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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

#111

Post by vasco »

everforward wrote: post #110
vasco wrote: post #51

These supposed messages between him and the state department lead me to believe it's either all or mostly exagerations or lies: https://imgur.com/a/s-lX6inGA Maybe it's just my lack of knowledge of some regionalism, but doesn't it seem very odd that a technical person would use "in the open source", to refer not to code, but to a PR article on some news website?

I was getting kind of similar vibes. When they reveal the story, it’s basically “traceroute identifies 2 choke point routers, and I DDoSed them with traffic”. That’s cool and neat for guerrilla warfare, but I would assume the NSA and DoD are already aware of that possibility? I wouldn’t even be surprised if they saw the DDoS happening on network monitoring tools. Why clandestine meetings for that? I get why the media…

I imagine the NSA has a fully mapped out network layout for most major foes continuously updated in some sort of inventory database but for enemies, the same way they track large military gear and in which bases its at for their enemies. So yeah this seems very strange.

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

#112

Post by rendall »

>> JDdoc: Once you knew you had access, did you make a point of saying “I’m IN!” out loud, even if no one was in the room with you?

> dotslashpunk: lol, no I only say that during either sex or when I'm able to join a meeting successfully with my microphone and speakers actually working. Both are rare.

Talented and funny. He's wearing his new found fame well.

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

#113

Post by ajsnigrutin »

lnxg33k1 wrote: post #82
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Well, if DPRK wanted to bomb countries so bad, they could be allied with US and NATO

Russia wanted to join nato, but nato wouldn't let them. Why would N korea even try then?

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

#114

Post by jjmarr »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #83
shzhdbi09gv8ioi wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See OSINT. It's well established terminology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_intelligence

It's a weird term. My impression is that it mostly means "randos LARPing spies", though there's a commercial angle too, it being to intelligence what PMCs are to the military. May or may not be called after "Open Source Publishing, Incorporated", featured here: [0]. -- [0] - https://irp.fas.org/congress/2005_hr/062105jardines.pdf

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/world/open-secrets-ukraine-in...

To summarize, there are many people in government who are interested in open source intelligence.

Traditional sources of intelligence are gathered with secret means and therefore must be restricted in distribution to prevent burning the source. This means you can have the best possible intelligence but be unable to a) act on it or b) distribute it to people who can.

The value proposition of using open-source intelligence is that you can distribute it very widely to decisionmakers since it's already "out in the open". Intelligence isn't about hoarding secrets for the sake of such; it's about getting information to people who can use it.

The political issue is that people assume that "secret = higher quality" when there's no inherent value to secrecy. So, spy agencies overinvest in secret-gathering, get a ton of info, and are unable to do anything with it.

Meanwhile, if someone posts a tank manual on the WarThunder gaming forums you can give that to every soldier that might encounter that tank.

This is doubly important in tech because many big tech companies play a significant role in national security but cannot get intelligence that would help protect them, and by extension, American interests.

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

#115

Post by mopsi »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #113
lnxg33k1 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if DPRK wanted to bomb countries so bad, they could be allied with US and NATO

Russia wanted to join nato, but nato wouldn't let them. Why would N korea even try then?

> Russia wanted to join nato, but nato wouldn't let them.

That's not true. You will not find a single law approved by Russian Duma that sets it as a foreign policy goal like in countries that did choose to join NATO.

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

#116

Post by kjkjadksj »

jrexilius wrote: post #98

There are a couple good points in the linked Wired article, such as the fact that the Russians, Chinese, Iranians, and North Korea are already escalating attacks on civillian and commercial targets and our restraint isn't being matched. I fully understand why the US and partner governments won't be able to respond in kind, but there is certainly a lot more that could be done in that domain.

There are people that are in offensive cyber security in the US government, but realistically they have a bit more moral compass than the other state level actors that try and bring a hospital to its knees for the grand goal of making america look stupid for the nationalistic few who might actually care about that sort of thing. There's a saying we have here about never wrestling a pig in the mud: you will both be dirty but the pig will like it.

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

#118

Post by kjkjadksj »

csomar wrote: post #46
gorbachev wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and no. Only the elite in that country has access to the Internet. The starving citizens do not have access to the Internet, and even if they do/did, they're so heavily monitored the minute they even glanced at something controversial they'd be shipped to a concentration camp.

> Only the elite in that country has access to the Internet. Sure, but then the overall population might be depending on it indirectly.

How much did you indirectly depend on Golf Digest when President Trump was reading it in office?

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

#119

Post by kjkjadksj »

1234554321a wrote: post #54

It’s legal to hack North Korean infrastructure? Might be a good way to test out your hacking skills.

Sounds like a terrible way. One screw up, and then you have one of the worst nations on earth in every metric with an axe to grind against you. No thanks. Meetups in Vegas hotels seem a lot safer and more fun to practice hacking skills.

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

#120

Post by aorloff »

EasyMark wrote: post #80
aorloff wrote: post #34

Is anyone mining bitcoin in DPRK ?

I highly doubt that, it’s quite a lot for the system to power the 1% elites, the palace, and the ballistic missile factories.

Which is why it would be so interesting
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