative U.S. media watchdog and activism organization Truth Revolt.


title: Jeremy Boreing

text: In 2015, after a conflict with Truth Revolt's patron, David Horowitz, Boreing and Shapiro founded "The Daily Wire" and began producing the first few episodes of "The Ben Shapiro Show" podcast from Boreing's pool house. Boreing, who serves as co-CEO, is jokingly referred to as the "god-king" of "The Daily Wire" by staff and fans.


title: Jeremy Boreing

text: Boreing has been an active contributor behind the scenes for PragerU, which produces conservative internet videos. According to PragerU co-founder Allen Estrin, Boreing "came up with the site's signature visual style after a photographer came after them with a fair-use claim; their solution was to use illustrations instead."


title: Jeremy Boreing

text: Boreing served as Executive Director of Friends of Abe, a low-profile networking organization for Hollywood conservatives founded by Gary Sinise. During his tenure as executive director, Boreing refused to give the Internal Revenue Service access to the section of the organization's website that would identify its members since such access is not required by federal law.


title: Jeremy Boreing

text: In November 2021, Bentkey Services, the company for which Boreing serves as the chief executive officer, filed a lawsuit challenging the President Joe Biden OSHA vaccine mandate in federal court in the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. The Supreme Court blocked the policy in a 6-3 ruling in January 2022.


title: Jeremy Boreing

text: In April 2022, Boreing and YouTuber Tim Pool purchased a billboard in Times Square that read "Democracy dies in darkness. That's why we're shining a light on you. Taylor Lorenz doxxed @Libs of TikTok." In response, Lorenz called the billboard "so idiotic it's hilarious".


title: Avian influenza

text: Avian influenza, known informally as avian flu or bird flu, is a variety of influenza caused by viruses adapted to birds. The type with the greatest risk is highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI). Bird flu is similar to swine flu, dog flu, horse flu and human flu as an illness caused by strains of influenza viruses that have adapted to a specific host. Out of the three types of influenza viruses (A, B, and C), influenza A virus is a zoonotic infection with a natural reservoir almost entirely in birds. Avian influenza, for most purposes, refers to the influenza A virus.


title: Avian influenza

text: Though influenza A is adapted to birds, it can also stably adapt and sustain person-to-person transmission. Recent influenza research into the genes of the Spanish flu virus shows it to have genes adapted from both human and avian strains. Pigs can also be infected with human, avian, and swine influenza viruses, allowing for mixtures of genes (reassortment) to create a new virus, which can cause an antigenic shift to a new influenza A virus subtype which most people have little to no immune protection against.


title: Avian influenza

text: Avian influenza strains are divided into two types based on their pathogenicity: high pathogenicity (HP) or low pathogenicity (LP). The most well-known HPAI strain, H5N1, was first isolated from a farmed goose in Guangdong Province, China in 1996, and also has low pathogenic strains found in North America. Companion birds in captivity are unlikely to contract the virus and there has been no report of a companion bird with avian influenza since 2003. Pigeons can contract avian strains, but rarely become ill and are incapable of transmitting the virus efficiently to humans or other animals.


title: Avian influenza

text: The most widely quoted date for the beginning of recorded history of avian influenza (initially known as fowl plague) was in 1878 when it was differentiated from other diseases that caused high mortality rates in birds. Fowl plague also included Newcastle disease until as recently as the 1950s. Between 1959 and 1995, there were 15 recorded occasions of the emergence of HPAI viruses in poultry, but losses were minimal. Between 1996 and 2008, HPAI outbreaks in poultry have occurred at least 11 times and 4 of these outbreaks have involved millions of birds.


title: Avian influenza

text: In the 1990s, the world's poultry population grew 76% in developing countries and 23% in developed countries, contributing to the increased prevalence of avian influenza. Before the 1990s, HPAI caused high mortality in poultry, but infections were sporadic and contained. Outbreaks have become more common due to the high density and frequent movement of flocks from intensive poultry production.


title: Avian influenza

text: Influenza A/H5N1 was first isolated from a goose in China in 1996. Human infections were first reported in 1997 in Hong Kong. Since 2003, more than 700 human cases of Asian HPAI H5N1 have been reported to the WHO, primarily from 15 countries in Asia, Africa, the Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East, though over 60 countries have been affected.


title: Avian influenza

text: Between early 2013 and early 2017, 916 lab-confirmed human cases of H7N9 were reported to the World Health Organization (WHO). On 9 January 2017, the National Health and Family Planning Commission of China reported to the WHO 106 cases of H7N9 which occurred from late November through late December, including 35 deaths, 2 potential cases of human-to-human transmission, and 80 of these 106 persons stating that they have visited live poultry markets. The cases are reported from Jiangsu (52), Zhejiang (21), Anhui (14), Guangdong (14), Shanghai (2), Fujian (2) and Hunan (1). Similar sudden increases in the number of human cases of H7N9 have occurred in previous years during December and January.


title: Avian influenza

text: From 2014 through 2015, United States poultry and egg producers experienced the largest outbreak of H5N2 in recorded history with approximately 51 million birds depopulated to control the spread of the disease. From May to June 2015, 25 million birds were culled, equating to 409,836 birds per day, or 284 birds per minute. In total, the 2014-2015 H5N2/H5N8 outbreak cost US$879 million in public expenditures and the United States egg and poultry industry more than US$3 billion to eradicate the disease from poultry production. This was the most costly United States HPAI outbreak to date.


title: Avian influenza

text: By the end of 2020, several outbreaks of various bird flus were reported in Europe. Since mid-October several European countries, including Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom have reported outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) viruses, mostly in wild birds. Positive tests were also among poultry and captive birds. According to a report by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), three varieties of HPAI viruses were found, A(H5N8), A(H5N5) and A(H5N1), with H5N8 being the most commonly found. In Germany, 29,000 chickens were killed to halt the spread of H5N8. In Belgium, H5N5 was found on a poultry farm according to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE). The outbreak was reported in Menen, near the border with France, and killed 600 birds and the culling of an additional 151,000 chickens from the flock.


title: Avian influenza

text: The evolution of avian influenza virus has been influenced by genetic variation in the virus population due to genome segment reassortment and mutation. Also homologous recombination occurs in viral genes, suggesting that genetic variation generated by homologous recombination has also played a role in driving the evolution of the virus and potentially has affected virulence and host range.


title: Avian influenza

text: There are many subtypes of avian influenza viruses, but only some strains of five subtypes have been known to infect humans: H5N1, H7N3, H7N7, H7N9, and H9N2. At least one person, an elderly woman in Jiangxi Province, China, died of pneumonia in December 2013 from the H10N8 strain. She was the first human fatality confirmed to be caused by that strain.


title: Avian influenza

text: Most human cases of the avian flu are a result of either handling dead infected birds or from contact with infected fluids. It can also be spread through contaminated surfaces and droppings. While most wild birds have only a mild form of the H5N1 strain, once domesticated birds such as chickens or turkeys are infected, H5N1 can potentially become much more deadly because the birds are often in close contact. H5N1 is a large threat in Asia with infected poultry due to low hygiene conditions and close quarters. Although it is easy for humans to contract the infection from birds, human-to-human transmission is more difficult without prolonged contact. Public health officials believe strains of avian flu may mutate to become easily transmissible between humans.


title: Avian influenza

text: Spreading of H5N1 from Asia to Europe is much more likely caused by both legal and illegal poultry trades than dispersing through wild bird migrations, being that in recent studies, there were no secondary rises in infection in Asia when wild birds migrate south again from their breeding grounds. Instead, the infection patterns followed transportation such as railroads, roads, and country borders, suggesting poultry trade as being much more likely. While there have been strains of avian flu to exist in the United States, they have been extinguished and have not been known to infect humans.


title: Avian influenza

text: Avian influenza is most often spread by contact between infected and healthy birds, though can also be spread indirectly through contaminated equipment. The virus is found in secretions from the nostrils, mouth, and eyes of infected birds as well as their droppings. HPAI infection is spread to people often through direct contact with infected poultry, such as during slaughter or plucking. Though the virus can spread through airborne secretions, the disease itself is not an airborne disease. Highly pathogenic strains spread quickly among flocks and can destroy a flock within 28 hours; the less pathogenic strains may affect egg production but are much less deadly.


title: Avian influenza

text: Although it is possible for humans to contract the avian influenza virus from birds, human-to-human contact is much more difficult without prolonged contact. Public health officials believe strains of avian flu may mutate to become easily transmissible between humans. Some strains of avian influenza are present in the intestinal tract of large numbers of shore birds and water birds, but these strains rarely cause human infection.


title: Avian influenza

text: Five manmade ecosystems have contributed to modern avian influenza virus ecology: integrated indoor commercial poultry, range-raised commercial poultry, live poultry markets, backyard and hobby flocks, and bird collection and trading systems including cockfighting. Indoor commercial poultry has had the largest impact on the spread of HPAI, with the increase in HPAI outbreaks largely the result of increased commercial production since the 1990s.


title: Avian influenza

text: In the early days of the HPAI H5N1 pandemic, village poultry and their owners were frequently implicated in disease transmission. Village poultry, also known as backyard and hobby flocks, are small flocks raised under extensive conditions and often allowed free range between multiple households. Further research suggested these flocks pose less of a threat than intensively raised commercial poultry with homogenous genetic stock and poor biosecurity. Backyard and village poultry also do not travel great distances compared to transport of intensively raised poultry and contribute less to the spread of HPAI.


title: Avian influenza

text: The highly pathogenic influenza A virus subtype H5N1 is an emerging avian influenza virus that is causing global concern as a potential pandemic threat. It is often referred to simply as "bird flu" or "avian influenza", even though it is only one of many subtypes.


title: Avian influenza

text: H5N1 has killed millions of poultry in a growing number of countries throughout Asia, Europe, and Africa. Health experts are concerned that the coexistence of human flu viruses and avian flu viruses (especially H5N1) will provide an opportunity for genetic material to be exchanged between species-specific viruses, possibly creating a new virulent influenza strain that is easily transmissible and lethal to humans. The mortality rate for humans with H5N1 is 60%.


title: Avian influenza

text: Since the first human H5N1 outbreak occurred in 1997, there has been an increasing number of HPAI H5N1 bird-to-human transmissions, leading to clinically severe and fatal human infections. Because a significant species barrier exists between birds and humans, the virus does not easily spread to humans. Some cases of infection were researched to discern whether human-to-human transmission occurred. More research is necessary to understand the pathogenesis and epidemiology of the H5N1 virus in humans. Exposure routes and other disease transmission characteristics, such as genetic and immunological factors that may increase the likelihood of infection, are not clearly understood.


title: Avian influenza

text: The first known transmission of H5N1 to a human occurred in Hong Kong in 1997, when there was an outbreak of 18 human cases; 6 deaths were confirmed. None of the infected people worked with poultry. After culling all of the poultry in the area, no more cases were diagnosed. In 2006, the first human-to-human transmission likely occurred when seven members of a family in Sumatra became infected after contact with a family member who had worked with infected poultry.


title: Avian influenza

text: Although millions of birds have become infected with the virus since its discovery, 359 people have died from H5N1 in twelve countries according to World Health Organization reports as of August 10, 2012.


title: Avian influenza

text: The H5N1 outbreak in Thailand caused massive economic losses, especially among poultry workers. Infected birds were culled and slaughtered. The public lost confidence with the poultry products, thus decreasing the consumption of chicken products. This also elicited a ban from importing countries. Several factors enhanced the virality, including bird migration, cool temperature (increases virus survival) and several festivals at that time.


title: Avian influenza

text: A mutation in the virus was discovered in two Guangdong patients in February 2017 which rendered it more deadly to chickens, inasmuch as it could infect every organ; the risk to humans was not increased.


title: Avian influenza

text: A study published in 2012 in Science Magazine reported on research findings that allowed for the airborne transmission of H5N1 in laboratory ferrets. The study in question created airborne H5N1 via amino acid substitutions that largely mitigated the devastating effects of the disease. This fact was underscored by the 0% fatality rate among the ferrets infected via airborne transmission, as well as the fundamental biology underlying the substitutions. Flu viruses attach to host cells via the hemagluttinin proteins on their envelope. These hemagluttinin proteins bind to sialic acid receptors on host cells, which can fall into two categories. The sialic acid receptors can be either 2,3 or 2,6-linked, with the species of origin largely deciding receptor preference. In influenzas of avian origin 2,3-linkage is preferred, vs. influenzas of human origin in which 2,6-linkage is preferable. 2,3-linked SA receptors in humans are found predominantly in the lower respiratory tract, a fact that is the primary foundation for the deadliness of avian influenzas in humans, and also the key to their lack of airborne transmission. In the study that created an airborne avian influenza among ferrets it was necessary to switch the receptor preference of the host cells to those of 2,6-linkage, found predominantly in humans' upper respiratory tract, in order to create an infection that could shed aerosolized virus particles. Such an infection must occur in the upper respiratory tract of humans, thus fundamentally undercutting the fatal trajectory of the disease.


title: Avian influenza

text: Influenza A virus subtype H7N9 is a novel avian influenza virus first reported to have infected humans in 2013 in China. Most of the reported cases of human infection have resulted in severe respiratory illness. In the month following the report of the first case, more than 100 people had been infected, an unusually high rate for a new infection; a fifth of those patients had died, a fifth had recovered, and the rest remained critically ill. The WHO has identified H7N9 as "...an unusually dangerous virus for humans." As of June 30, 133 cases have been reported, resulting in the deaths of 43.


title: Avian influenza

text: Research regarding background and transmission is ongoing. It has been established that many of the human cases of H7N9 appear to have a link to live bird markets. As of July 2013, there is no evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission. A study group headed by one of the world's leading experts on avian flu reported that several instances of human-to-human infection were suspected.


title: Avian influenza

text: It has been reported that H7N9 virus does not kill poultry, which will make surveillance much more difficult. Researchers have commented on the unusual prevalence of older males among H7N9-infected patients. While several environmental, behavioral, and biological explanations for this pattern have been proposed, as yet, the reason is unknown. Currently no vaccine exists, but the use of influenza antiviral drugs known as neuraminidase inhibitors in cases of early infection may be effective.


title: Avian influenza

text: The number of cases detected after April fell abruptly. The decrease in the number of new human H7N9 cases may have resulted from containment measures taken by Chinese authorities, including closing live bird markets, or from a change in seasons, or possibly a combination of both factors. Studies indicate that avian influenza viruses have a seasonal pattern, thus it is thought that infections may pick up again when the weather turns cooler in China.


title: Avian influenza

text: In the four years from early 2013 to early 2017, 916 lab-confirmed human cases of H7N9 were reported to the WHO.


title: Avian influenza

text: On 9 January 2017, the National Health and Family Planning Commission of China reported to the WHO 106 cases which occurred from late November through December. 29, 2016. The cases are reported from Jiangsu (52), Zhejiang (21), Anhui (14), Guangdong (14), Shanghai (2), Fujian (2) and Hunan (1). 80 of these 106 persons have visited live poultry markets. Of these cases, there have been 35 deaths. In two of the 106 cases, human-to-human transmission could not be ruled out.


title: Avian influenza

text: Affected prefectures in Jiangsu province closed live poultry markets in late December 2016, whereas Zhejiang, Guangdong and Anhui provinces went the route of strengthening live poultry market regulations. Travellers to affected regions are recommended to avoid poultry farms, live bird markets, and surfaces which appear to be contaminated with poultry feces. Similar sudden increases in the number of human cases of H7N9 have occurred in previous years during December and January.


title: Avian influenza

text: Several domestic species have been infected with and shown symptoms of H5N1 viral infection, including cats, dogs, ferrets, pigs, and birds.


title: Avian influenza

text: Attempts are made in the United States to minimize the presence of HPAI in poultry through routine surveillance of poultry flocks in commercial poultry operations. Detection of a HPAI virus may result in immediate culling of the flock. Less pathogenic viruses are controlled by vaccination, which is done primarily in turkey flocks (ATCvet codes: for the inactivated fowl vaccine, for the inactivated turkey combination vaccine).


title: Avian influenza

text: Avian influenza in cats can show a variety of symptoms and usually lead to death. Cats are able to get infected by either consuming an infected bird or by contracting the virus from another infected cat.


title: Avian influenza

text: In 2005, the formation of the International Partnership on Avian and Pandemic Influenza was announced in order to elevate the importance of avian flu, coordinate efforts, and improve disease reporting and surveillance in order to better respond to future pandemics. New networks of laboratories have emerged to detect and respond to avian flu, such as the Crisis Management Center for Animal Health, the Global Avian Influenza Network for Surveillance, OFFLU, and the Global Early Warning System for major animal diseases. After the 2003 outbreak, WHO member states have also recognized the need for more transparent and equitable sharing of vaccines and other benefits from these networks. Cooperative measures created in response to HPAI have served as a basis for programs related to other emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases.


title: Avian influenza

text: HPAI control has also been used for political ends. In Indonesia, negotiations with global response networks were used to recentralize power and funding to the Ministry of Health. In Vietnam policymakers, with the support of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), used HPAI control to accelerate the industrialization of livestock production for export by proposing to increase the portion of large-scale commercial farms and reducing the number of poultry keepers from 8 to 2 million by 2010.


title: Avian influenza

text: Backyard poultry production was viewed as "traditional Asian" agricultural practices that contrasted with modern commercial poultry production and seen as a threat to biosecurity. Backyard production appeared to hold greater risk than commercial production due to lack of biosecurity and close contact with humans, though HPAI spread in intensively raised flocks was greater due to high density rearing and genetic homogeneity. Asian culture itself was blamed as the reason why certain interventions, such as those that only looked at placed-based interventions, would fail without looking for multifaceted solutions.


title: Avian influenza

text: Press accounts of avian flu in Indonesia were seen by poultry farmers as conflating suspected cases while the public did see the accounts as informative, though many became de-sensitized to the idea of impending danger or only temporarily changed their poultry-related behavior. Rumors also circulated in Java in 2006. These tended to focus on bird flu being linked to big businesses in order to drive small farmers out of the market by exaggerating the danger of avian influenza, avian flu being introduced by foreigners to force Indonesians to purchase imported chicken and keep Indonesian chicken off the world market, and the government using avian flu as a ploy to attract funds from wealthy countries. Such rumors reflected concerns about big businesses, globalization, and a distrust of the national government in a country where "the amount of decentralization here is breathtaking" according to Steven Bjorge, a WHO epidemiologist in Jakarta in 2006.


title: Avian influenza

text: In the context a decentralized national government that the public did not completely trust, Indonesian Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari announced in December 2006 that her government would no longer be sharing samples of H5N1 collected from Indonesian patients. This decision came as a shock to the international community as it disrupted the Global Influenza Surveillance Network (GISN) coordinated by the WHO for managing seasonal and pandemic influenza. GISN is based on countries sharing virus specimens freely with the WHO which assesses and eventually sends these samples to pharmaceutical companies in order to produce vaccines that are sold back to these countries. Though this was initially seen as an attempt to protect national sovereignty at all costs, it was instead used for a domestic political struggle. Prior to Indonesia's dispute with the GISN, the Ministry of Health, already weak due to the decentralized nature the government, was experiencing further leakage of funding to state and non-state agencies due to global health interventions. By reasserting control over public health issues and funding by setting itself up as the sole Indonesian representative to the WHO, the Ministry of Health made itself a key player in the management of future international funds relating vaccine production and renegotiated benefits from global surveillance networks.


title: Avian influenza

text: Approximately 20% of the protein consumed in developing countries come from poultry. In the wake of the H5N1 pandemic, millions of poultry were killed. In Vietnam alone, over 50 million domestic birds were killed due to HPAI infection and control attempts. A 2005 report by the FAO totaled economic losses in South East Asia around US$10 billion. This had the greatest impact on small scale commercial and backyard producers relative to total assets compared to industrial chains which primarily experience temporary decreases in exports and loss of consumer confidence. Some governments did provide compensation for culled poultry, it was often far below market value (close to 30% of market value in Vietnam), while others such as Cambodia provide no compensation to farmers at all.


title: Avian influenza

text: As poultry serves as a source of food security and liquid assets, the most vulnerable populations were poor small scale farmers. The loss of birds due to HPAI and culling in Vietnam led to an average loss of 2.3 months of production and US$69–108 for households where many have an income of $2 a day or less. The loss of food security for vulnerable households can be seen in the stunting of children under five in Egypt. Women are another population at risk as in most regions of the world, small flocks are tended to by women. Widespread culling also resulted in the decreased enrollment of girls in school in Turkey.


title: Avian influenza

text: People who do not regularly come into contact with birds are not at high risk for contracting avian influenza. Those at high risk include poultry farm workers, animal control workers, wildlife biologists, and ornithologists who handle live birds. Organizations with high-risk workers should have an avian influenza response plan in place before any cases have been discovered. Biosecurity of poultry flocks is also important for prevention. Flocks should be isolated from outside birds, especially wild birds, and their waste; vehicles used around the flock should be regularly disinfected and not shared between farms; and birds from slaughter channels should not be returned to the farm.


title: Avian influenza

text: With proper infection control and use of personal protective equipment (PPE), the chance for infection is low. Protecting the eyes, nose, mouth, and hands is important for prevention because these are the most common ways for the virus to enter the body. Appropriate personal protective equipment includes aprons or coveralls, gloves, boots or boot covers, and a head cover or hair cover. Disposable PPE is recommended. An N-95 respirator and unvented/indirectly vented safety goggles are also part of appropriate PPE. A powered air purifying respirator (PAPR) with hood or helmet and face shield is also an option.


title: Avian influenza

text: Proper reporting of an isolated case can help to prevent spread. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (US) recommendation is that if a worker develops symptoms within 10 days of working with infected poultry or potentially contaminated materials, they should seek care and notify their employer, who should notify public health officials.


title: Avian influenza

text: Vaccines for poultry have been formulated against several of the avian H5N1 influenza varieties. Control measures for HPAI encourage mass vaccinations of poultry though The World Health Organization has compiled a list of known clinical trials of pandemic influenza prototype vaccines, including those against H5N1. In some countries still at high risk for HPAI spread, there is compulsory strategic vaccination though vaccine supply shortages remain a problem.


title: Avian influenza

text: During the initial response to H5N1, a one size fits all recommendation was used for all poultry production systems, though measures for intensively raised birds were not necessarily appropriate for extensively raised birds. When looking at village-raised poultry, it was first assumed that the household was the unit and that flocks did not make contact with other flocks, though more effective measures came into use when the epidemiological unit was the village.


title: Avian influenza

text: Recommendations involve restructuring commercial markets to improve biosecurity against avian influenza. Poultry production zoning is used to limit poultry farming to specific areas outside of urban environments while live poultry markets improve biosecurity by limiting the number of traders holding licenses and subjecting producers and traders to more stringent inspections. These recommendations in combination with requirements to fence and house all poultry, and to limit free ranging flocks, will eventually lead to fewer small commercial producers and backyard producers, costing livelihoods as they are unable to meet the conditions needed to participate.


title: Avian influenza

text: A summary of reports to the World Organisation for Animal Health in 2005 and 2010 suggest that surveillance and under-reporting in developed and developing countries is still a challenge. Often, donor support can focus on HPAI control alone, while similar diseases such as Newcastle disease, acute fowl cholera, infectious laryngotracheitis, and infectious bursal disease still affect poultry populations. When HPAI tests come back negative, a lack of funded testing for differential diagnoses can leave farmers wondering what killed their birds.


title: Avian influenza

text: Since traditional production systems require little investment and serve as a safety net for lower income households, prevention and treatment can be seen as less cost-effective than letting poultry die. Effective control not only requires prior agreements to be made with relevant government agencies, such as seen with Indonesia, they must also not unduly threaten food security.


title: Avian influenza

text: Culling is used in order to decrease the threat of avian influenza transmission by killing potentially infected birds. The FAO manual on HPAI control recommends a zoning strategy which begins with the identification of an infected area (IA) where sick or dead birds have tested positive. All poultry in this zone are culled while the area 1 to 5 km from the outer boundary of the IA is considered the restricted area (RA) placed under strict surveillance. 2 to 10 km from the RA is the control area (CA) that serves as a buffer zone in case of spread. Culling is not recommended beyond the IA unless there is evidence of spread. The manual also provides examples of how control was carried out between 2004 and 2005 to contain H5N1 where all poultry was to be stamped out in a 3 km radius beyond the infected point and beyond that a 5 km radius where all fowl was to be vaccinated. This culling method was indiscriminate as a large proportion of the poultry inside these areas were small backyard flocks which did not travel great enough distances to carry infection to adjacent villages without human effort and may have not been infected at all. Between 2004 and 2005, over 100 million chickens were culled in Asia to contain H5N1.


title: Avian influenza

text: The risk of mass culling of birds and the resulting economic impact led to farmers who were reluctant to report sick poultry. The culls often preempted actual lab testing for H5N1 as avian flu policy justified sacrificing poultry as a safeguard against HPAI spread. In response to these policies, farmers in Vietnam between 2003 and 2004 became more and more unwilling to surrender apparently healthy birds to authorities and stole poultry destined for culls as it stripped poultry of their biosocial and economic worth. By the end of 2005, the government implemented a new policy that targeted high-risk flock in the immediate vicinity of infected farms and instituted voluntary culling with compensation in the case of a local outbreak.


title: Avian influenza

text: Not only did culling result in severe economic impacts especially for small scale farmers, culling itself may be an ineffective preventative measure. In the short-term, mass culling achieves its goals of limiting the immediate spread of HPAI, it has been found to impede the evolution of host resistance which is important for the long-term success of HPAI control. Mass culling also selects for elevated influenza virulence and results in the greater mortality of birds overall. Effective culling strategies must be selective as well as considerate of economic impacts to optimize epidemiological control and minimize economic and agricultural destruction.


title: Avian influenza

text: Prevention and control programs must take into account local understandings of people-poultry relations. In the past, programs that have focused on singular, place-based understandings of disease transmission have been ineffective. In the case of Northern Vietnam, health workers saw poultry as commodities with an environment that was under the control of people. Poultry existed in the context of farms, markets, slaughterhouses, and roads while humans were indirectly the primary transmitters of avian flu, placing the burden of disease control on people. Farmers saw their free ranging poultry in an environment dominated by nonhuman forces that they could not exert control over. There were a host of nonhuman actors such as wild birds and weather patterns whose relationships with the poultry fostered the disease and absolved farmers of complete responsibility for disease control.


title: Avian influenza

text: Attempts at singular, place-based controls sought to teach farmers to identify areas where their behavior could change without looking at poultry behaviors. Behavior recommendations by Vietnam's National Steering Committee for Avian Influenza Control and Prevention (NSCAI) were drawn from the FAO Principles of Biosecurity. These included restrictions from entering areas where poultry are kept by erecting barriers to segregate poultry from non-human contact, limits on human movement of poultry and poultry-related products ideally to transporters, and recommendations for farmers to wash hands and footwear before and after contact with poultry. Farmers, pointed to wind and environmental pollution as reasons poultry would get sick. NSCAI recommendations also would disrupt longstanding livestock production practices as gates impede sales by restricting assessment of birds by appearance and offend customers by limiting outside human contact. Instead of incorporating local knowledge into recommendations, cultural barriers were used as scapegoats for failed interventions. Prevention and control methods have been more effective when also considering the social, political, and ecological agents in play.


title: Surreal humour

text: Surreal humour (also called surreal comedy, absurdist humour, or absurdist comedy) is a form of humour predicated on deliberate violations of causal reasoning, thus producing events and behaviours that are obviously illogical. Portrayals of surreal humour tend to involve bizarre juxtapositions, incongruity, non-sequiturs, irrational or absurd situations, and expressions of nonsense.


title: Surreal humour

text: Surreal humour grew out of surrealism, a cultural movement developed in the 20th century by French and Belgian artists, who depicted unnerving and illogical scenes while developing techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. The movement itself was foreshadowed by English writers in the 19th century, most notably Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear. The humour in surreal comedy arises from a subversion of audience expectations, emphasizing the ridiculousness and unlikeliness of a situation, so that amusement is founded on an unpredictability that is separate from a logical analysis of the situation.


title: Surreal humour

text: Surreal humour is concerned with building up expectations and then knocking them down; even seemingly masterful characters with the highest standards and expectations are subverted by the unexpected, which the scene emphasizes for the viewer's amusement. Either the "goofball" or "straight" character in the scene can react with dull surprise, disdain, boredom, or detached interest, thus heightening comic tension. Characters' intentions are set up in a series of scenes significantly different from what the audience might ordinarily encounter in daily life. The unique social situations, expressed thoughts, actions, and comic lines are used to spark laughter, emotion, or surprise as to how the events occurred or unfolded, in ways sometimes favorable to other unexpectedly introduced characters.


title: Surreal humour

text: Surreal humour in theatre is usually about the insensitivity, paradox, absurdity, and cruelty of the modern world. Absurd and surrealist cinema often deals with elements of dark humour: disturbing or sinister subjects like death, disease, or warfare are treated with amusement and bitterness, creating the appearance of an intention to shock and offend.


title: Surreal humour

text: Surreal humour is the effect of the illogical and absurd being used for humorous effect. Under such premises, people can identify precursors and early examples of surreal humour at least since the 19th century, such as in Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass", both of which use the illogical and absurd (hookah-smoking caterpillars, croquet matches using live flamingos as mallets, etc.) for humorous effect. Many of Edward Lear's children's stories and poems contain nonsense and are basically surreal in approach. For example, "The Story of the Four Little Children Who Went Round the World" (1871) is filled with contradictory statements and odd images intended to provoke amusement, such as the following:


title: Surreal humour

text: In the early 20th century, several avant-garde movements, including the dadaists, surrealists, and futurists began to argue for an art that was random, jarring and illogical. The goals of these movements were in some sense serious, and they were committed to undermining the solemnity and self-satisfaction of the contemporary artistic establishment. As a result, much of their art was intentionally amusing.


title: Surreal humour

text: One example is Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain" (1917), an inverted urinal signed "R. Mutt". This became one of the most famous and influential pieces of art in history, and one of the earliest examples of the found object movement. It is also a joke, relying on the inversion of the item's function as expressed by its title as well as its incongruous presence in an art exhibition.


title: Surreal humour

text: Surreal humour is also found frequently in avant-garde theatre such as "Waiting for Godot" and "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead". In the United States, S. J. Perelman (1904–1979) has been identified as the first surrealist humour writer.


title: Surreal humour

text: Surrealist humour appeared on British radio from 1951 to 1960 by the cast of "The Goon Show": Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, and Harry Secombe. The Goons' work influenced the American radio comedy troupe the Firesign Theatre from 1966 to 2012. The Firesigns wrote sophisticated comic radio plays, many of which were recorded on albums.


title: Surreal humour

text: Surrealist humour is predominantly approached in cinema where the suspension of disbelief can be stretched to absurd lengths by logically following the consequences of unlikely, reversed or exaggerated premises. Luis Buñuel is a principal exponent of this, especially in "The Exterminating Angel". It is a prominent feature in the television and cinematic work of the British comedy troupe Monty Python (1969–2015). Other examples include "The Falls" by Peter Greenaway and "Brazil" by Terry Gilliam.


title: Surreal humour

text: Drs. Mary K. Rodgers and Diana Pien analysed the subject in an essay titled "Elephants and Marshmallows" (subtitled "A Theoretical Synthesis of Incongruity-Resolution and Arousal Theories of humour"), and wrote that "jokes are nonsensical when they fail to completely resolve incongruities," and cited one of the many permutations of the elephant joke: "Why did the elephant sit on the marshmallow?" "Because he didn't want to fall into the cup of hot chocolate."


title: Surreal humour

text: "The joke is incompletely resolved in their opinion," noted Dr. Elliott Oring, "because the situation is incompatible with the world as we know it. Certainly, elephants "do not" sit in cups of hot chocolate." Oring defined humour as not the resolution of incongruity, but "the perception of appropriate incongruity," that all jokes contain a certain amount of incongruity, and that absurd jokes require the additional component of an "absurd image," with an incongruity of the mental image.


title: Bachelor of Technology

text: A Bachelor of Technology (Latin "Baccalaureus Technologiae", commonly abbreviated as B.Tech. or BTech; with honours as B.Tech. (Hons.)) is an undergraduate academic degree conferred after the completion of a three to five-year program of studies at an accredited university or accredited higher education institution, such as a college or university.


title: Bachelor of Technology

text: In Australia, the Bachelor of Technology (BTech) degree is offered by RMIT University, Edith Cowan University, Curtin University and certain private institutions.


title: Bachelor of Technology

text: In New York State, the degree is offered by the New York College of Technology of The City University of New York. Multiple academic departments of the college offers course resulting in the degree upon graduation.


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: On November 24, 2014, a hacker group identifying itself as "Guardians of Peace" leaked a release of confidential data from the film studio Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE). The data included personal information about Sony Pictures employees and their families, emails between employees, information about executive salaries at the company, copies of then-unreleased Sony films, plans for future Sony films, scripts for certain films, and other information. The perpetrators then employed a variant of the Shamoon wiper malware to erase Sony's computer infrastructure.


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: During the hack, the group demanded that Sony withdraw its then-upcoming film "The Interview", a comedy about a plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, and threatened terrorist attacks at cinemas screening the film. After many major U.S. theater chains opted not to screen "The Interview" in response to these threats, Sony chose to cancel the film's formal premiere and mainstream release, opting to skip directly to a downloadable digital release followed by a limited theatrical release the next day.


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: United States intelligence officials, after evaluating the software, techniques, and network sources used in the hack, concluded that the attack was sponsored by the government of North Korea, which has since denied all responsibility.


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: The exact duration of the hack is yet unknown. U.S. investigators say the culprits spent at least two months copying critical files. A purported member of the Guardians of Peace (GOP) who has claimed to have performed the hack stated that they had access for at least a year prior to its discovery in November 2014, according to "Wired". The hackers involved claim to have taken more than 100 terabytes of data from Sony, but that claim has never been confirmed. The attack was conducted using malware. Although Sony was not specifically mentioned in its advisory, US-CERT said that attackers used a Server Message Block (SMB) Worm Tool to conduct attacks against a major entertainment company. Components of the attack included a listening implant, backdoor, proxy tool, destructive hard drive tool, and destructive target cleaning tool. The components clearly suggest an intent to gain repeated entry, extract information, and be destructive, as well as remove evidence of the attack.


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: Sony was made aware of the hack on Monday, November 24, 2014, as the malware previously installed rendered many Sony employees' computers inoperable by the software, with the warning by a group calling themselves the Guardians of Peace, along with a portion of the confidential data taken during the hack. Several Sony-related Twitter accounts were also taken over. This followed a message that several Sony Pictures executives had received via email on the previous Friday, November 21; the message, coming from a group called "God'sApstls" , demanded "monetary compensation" or otherwise, "Sony Pictures will be bombarded as a whole". This email message had been mostly ignored by executives, lost in the volume they had received or treated as spam email. In addition to the activation of the malware on November 24, the message included a warning for Sony to decide on their course of action by 11:00p.m. that evening, although no apparent threat was made when that deadline passed. In the days following this hack, the Guardians of Peace began leaking yet-unreleased films and started to release portions of the confidential data to attract the attention of social media sites, although they did not specify what they wanted in return. Sony quickly organized internal teams to try to manage the loss of data to the Internet, and contacted the FBI and the private security firm FireEye to help protect Sony employees whose personal data was exposed by the hack, repair the damaged computer infrastructure and trace the source of the leak. The first public report concerning a North Korean link to the attack was published by "Re/code" on November 28 and later confirmed by NBC News.


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: On December 8, 2014, alongside the eighth large data dump of confidential information, the Guardians of Peace threatened Sony with language relating to the September 11 attacks that drew the attention of U.S. security agencies. North Korean state-sponsored hackers are suspected by the United States of being involved in part due to specific threats made toward Sony and movie theaters showing "The Interview", a comedy film about an assassination attempt against Kim Jong-un. North Korean officials had previously expressed concerns about the film to the United Nations, stating that "to allow the production and distribution of such a film on the assassination of an incumbent head of a sovereign state should be regarded as the most undisguised sponsoring of terrorism as well as an act of war."


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: In its first quarter financials for 2015, Sony Pictures set aside $15 million to deal with ongoing damages from the hack. Sony has bolstered its cyber-security infrastructure as a result, using solutions to prevent similar hacks or data loss in the future. Sony co-chairperson Amy Pascal announced in the wake of the hack that she would step down as of May 2015, and instead will become more involved with film production under Sony.


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: According to a notice letter dated December 8, 2014, from SPE to its employees, SPE learned on December 1, 2014, that personally identifiable information about employees and their dependents may have been obtained by unauthorized individuals as a result of a "brazen cyber-attack", including names, addresses, Social Security numbers and financial information. On December 7, 2014, C-SPAN reported that the hackers stole 47,000 unique Social Security numbers from the SPE computer network.


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: Although personal data may have been stolen, early news reports focused mainly on celebrity gossip and embarrassing details about Hollywood and film industry business affairs gleaned by the media from electronic files, including private email messages. Among the information revealed in the emails was that Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai pressured Sony Pictures co-chairwoman Amy Pascal to "soften" the assassination scene in "The Interview". Many details relating to the actions of the Sony Pictures executives, including Pascal and Michael Lynton, were also released, in a manner that appeared to be intended to spur distrust between these executives and other employees of Sony.


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: Other emails released in the hack showed Pascal and Scott Rudin, a film and theatrical producer, discussing Angelina Jolie. In the emails, Rudin referred to Jolie as "a minimally talented spoiled brat" because Jolie wanted David Fincher to direct her film "Cleopatra", which Rudin felt would interfere with Fincher directing a planned film about Steve Jobs. Pascal and Rudin were also noted to have had an email exchange about Pascal's upcoming encounter with Barack Obama that included characterizations described as racist, which led to Pascal's resignation from Sony. The two had suggested they should mention films about African-Americans upon meeting the president, such as "Django Unchained", "12 Years a Slave" and "The Butler", all of which depict slavery in the United States or the pre-civil rights era. Pascal and Rudin later apologized. Details of lobbying efforts by politician Mike Moore on behalf of the Digital Citizens Alliance and FairSearch against Google were also revealed.


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: The leak revealed multiple details of behind-the-scenes politics on Columbia Pictures' current "Spider-Man" film series, including emails between Pascal and others to various heads of Marvel Studios. Due to the outcry from fans, the Spider-Man license was eventually negotiated to be shared between both studios. In addition to the emails, a copy of the screenplay for the "James Bond" film "Spectre", released in 2015, was obtained. Several future Sony Pictures films, including "Annie", "Mr. Turner", "Still Alice" and "To Write Love on Her Arms", were also leaked. The hackers intended to release additional information on December 25, 2014, which coincided with the release date of "The Interview" in the United States.


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: According to "The Daily Dot", based on the email leaks, while he was at Sony, executive Charles Sipkins was responsible for following senior executives' orders to edit Wikipedia articles about them.


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: In December 2014, former Sony Pictures Entertainment employees filed four lawsuits against the company for not protecting their data that was released in the hack, which included Social Security numbers and medical information. As part of the emails, it was revealed that Sony was in talks with Nintendo to make an animated film based on the "Super Mario Bros." series (which came to fruition 4 years later, albeit under Universal and Illumination instead of Sony, and is currently slated for a 2023 release).


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: In January 2015, details were revealed of the MPAA's lobbying of the United States International Trade Commission to mandate U.S. ISPs either at the internet transit level or consumer level internet service provider, to implement IP address blocking pirate websites as well as linking websites. WikiLeaks published over 30,000 documents that were obtained via the hack in April 2015, with founder Julian Assange stating that the document archive "shows the inner workings of an influential multinational corporation" that should be made public.


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: In November 2015, after Charlie Sheen revealed he was HIV positive in a television interview to Matt Lauer, it was revealed that information about his diagnosis was leaked in an email between senior Sony bosses dated March 10, 2014. In December, Snap Inc., due to the hack, was revealed to have acquired Vergence Labs for $15 million in cash and stock, the developers of Epiphany Eyewear, and mobile app Scan for $150 million.


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: On December 16, for the first time since the hack, the "Guardians of Peace" mentioned the then-upcoming film "The Interview" by name, and threatened to take terrorist actions against the film's New York City premiere at Sunshine Cinema on December 18, as well as on its American wide release date, set for December 25. Sony pulled the theatrical release the following day.


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: Seth Rogen and James Franco, the stars of "The Interview", responded by saying they did not know if it was definitely caused by the film, but later canceled all media appearances tied to the film outside of the planned New York City premiere on December 16, 2014. Following initial threats made towards theaters that would show "The Interview", several theatrical chains, including Carmike Cinemas, Bow Tie Cinemas, Regal Entertainment Group, Showcase Cinemas, AMC Theatres, Cinemark Theatres, as well as several independent movie theater owners announced that they would not screen "The Interview". The same day, Sony stated that they would allow theaters to opt out of showing "The Interview", but later decided to fully pull the national December 25 release of the film, as well as announce that there were "no further release plans" to release the film on any platform, including home video, in the foreseeable future.


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: On December 18, two messages (both allegedly from the Guardians of Peace) were released. One, sent in a private message to Sony executives, stated that they would not release any further information if Sony never releases the film and removed its presence from the internet. The other, posted to Pastebin, a web application used for text storage that the Guardians of Peace have used for previous messages, stated that the studio had "suffered enough" and could release "The Interview", but only if Kim Jong-un's death scene was not "too happy". The post also stated that the company cannot "test [them] again", and that "if [Sony Pictures] makes anything else, [they] will be here ready to fight".


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: President Barack Obama, in an end-of-year press speech on December 19, commented on the Sony hacking and stated that he felt Sony made a mistake in pulling the film, and that producers should "not get into a pattern where you are intimidated by these acts". He also said, "We will respond proportionally and we will respond in a place and time and manner that we choose." In response to President Obama's statement, Sony Entertainment's CEO Michael Lynton said on the CNN program "Anderson Cooper 360" that the public, the press and the President misunderstood the events. Lynton said the decision to cancel the wide release was in response to a majority of theaters pulling their showings and not to the hackers' threats. Lynton stated that they would seek other options to distribute the film in the future, and noted "We have not given in. And we have not backed down. We have always had every desire to have the American public see this movie."


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: On December 23, Sony opted to authorize approximately 300 mostly-independent theaters to show "The Interview" on Christmas Day, as the four major theater chains had yet to change their earlier decision not to show the film. The FBI worked with these theaters to detail the specifics of the prior threats and how to manage security for the showings, but noted that there was no actionable intelligence on the prior threats. Sony's Lynton stated on the announcement that "we are proud to make it available to the public and to have stood up to those who attempted to suppress free speech". "The Interview" was also released to Google Play, Xbox Video, and YouTube on December 24. No incidents predicated by the threats occurred with the release, and instead, the unorthodox release of the film led to it being considered a success due to increased interest in the film following the attention it had received.


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: On December 27, the North Korean National Defence Commission released a statement accusing Obama of being "the chief culprit who forced the Sony Pictures Entertainment to indiscriminately distribute the movie."<ref name="bbc27/12/2014"></ref>


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: U.S. government officials stated on December 17, 2014 their belief that the North Korean government was "centrally involved" in the hacking, although there was initially some debate within the White House whether or not to make this finding public. White House officials treated the situation as a "serious national security matter", and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) formally stated on December 19 that they connected the North Korean government to the cyber-attacks. Including undisclosed evidence, these claims were made based on the use of similar malicious hacking tools and techniques previously employed by North Korean hackers—including North Korea's cyberwarfare agency Bureau 121 on South Korean targets. According to the FBI:


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: The FBI later clarified more details of the attacks, attributing them to North Korea by noting that the hackers were "sloppy" with the use of proxy IP addresses that originated from within North Korea. At one point the hackers logged into the Guardians of Peace Facebook account and Sony's servers without effective concealment. FBI Director James Comey stated that Internet access is tightly controlled within North Korea, and as such, it was unlikely that a third party had hijacked these addresses without allowance from the North Korean government. The National Security Agency assisted the FBI in analyzing the attack, specifically in reviewing the malware and tracing its origins; NSA director Admiral Michael Rogers agreed with the FBI that the attack originated from North Korea. A disclosed NSA report published by "Der Spiegel" stated that the agency had become aware of the origins of the hack due to their own cyber-intrusion on North Korea's network that they had set up in 2010, following concerns of the technology maturation of the country.


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: The North Korean news agency KCNA denied the "wild rumours" of North Korean involvement, but said that "The hacking into the SONY Pictures might be a righteous deed of the supporters and sympathizers with the DPRK in response to its appeal." North Korea offered to be part of a joint probe with the United States to determine the hackers' identities, threatening consequences if the United States refused to collaborate and continued the allegation. The U.S. refused and asked China for investigative assistance instead. Some days after the FBI's announcement, North Korea temporarily suffered a nationwide Internet outage, which the country claimed to be the United States' response to the hacking attempts.


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: On the day following the FBI's accusation of North Korea's involvement, the FBI received an email purportedly from the hacking group, linking to a YouTube video entitled "you are an idiot!", apparently mocking the organization.


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: On December 19, 2014, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson released a statement saying, "The cyber attack against Sony Pictures Entertainment was not just an attack against a company and its employees. It was also an attack on our freedom of expression and way of life." He encouraged businesses and other organizations to use the Cybersecurity Framework developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to assess and limit cyber risks and protect against cyber threats. On the same day, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry published his remarks condemning North Korea for the cyber-attack and threats against movie theatres and moviegoers. "This provocative and unprecedented attack and subsequent threats only strengthen our resolve to continue to work with partners around the world to strengthen cybersecurity, promote norms of acceptable state behavior, uphold freedom of expression, and ensure that the Internet remains open, interoperable, secure and reliable," he said.


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: On January 2, 2015, the U.S., under an Executive Order issued by President Obama, installed additional economic sanctions on already-sanctioned North Korea for the hack, which North Korean officials called out as "groundlessly stirring up bad blood towards" the country.


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: Cyber security expert Kurt Stammberger from cyber security firm Norse, DEFCON organizer and Cloudflare researcher Marc Rogers, Hector Monsegur and Kim Zetter, a security journalist at "Wired" magazine, have expressed doubt and tended to agree that North Korea might not be behind the attack.


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: Michael Hiltzik, a journalist for the "Los Angeles Times", said that all evidence against North Korea was "circumstantial" and that some cybersecurity experts were "skeptical" about attributing the attack to the North Koreans. Cybersecurity expert Lucas Zaichkowsky said, "State-sponsored attackers don't create cool names for themselves like 'Guardians of Peace' and promote their activity to the public." Kim Zetter of "Wired" magazine called released evidence against the government "flimsy". Former hacker Hector Monsegur, who once hacked into Sony, explained to CBS News that exfiltrating one or one hundred terabytes of data "without anyone noticing" would have taken months or years, not weeks. Monsegur doubted the accusations due to North Korea's insufficient internet infrastructure to handle the transfer of that much data. He believed that it could have been either Chinese, Russian, or North Korean-sponsored hackers working outside of the country, but most likely to be the deed of a Sony employee.


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: Stammberger provided to the FBI Norse's findings that suggest the hack was an inside job, stating, "Sony was not just hacked; this is a company that was essentially nuked from the inside. We are very confident that this was not an attack master-minded by North Korea and that insiders were key to the implementation of one of the most devastating attacks in history." Stammberger believes that the security failure may have originated from six disgruntled former Sony employees, based on their past skill sets and discussions these people made in chat rooms. Norse employees identified these people from a list of workers that were eliminated from Sony during a restructuring in May 2014, and noted that some had made very public and angry responses to their firing, and would be in appropriate positions to identify the means to access secure parts of Sony's servers. After a private briefing lasting three hours, the FBI formally rejected Norse's alternative assessment.


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: Seth Rogen also expressed doubts about the claims that North Korea was behind the hack. Based on the timeline of events and the amount of information hacked, he believes the hack may have been conducted by a Sony employee. "I've also heard people say that they think someone was hired to do the hack as a way of getting Amy Pascal fired. I don't know if I subscribe to those theories, but I kind of don't think it was North Korea."


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: In response to allegations that the intrusion was the result of an inside job, or something other than a state-sponsored cyber attack, computer forensic specialist Kevin Mandia, president of the security firm FireEye, commented that there was not a "shred of evidence" that an insider was responsible for the attack and that the evidence uncovered by his security firm supports the position of the United States government.


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: In February 2016, analytics firm Novetta issued a joint investigative report into the attack. The report, published in collaboration with Kaspersky Lab, Symantec, AlienVault, Invincea, Trend Micro, Carbon Black, PunchCyber, RiskIQ, ThreatConnect and Volexity, concluded that a well-resourced organization had committed the intrusion, and that "we strongly believe that the SPE attack was not the work of insiders or hacktivists". The analysis said that the same group is engaged in military espionage campaigns.


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: The U.S. Department of Justice issued formal charges related to the Sony hack on North Korean citizen Park Jin-hyok on September 6, 2018. The Department of Justice contends that Park was a North Korean hacker that worked for the country's Reconnaissance General Bureau, the equivalent of the Central Intelligence Agency. The Department of Justice also asserted that Park was partially responsible for arranging the WannaCry ransomware attack of 2017, having developed part of the ransomware software. The Department of Justice had previously identified Park and had been monitoring him for some time, but could not indict him immediately as much of the information around him was classified. The Criminal Complaint was unsealed by the US Department of Justice via a press release in September 2018.


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: Obama also issued a legislative proposal to Congress to update current laws such as the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act and introduce new ones to allow federal and national law enforcement officials to better respond to cybercrimes like the Sony hack, and to be able to prosecute such crimes compatibly to similar off-line crimes, while protecting the privacy of Americans.


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: Less than a month following the attack, North Korea reportedly lost its connection to the internet. Although the United States' government did not take credit, President Obama announced that the United States would carry out a “proportional response” in light of the Sony hack.


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: In December 2014, Sony requested that the media stop covering the hack. Sony also threatened legal action if the media did not comply, but according to law professor Eugene Volokh, Sony's legal threats are "unlikely to prevail". Sony then threatened legal action against Twitter if it did not suspend accounts of people who posted the hacked material. American screenwriter Aaron Sorkin wrote an op-ed for "The New York Times" opining that the media was helping the hackers by publishing and reporting on the leaked information. On December 18, Reddit took the unusual step of banning the subreddit r/SonyGOP that was being used to distribute the hacked files.


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: The threats made directly at Sony over "The Interview" were seen by many as a threat to free speech. The decision to pull the film was criticized by several Hollywood filmmakers, actors, and television hosts, including Ben Stiller, Steve Carell, Rob Lowe, Jimmy Kimmel and Judd Apatow. Some commentators contrasted the situation to the non-controversial release of the 2004 "", a film that mocked the leadership of North Korea's prior leader, Kim Jong-il. The Alamo Drafthouse was poised to replace showings of "The Interview" with "Team America" until the film's distributor Paramount Pictures ordered the theaters to stop.


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: In light of the threats made to Sony over "The Interview", New Regency cancelled its March 2015 production plans for a film adaptation of the graphic novel "", which was set to star Steve Carell. "Hustler" announced its intentions to make a pornographic parody film of "The Interview". "Hustler" founder Larry Flynt said, "If Kim Jong-un and his henchmen were upset before, wait till they see the movie we're going to make".


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: In China, the media coverage of the hackings has been limited and outside sources have been censored. A search for "North Korea hack" on Baidu, China's leading search engine returned just one article, which named North Korea as "one of several suspects." However, Google, which was and is inaccessible in China, returned more than 36 million results for the same query.


title: Sony Pictures hack

text: Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman of foreign affairs, "shied away from directly addressing" the Sony hacking situation.


title: Faked death

text: A faked death, also called a staged death or pseudocide, is the act of an individual purposely deceiving other people into believing that the individual is dead, when the person is, in fact, still alive. People who commit pseudocide can do so by leaving evidence, clues, or through other methods. In fandom slang, pseudocide is faking a suicide. Death hoaxes can also be created and spread solely by third-parties for various purposes.


title: Faked death

text: Committing pseudocide may be done for a variety of reasons, such as to fraudulently collect insurance money, to evade pursuit, to escape from captivity, to arouse false sympathy, or as a practical joke.


title: Faked death

text: While faking one's own death is not inherently illegal, it may be part of a fraudulent or illicit activity such as tax evasion, insurance fraud, or avoiding a criminal prosecution.


title: Faked death

text: Deaths have been faked since ancient times, but the rate increased significantly in the middle of the 19th century, when life insurance, and therefore insurance fraud, became more common. Life insurance payouts are often a goal for people faking their deaths, but most types of insurance fraud involve other subjects, such as thefts or fires, rather than faked deaths.


title: Faked death

text: In the 21st century, the advent of mass surveillance has made it much harder to hide after faking a death. Credit cards, social media, mobile phone systems, and other technological situations make it difficult to make a clean break with the past identity. Widespread use of facial recognition tools can connect new identities to old social media accounts. A narcissistic desire to see how others react has prompted fakers to check websites for information about their disappearances; the locations of people who visit a website can be identified through the internet.


title: Faked death

text: While some people fake their deaths as a prank or self-promotion effort, or to get a clean start, the most common motivations are money or a need to escape an abusive relationship. Men are more likely to fake their deaths than women.


title: Faked death

text: People who fake their deaths often feel like they are trapped in a desperate situation. Because of this, an investigation may be triggered if the person disappears, no body is found, and the person is in significant financial difficulties. Often, the desperate person has assessed the situation incorrectly. For example, John Darwin, known as "Canoe Man" in the UK, incorrectly believed that his financial difficulties could not be resolved through bankruptcy or by seeking legal assistance.