
North Korea Is Not Crazy - tomashertus
https://www.recordedfuture.com/north-korea-cyber-activity/
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camillomiller
I find easy to understand how the Leadership can subjugate a poor and hungry
population, even making them believe in the divinity of their ruler. What I
don't understand is how North Korea is able to keep aligned people educated
enough to direct and operate this kind of actions. The skills required to
carry out these attacks, for example, would make someone very valuable on a
Western market. At the same time these people have access to the outside
world, they have to know that there is a better opportunity for them outside.
So why walk the line of the party? A lot of these attaks are probably the work
of mercenary groups, but there must be key IT figures inside the regime at
least managing these efforts.

~~~
rtpg
Because you like not getting shot?

Even more concretely, people working in the government likely live comfortably
enough.

It's also not exactly simple to leave even if you want to. You can get to
China, but they'll probably send you back. SK might want you but crossing the
DMZ is tricky. I think there are also restrictions on movements within the
country. Imagine if you work in some random city in the middle of the country.
Good luck getting to a border, let alone crossing it.

And perhaps there aren't better opportunities outside.

Imagine being a NK sysadmin. You defect to South Korea, you probably won't be
able to enter the IT market easily (no "real" diploma + realities of the job
market) so you'll end up doing part-time at a supermarket or something. Not to
mention that you'll probably suffer discrimination due to your background as
well. Meanwhile you sacrificed your family.

The trade-off is not obvious at all.

~~~
vacri
Surely the SK government would be interested in employing an ex-NK sysadmin,
who will have intimate knowledge of NK networks?

~~~
jlgaddis
Debriefing/deposing them, sure. Employing them, I doubt it. You can't give
them much in the way of access or privileges, lest they turn out to be a spy.

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ourmandave
This article is a history lesson on NK's past and current state sponsored
spying and cyber attacks and ends with advice to companies, banks, et. al. to
stay vigilant to all sorts of future f*ckery.

Curse you Pyongyang! If it weren't for you I wouldn't need a firewall or
security plan at all.

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codecamper
I did not have the time to read the whole article, but I searched for "nucl"
and did not find reference to nuclear weapons... so I can add this:

That apparently the US has been threatening a nuclear attack on North Korea
since Eisenhower days. How can the US be surprised that this country wants
nuclear weapons of it's own?

