Hunting for North Korean Fiber Optic Cables • Hacker News Board

Re: Hunting for North Korean Fiber Optic Cables

#91

Post by justsomejew » Tue, Dec 09, 2025, 8:07 AM UTC

jojobas wrote: post #76

joecool1029 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will get buried for saying this, but DPRK survived as a people, investing everything into a nuclear program to survive. The reason nobody did anything is they firmly built a defense against intervention, and given how the korean war went, how various US interventions looked after that, it was the correct thing to do. The most the US could do to them in recent years was murder some innocent fishermen. It has tried t…

s/DRPK survived as a people/Kim dynasty survived in power/g. Sure it was a correct thing for Kims to do, millions of Koreans be damned.

[dead]

Re: Hunting for North Korean Fiber Optic Cables

#92

Post by AngryData » Tue, Dec 09, 2025, 8:08 AM UTC

lawlessone wrote: post #26

nephihaha wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Roman Empire merely improved roads in many places. Gaul already had a road system, and the Greek and Egyptian spheres did too.

>The Roman Empire merely improved roads in many places. why did they invest in those roads? They weren't a charity.

Rome was entirely reliant upon the looting and expansion of the empire to support them. Without building up those roads Rome would have starved and fallen apart.

Re: Hunting for North Korean Fiber Optic Cables

#93

Post by AngryData » Tue, Dec 09, 2025, 8:10 AM UTC

codedokode wrote: post #30

Isn't it easier to hang optic cable on the poles? It seems that burying the cable requires more work. As for utility boxes along the track, it could be something railway-related, for example, some railway control or monitoring equipment.

It is easier, but it is also far more vulnerable and won't last nearly as long.

Re: Hunting for North Korean Fiber Optic Cables

#94

Post by AngryData » Tue, Dec 09, 2025, 8:11 AM UTC

jojobas wrote: post #76

joecool1029 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will get buried for saying this, but DPRK survived as a people, investing everything into a nuclear program to survive. The reason nobody did anything is they firmly built a defense against intervention, and given how the korean war went, how various US interventions looked after that, it was the correct thing to do. The most the US could do to them in recent years was murder some innocent fishermen. It has tried t…

s/DRPK survived as a people/Kim dynasty survived in power/g. Sure it was a correct thing for Kims to do, millions of Koreans be damned.

If anybody gave a fuck about the Korean people they wouldn't have split Korea up to start with, they wouldn't have stopped the reunification of Korea, and they wouldn't have bombed millions of civilians to death.

Re: Hunting for North Korean Fiber Optic Cables

#95

Post by AngryData » Tue, Dec 09, 2025, 8:15 AM UTC

jojobas wrote: post #78

gpm wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USA dropping nukes would have prevented the convention against using nukes in wars from being started. I think there's a pretty good chance we wouldn't have any civilization left by now if we went down that fork in history.

How is nuking Japan different from nuking Korea? Everybody agrees that forcing Japan to surrender with nukes was much better for everyone involved than a ground invasion.

When Japan was bombed, nobody else in the world had nuclear weapons, the US only had 2, and there were only a handful of people outside of the US seriously researching nuclear weapons and were still years away from a test. By 1950 the USSR had working nuclear bombs, had proven so with a nuclear test, and a dozen other countries had started their own nuclear weapons programs.

Re: Hunting for North Korean Fiber Optic Cables

#96

Post by nl » Tue, Dec 09, 2025, 8:40 AM UTC

petcat wrote: post #57

yongjik wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, just half a dozen comments from why we're not saving North Koreans to "we could've nuked China and solved a lot of problems." Some Hacker News threads are on their own level.

Well we know what happened to North Korea after China "won". And it's pretty fucking god-awful for 10s of millions of people for 80+ years. USA dropping nukes probably would have been the better outcome for humanity.

Wait - you think the solution to some people having a lower standard of living and others being persecuted is to kill them all?

Re: Hunting for North Korean Fiber Optic Cables

#97

Post by nl » Tue, Dec 09, 2025, 8:43 AM UTC

jojobas wrote: post #78

gpm wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USA dropping nukes would have prevented the convention against using nukes in wars from being started. I think there's a pretty good chance we wouldn't have any civilization left by now if we went down that fork in history.

How is nuking Japan different from nuking Korea? Everybody agrees that forcing Japan to surrender with nukes was much better for everyone involved than a ground invasion.

It's different almost by definition?

Because it was a once (twice!) off the impact and significance of it is amplified.

Re: Hunting for North Korean Fiber Optic Cables

#98

Post by nl » Tue, Dec 09, 2025, 8:46 AM UTC

AngryData wrote: post #90

jojobas wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, piecemeal cede every bit of land to the evil? Like Trump wants with Ukraine now? If you exclude the outliers like Campuchia and Nazi Germany, even the most benign commies are always way more deadly than the most ferocious fascists.

What makes 1950s Korea evil? You are equating North Korea today with Korea of 75 years ago, they aren't even remotely similar. You don't think your nation getting bombed to literal fields of rubble wouldn't change views and political stances afterwards? Unification was supported by both sides among the people, most South Koreans supported communism and 70% of them supported unification with the North. South Koreans d…

Worth pointing out that South Korea had very limited democracy until the late 1980s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_South_Korea

Re: Hunting for North Korean Fiber Optic Cables

#99

Post by nephihaha » Tue, Dec 09, 2025, 9:05 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #64

nephihaha wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like most Python material that ceased to be funny decades ago thanks to people quoting it endlessly... The Romans were true imperialists. They considered their opponents to be barbarians, and claimed they lived in wastelands. The truth is more complex. In many places — yes, including Judaea — they inherited infrastructure and buildings. Judaea was previously occupied by the Greeks and a number of other civilisations…

> Romans were true imperialists. They considered their opponents to be barbarians The Romans also aggressively appropriated from and integrated the people they conquered, extending the concept of citizenship and thus what it meant to be Roman in the process. Nobody is saying the Romans came across terra nullis . But describing their engineering and culture as "merely improving roads" is silly.

They stole literature and architecture from the Greeks, chariot building techniques from the Gauls, their identity from the Etruscans and Latins, and probably more than they would ever admit to from the Carthaginians.

When I was growing up we were taught the Romans' own imperial myth that they had built upon nothing. The Monty Python film even promotes that as a joke. There are cities in the Holy Land like Jericho which were inhabited before Rome was even founded.

p.s. Do I get downvotes for pointing out archaeological and historical fact here? When I said "merely improved roads", I was talking about their road network not their entire civilisation.

Re: Hunting for North Korean Fiber Optic Cables

#100

Post by jojobas » Tue, Dec 09, 2025, 9:32 AM UTC

AngryData wrote: post #90

jojobas wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, piecemeal cede every bit of land to the evil? Like Trump wants with Ukraine now? If you exclude the outliers like Campuchia and Nazi Germany, even the most benign commies are always way more deadly than the most ferocious fascists.

What makes 1950s Korea evil? You are equating North Korea today with Korea of 75 years ago, they aren't even remotely similar. You don't think your nation getting bombed to literal fields of rubble wouldn't change views and political stances afterwards? Unification was supported by both sides among the people, most South Koreans supported communism and 70% of them supported unification with the North. South Koreans d…

> What makes 1950s Korea evil?

Soviet occupation. Korea was supposed to be unified and elect a government back in 1950, Soviets made sure it didn't happen because they had no chance of winning.

That and, you know, the whole invasion thing.