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I'm the hacker that brought down North Korea's Internet for over a week. AMA

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Re: I'm the hacker that brought down North Korea's Internet for over a week. AMA

#61
post #58

Such an attack is, IMO, morally dubious. North Korea is a poor country with millions of starving citizens, and rather than sending food aid, you broke down their only comms to the rest of the world?

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Probably not a fabrication, depending on what you see as a reliable news source.

Re: I'm the hacker that brought down North Korea's Internet for over a week. AMA

#62
post #44
post #2

Why isn’t he in prison? I mean, going by the West’s own laws, or the spirit of them, anyway. Unless he is part of said West’s Armed Forces, in which case this would get really close to a casus belli .

> Why isn’t he in prison? He very much could, if politics changed. The US hates NK not because they are authoritarian but because they are not aligned. If they were to be aligned, and this guy didn't act on proper authorization, he could find himself in hot waters in the USA. Plus he might have broken a bunch of "international" rules which could see him in trouble if he was to travel to some countries. It is really r…

> there is a good chance he was acting behind some agency

Almost certainly not. The vector would have been saved. And he wouldn’t have maintained this public profile ex post facto.

Consider, for example, taking it down during today’s state visit? (After you’ve quadruple checked that the Russians have independent connectivity.)

Re: I'm the hacker that brought down North Korea's Internet for over a week. AMA

#63

Such an attack is, IMO, morally dubious. North Korea is a poor country with millions of starving citizens, and rather than sending food aid, you broke down their only comms to the rest of the world?

I dont agree. Did you send food aid to North korea? And if you did, are you sure it was not used to feed the guards? I find sending food instead of trying to destroy the regime a morally dubious thing to do for exactly this reason...

Re: I'm the hacker that brought down North Korea's Internet for over a week. AMA

#64
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Potemkin country Maybe they’re another Russia, their tanks and artillery all crumpets. But maybe not. They have a lot of them on paper [1]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_equipment_of_the_Kor...

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Re: I'm the hacker that brought down North Korea's Internet for over a week. AMA

#65

Nothing about this ama/article suggests that NK is anything but a Potemkin country - a false baddie for others to hide behind. The NK idea is useful to agencies, in certain circumstances.

They have missiles and nuclear weapons.

Re: I'm the hacker that brought down North Korea's Internet for over a week. AMA

#66
post #38
post #7

The hacker doesn't understand what they're getting themselves into, especially bragging about it. The hard part about going up against an entire nation/state is that it's relentless. The state never gets tired and never runs out of money, they could setup a team of people to 'work' on that individual and also potentially his present and future family members for a very long time. They can keep replenishing their team…

Someone engrossed in digital foolery not understanding how the real world works is so stereotypical I wonder if there's more to this. Incidentally for anyone who's actually paying attention, the first rule in covert actions is being and staying inconspicuous. The real world isn't like Hollywood where people working in the shadows can become celebrities as a side gig. I hope this guy has a really good security detail…

> the first rule in covert actions is being and staying inconspicuous.

Some hacker movie said the problem is when you brag about it, and you desperately want to... and just looking at his post with the edits, he really is metaphorically jerking off to how awesome he is.

Holy frakk, he's even posted his face on that post. GOD DAMN! I half look forward to reading about how 2 women were fooled into pranking^W assassinating him (1). I hope dude isn't thinking of travelling to Asia anytime soon.

1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Kim_Jong-nam#...

Re: I'm the hacker that brought down North Korea's Internet for over a week. AMA

#67

I'm unsure on the ethics of this. Yes only the elite have the internet, but also the internet is likely used internally for communication, which is important for resource distribution. I don't give two shits about the elite in NK, but the starving folks living there have my deepest sympathy. I'm lucky to have a lot of advantages, and I can't help but see many of them as an accident of birth.

> I'm unsure on the ethics of this.

I think I can make it simple. Would love to hear of any cases refuting this.

If the country is on the US State Department's 'Sponsored' program list (currently DPRK, Iran, Sudan, and Cuba) it doesn't count. Florida terrorism ok, you get a pass and called a hero: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Posada_Carriles

Comparing to other more recent Florida originated attack on against a poor country, the assassination of Haiti's president. Haiti is not on that country approval list, go directly to jail: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/four-florida-men-arrested-plo...

Re: I'm the hacker that brought down North Korea's Internet for over a week. AMA

#69
>Like many other US hackers and security researchers, Caceres had been personally targeted by North Korean spies who aimed to steal his intrusion tools. He had detailed that targeting to the FBI but received no real government support. So he decided to take matters into his own hands and to send a message to the regime of Kim Jong Un: Messing with American hackers would have consequences. “It felt like the right thing to do here,” Caceres told WIRED at the time. “If they don’t see we have teeth, it’s just going to keep coming.”

Indescribably based.

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