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We found North Korean engineers in our application pile

cinder.co

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Re: We found North Korean engineers in our application pile

#31

Post by ggm »

Aurornis wrote: post #19
jfengel wrote: post #6

Are they any good at their jobs? The article makes it sound like these guys are none too bright and not especially well trained. Are companies just that desperate?

Remote work scammers play the numbers game. Fabricating (stealing) identities and applying to jobs is their full-time job. When you apply for jobs nonstop and can multiply your efforts by applying under a multitude of different names and resumes, eventually you get bites. Push long enough and you might catch a desperate hiring manager who doesn't know how to interview people but is under pressure to fill headcount im…

A very large investment in time which you think would pay back better as an employment assistance company above board.

Re: We found North Korean engineers in our application pile

#34

Post by jprete »

ggm wrote: post #31
Aurornis wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remote work scammers play the numbers game. Fabricating (stealing) identities and applying to jobs is their full-time job. When you apply for jobs nonstop and can multiply your efforts by applying under a multitude of different names and resumes, eventually you get bites. Push long enough and you might catch a desperate hiring manager who doesn't know how to interview people but is under pressure to fill headcount im…

A very large investment in time which you think would pay back better as an employment assistance company above board.

A huge part of the arbitrage here is cost of living and cost of labor across national borders. They'd never make the same aboveboard doing employment assistance because their clients would all get locally competitive salaries, which are very low compared to getting hired under the pretense of being in the US.

Re: We found North Korean engineers in our application pile

#37

Post by iJohnDoe »

0000000000100 wrote: post #18
jfengel wrote: post #6

Are they any good at their jobs? The article makes it sound like these guys are none too bright and not especially well trained. Are companies just that desperate?

My company had an issue like this recently, they just had a smart guy take the interview / handle the paperwork and then a completely different guy show up on their first day. My company is pretty small, so we caught it within an hour of getting him onboarded. But I can see this being trickier in bigger companies, where the hiring process is more disconnected from the team they get assigned to.

Maybe obvious question. Were in-person or video interviews done? Seems so likely to get caught.

So fascinating as well having a person that was paid to do the interview. I guess there is a secret web site where people are waiting to do this as a service?

Re: We found North Korean engineers in our application pile

#38

Post by DarkmSparks »

edm0nd wrote: post #28
DarkmSparks wrote: post #5

I can think of maybe 20 countries where people would do this before DPRK, not least China, but quite a few in Europe to, Poland, India. why DPRK? like the level of Pakistan CS grads is probably better than most US ivy league grads, cant imagine DPRK has much of a CS education system.

From my discussions with various LE agents and attending a few talks, NK will send them off to some of the best colleges in either India or China to learn programming, computer science, networking, hacking, and etc. to learn and get a good education. Then they either travel back to NK to become part of something like Lazarus Group (NK nation-state hacking group), or they get assigned to something like this employee s…

I'm sure they have a few thousand such candidates out and about.

But surely insignificant to the hundreds of millions in China, India, Indonesia etc.

Why DPRK when the alternatives are so much more numerous?

The entire population of DPRK is only 26mil, the entire country is half the size of the city Jakarta.

Most Americans probably outright lie on their CV, that tells you nothing.

Re: We found North Korean engineers in our application pile

#39

Post by baobun »

rdtsc wrote: post #13

(from the indictment link) > Christina Marie CHAPMAN, a U.S. national, conspired with certain overseas IT workers to affect a scheme to defraud the United States and its agencies. Specifically, CHAPMAN: (i) assisted the overseas IT workers in validating stolen identity information of U.S. citizens so the overseas IT workers could pose as U.S. citizens; (ii) received and hosted laptops issued by U.S. companies to the…

I guess this explains the endgame of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40571145
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