International cyber warfare did not begin with somebody stealing the launch codes to the nuclear arsenal on a U.S. Navy Triton submarine. It did not begin with a cabal of MIT geeksquad eco-terrorists shutting down oil production in the Arctic Circle. No, those are Hollywood story lines. In the end, international cyber warfare began with the revelation that Angelina Jolie is a “spoiled brat.” It began, funnily enough, with Hollywood itself; with a powerful movie studio pulling the release of its $42 million movie, shamed by outings of internal secrets, hurt by stolen scripts, threatened with violence. So much for The Interview.

Have you followed this story (e.g., here, here or here)? Did you feel a bit catty early on, as I did, a little too elated to see Tinseltown’s top brass squirm as their personal emails became Gawker headlines? Be careful. Here’s a test. Aside from a Hollywood studio about to poke fun at the oddball ruler of a pariah country, can you think of another Western entity, or body of entities, who might occasionally humiliate the leaders of relatively powerless countries? Who might ritually indulge in the arrogance of airing someone else’s dirty underwear? Who might just irritate some nation enough, or threaten enough reputational damage, that the allure of socking one of these self-appointed voices of global conscience in the gut might appear both justified and quite delicious?

On the surface, the Sony saga has some appeal to those of us who root for the underdog: marginalized basketcase government jumps corporate behemoth and beats them into surrender. There is glory in that. And power. We NGOs in particular should understand the apparatus at play. The North Korean government (allegedly) has rode the vehicle of celebrity to guarantee viral coverage for its story, in the process shaming the would-be shamers. I can think of a few other governments who might be interested in that kind of power, and instead of a second rate comedy being canned it might be a documentary about rape in Darfur, or a report on the deliberate destruction of health facilities in Syria.

Let’s face it, in terms of our cyber security large Western NGOs have erected far less of a fortress than a company like Sony Pictures. We are exposed. Crucially, we are easily more vulnerable than the movie biz to blackmail when public perception and trust are at stake. It wasn’t pretty, but those Sony emails certainly didn’t say anything we didn’t already think about Scott Rudin, Amy Pascal or that entire industry. The public is titillated, not abhorred, by their sneering. In contrast, what do aid execs write when nobody is looking? I’m guessing that donors contributing a million a year would not appreciate email musings refering to them as, say, egomaniacal , dandruffy pains in the ass. Not to mention direct orders to strengthen the facade that the agency is working through local partners, or the truth about bloated HQ staff travel budgets and long-running projects with little impact.