"We are preparing for you a Christmas gift," the GoP said in a post to Pastebin and Friendpaste. "The gift will be larger quantities of data. And it will be more interesting.The gift will surely give you much more pleasure and put Sony Pictures into the worst state. Please send an email titled by 'Merry Christmas' at the addresses below to tell us what you want in our Christmas gift."

"The farther time goes by, the worse state SPE will be put into and we will have Sony go bankrupt in the end. Message to SPE Staffers: We have a plan to release emails and privacy of the Sony Pictures employees.If you don't want your privacy to be released, tell us your name and business title to take off your data."

Nearly eight million old-fashioned vinyl records have been sold this year, up 49% from the same period last year, industry data show.

Record labels are waiting months for orders that used to get filled in weeks. That is because pressing machines spit out only around 125 records an hour. To boost production, record factories are running their machines so hard—sometimes around the clock—they have to shell out increasing sums for maintenance and repairs.

In an interview with Newsmax, he explained that you have to be quite deluded to think that the Earth is only 6,000 years old.

"They will not have this fundamental idea that you can question things," he said of these kids. They will not be able to "think critically, use skeptical thought to learn about nature."

America is perhaps the only place in the world where a sportswriter can get into a creationism-evolution debate with a retired sportsman and find that his employer, ESPN, suspends him from Twitter.

An exhaustive, five-year Senate investigation of the CIA’s secret interrogations of terrorism suspects renders a strikingly bleak verdict of a program launched in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, describing levels of brutality, dishonesty and seemingly arbitrary violence that at times brought even agency employees to moments of anguish.

At one point in 2002, CIA employees at a secret site in Thailand broke down emotionally after witnessing the harrowing treatment of Abu Zubaida, a high-profile facilitator for al-Qaeda.

The attackers also posted archive files online containing at least 25 gigabytes of data from Sony’s network.

Sites hosting the data that were listed in the original Pastebin page were apparently subjected to a denial of service attack by someone attempting to stop the spread of the data. However, the files have now been shared through torrents.

The files include records of 401K contributions and wire transfers, payroll audits, health insurance claims and appeals—including names of employees who filed appeals on coverage decisions by Sony Pictures’ health insurer—and travel reimbursement claims.

The timing of the attack coincides with the imminent release of “The Interview,” a Sony film that depicts a CIA plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un.

Sony and outside security consultants are actively exploring the theory that the hack may have been carried out by third parties operating out of China on North Korea’s behalf. The sources stress that a link to North Korea hasn’t been confirmed, but has not been ruled out, either.

Sony declined to comment beyond a statement it issued Tuesday: “Sony Pictures Entertainment experienced a system disruption, which we are working diligently to resolve.”

Many shoppers headed straight to the shops whilst still digesting their Thanksgiving turkey on Thursday, forming queues outside Macy's by 6pm on what is becoming known as "grey Thursday".

Black Friday has been the top sales day of the year since 2005, according to ShopperTrak which tracks data on stores globally, beating into second place the Saturday before Christmas when last-minute shoppers stock up on Christmas gifts.

Staples can now officially be added to the growing list of retailers that have publicly admitted this year that their systems were attacked and customer data was breached.

On Nov. 18, Home Depot reported its third-quarter fiscal 2014 earnings, which included its breach-related costs. The pretax net expenses related to the data breach were reported at $28 million.

Kaspersky Labs' Global Research & Analysis Team has issued a warning about an advanced persistent threat designed by a crew called Darkhotel, who target top execs as they relax in plush hotel rooms.

So far, the malware has been used to target a number of different industries including electronics firms, hedge funds, big pharma companies and defence organisations.

The cartridges were inspected at a Sydney air cargo facility where officers spotted a white powder. White toner cartridges being something of an oddity, the ACBPS looked out for more deliveries of similar items to the same person.

Australia's Federal Police then swung into action by arranging “a controlled delivery of the four boxes to an address in the Melbourne CBD.”