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Hunting for North Korean Fiber Optic Cables

nkinternet.com

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Re: Hunting for North Korean Fiber Optic Cables

#101

Post by protocolture »

lukan wrote: post #18
monerozcash wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DPRK can certainly get however many IP addresses they want, DPRK just doesn't have that much infrastructure that they want externally accessible. As far as I know, end-user traffic from within North Korea usually does not originate from those few IP addresses. Or at least not visibly so, they might be connecting to a proxy from a DPRK IP address.

"DPRK can certainly get however many IP addresses they want" IP4 is quite limited as far as I know and not given out freely since a long time, or what do you mean here?

Apnic used to hand out a /22 to most members. Its now a waiting list for 2 /24s. They would probably give some priority to a nation state over yet another mdu fibre isp.

Re: Hunting for North Korean Fiber Optic Cables

#102

Post by piokoch »

liversage wrote: post #11

My understanding is that there are three mobile networks in North Korea: the normal one used by the citizens (they have smartphones made specifically for North Korea), one used by the government/military and one for tourists (requires a local SIM card only available in a specific hotel in Pyongyang). The last one is connected to the internet and this is why you can see (or at least before the pandemic could see) Inst…

"I'm always surprised how they supposedly also manage to be some of the most cunning and evil actors when it comes to hacking"

This sentiment is probably overblown. The fact that they are effectively robbing people to earn some money for their pathetic regime means only that they are on the level of nowadays internet scammers. They are good at that too.

Spending enough money (and they spend a lot - 26 million people work only for this) one can train people to do this or hire people to do this for them.

Re: Hunting for North Korean Fiber Optic Cables

#103

Post by lysace »

joshfraser wrote: post #89
Atlas667 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Pariah", they've had the longest embargo on earth (which has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths), they had 90% of their whole countries infrastructure bombed by the US, and the Korean war has been called a genocide in the North by many scholars. The world doesnt make sense if you ignore history. They probably hack for the same reason the west does it: attack/defense and money.

What other options do they have? They've been sanctioned to the point where they have few options left but to turn to crime.

Their brutal dictatorship is a choice.

Re: Hunting for North Korean Fiber Optic Cables

#104

Post by wongarsu »

foota wrote: post #31
liversage wrote: post #11

My understanding is that there are three mobile networks in North Korea: the normal one used by the citizens (they have smartphones made specifically for North Korea), one used by the government/military and one for tourists (requires a local SIM card only available in a specific hotel in Pyongyang). The last one is connected to the internet and this is why you can see (or at least before the pandemic could see) Inst…

Re: "I'm always surprised how they supposedly also manage to be some of the most cunning and evil actors when it comes to hacking." I sort of suspect this is just the result of a nation state that is willing to be a pariah. That is, I think nearly any large state could do it if they didn't mind burning bridges.

See also Russian hackers being notorious simply because Russia is willing to turn a blind eye to cyber crime that doesn't target Russia

Crime being illegal doesn't prevent crime, but it adds an enormous amount of friction. In the West if you are decent at hacking, low-level APIs or reverse engineering you could turn to cyber crime. But if you instead get a regular job in cyber security or software engineering you still get a good salary, and don't have to worry about your online friends being police informants, can tell your potential significant other what you do to earn a living, get money wired directly to your bank account instead of having to go through costly intermediaries with significant risks, don't have trouble with the tax authority, etc.

If you reduce the legal opportunities and remove the downsides of the illegal ones the calculation completely changes, and with it the talent pool

Re: Hunting for North Korean Fiber Optic Cables

#106

Post by eqvinox »

jauer wrote: post #27
lukan wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"DPRK can certainly get however many IP addresses they want" IP4 is quite limited as far as I know and not given out freely since a long time, or what do you mean here?

IPv4 continues to be available to entities that have a need that fits a particular policy shape, just most people don't. Specifically, you can get IPv4 /24s for IPv6 transition purposes. This includes anycast DNS, MX, etc for legacy clients on other networks, v4-side of CGNAT, etc. E.g. I was able to get a /24 in the ARIN region in 2021 and could justify 2 more for a _logical_ network topology similar to what NK pres…

IPv4 is a question of money in almost all cases at this point. You can get what you can pay for.

Re: Hunting for North Korean Fiber Optic Cables

#107

Post by eqvinox »

Lukas_Skywalker wrote: post #28
adamcharnock wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The min bend radius isn’t that large in my experience. On the order of 10cm IIRC, possibly even less.

Even less is correct: outdoor fibers (G.652.D) have a minimum bend radius of about 30mm. The indoor counterpart (G.657.A1 and A2) have 10mm and 7.5mm.

The larger cables tend to have strength members with higher physical bend radius restrictions, i.e. you can't bend the steel or kevlar elements that tightly without breaking things.

Re: Hunting for North Korean Fiber Optic Cables

#108

Post by eqvinox »

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.

Yes, poles are standard practice in a lot of places, but not generally for backbone links. There's only a few of those and it makes sense to get the extra protection from burying them.

Also, installing general telco fibre next to railway lines is standard practice. Makes all the bureaucracy so much easier if you can just use the existing railway right-of-way. Not that the DPRK would care much about right-of-way ;D

Re: Hunting for North Korean Fiber Optic Cables

#109

Post by kakacik »

AngryData wrote: post #70
seized wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably helps that the stance is likely "Hack this target or your family dies". That's always pretty uhhhh motivational.

Why would they need such incentives? All they gotta do is give them a decent wage and they will be happy, which in North Korea is a paltry sum. Its not like regular North Koreans are traveling around the world, they couldn't afford it even without any other restrictions, so they have zero risk of arrest or punishment from other nations. If I told you today that I will pay you a million dollars to go fuck around with…

Completely normal lives may be stretching your speech a bit too far. They provably had hundreds of thousands of deaths in famines when surrounding countries thrived, they have absolutely horrendous concentration camps where people are frequently beaten to death for small infractions and whole families are sent there, including small children (who also get beaten to death by their 'teachers').

If you consider numerous reports of people that managed to barely escape and report this consistently in the west as pure propaganda, thats... your paranoid mindset. Sometimes people and regimes are simply evil, 21st century is in no way immune to that.

Re: Hunting for North Korean Fiber Optic Cables

#110

Post by eqvinox »

bigiain wrote: post #62
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.

If you hang your fibre optic cable from poles, you will inevitably evolve flying backhoes.

Too late, already happened, it's called squirrels. cf. CCC NOC logo: https://events.ccc.de/camp/2019/wiki/Static:Network — it's an in-joke about rodents chewing through the (air/tree-strung) uplink fibre multiple times at the 2015 event.
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