Nearly two months after Sony Pictures was first hacked and threatened for its negative portrayal of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un in the movie 'The Interview,' the U.S. still finds itself trying to convince the world North Korea was behind it.

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In their most recent attempt to prove this to an increasingly cynical and skeptical world, U.S. officials revealed to The New York Times that four years before the Sony attack, the U.S. hacked into North Korean computers using custom malware. It was this that allowed them to figure out so quickly that North Korea was behind the Sony hack.

"It is not in their interest to admit this," Computer scientist and North Korea watcher Frank Feinstein told Voice of America. "They are doing it because obviously the public is not buying that North Korea [hacked Sony]."

In today's conspiracy-obsessed culture, it appears that the concept of Occam's razor has been completely forgotten.

William of Ockham, a 14th century English Franciscan friar, philosopher and theologian devised a problem-solving principle stating that among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected.

In other words: The simplest explanation is probably the correct one. If only Occam's razor was practiced with more frequency, the U.S. wouldn't have to bend over backwards to convince the world North Korea was behind the hack.

By applying the razor to the various theories surrounding the source of the Sony hack, the simplest explanation is: North Korea did it. All the other theories - as fun as they are to toy with - simply fall by the wayside when using a common sense approach.

Tom Keane, a columnist for The Boston Globe, postulated last month that the attack was really ploy by Sony Pictures to sell more tickets to 'The Interview.'

"It's all a PR stunt," wrote Keane, who proposed that "confronted with a mediocre movie seemingly destined to fail at the box office, Sony executives concocted a bold plan."

As enticing as the idea is that Sony itself was behind the hack all along, in what some have dubbed "the greatest publicity stunt ever," this in fact appears to be the most complicated one, and therefore the least likely scenario.

First of all, if Sony was indeed behind its own hack, it would in reality be closer to the worst publicity stunt of all time, rather than the greatest. For this theory would suggest that Sony made the conscious decision to open itself up to losing millions of dollars from potential lawsuits; alienate the studio from movie stars who it publicly insulted in leaked emails; and lose even more money by distributing the film to only one-tenth of the number of theaters in which it was originally supposed to be shown.

On top of this financial disaster, the studio would also have to intentionally allow itself to look weak and cowardly in the world's eyes by caving into the hackers' demands.

All of this just to gain publicity for a little comedy with Seth Rogan and James Franco? Not likely. In fact, it's downright absurd. The financial impact of one film's box office receipts on a massive international conglomerate like Sony Corp. is microscopic, and there's no reason for the company to risk so much for such little reward.

Another theory also suggested that this was an inside job, but that it wasn't a publicity stunt. Marc Rogers, a security researcher at CloudFlare, wrote on his personal blog that he believed that "a disgruntled (possibly ex) employee of Sony" was behind the attack. But an attack this sophisticated and wide-ranging mosrt likely couldn't be conducted by one person.

John McAfee, founder of cyber security firm McAfee, made the claim that civil libertarian hackers were behind the cyber attack on Sony, not North Korea. He sais that the hackers viewed Sony Pictures as a symbol of restrictions on controlling the content of art. However, In an interview with The International Business Times, McAfee refused to name the people he claims were behind the attack.

It seems that many "experts" on computer security have chosen to skip over the most likely scenario to come up with something - anything - more intriguing than the blatantly obvious.

But when a group of hackers claim they are defending the leader of North Korea, it's a good bet it's not a publicity stunt, it's not libertarians, and it's not a disgruntled employee.

In the immortal words of American poet James Whitcomb Riley, who seemed to have channeled his inner William of Ockham: "When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck."

TagsWas North Korea Behind the Sony Hack? Time to Apply Occam’s Razor, William of Ockham, Sony Pictures, hacking, Sony Hack