North Korean's 100k fake IT workers net $500M a year for Kim • Hacker News Board

Re: North Korean's 100k fake IT workers net $500M a year for Kim

#111

Post by skinnymuch » Wed, Mar 18, 2026, 7:33 PM UTC

mikkupikku wrote: post #106

dopesoap wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The United States plays a large role in destabilizing them I went to a lecture at my university where a South Korean professor said as much. He was hardly a fan of the North Korean regime. At this point the regime has zero interest in cooperation, I'm sorry but your government is slowly becoming an authoritarian state in its own right and is currently causing chaos at the behest of Israel a country which just commute…

The US has fuck all to do with it. Vietnam whooped America's ass in a war which was far more socially significant for the American public (the Korean War is called the "Forgotten War" in America), still has their communist government, yet has normalized (relatively) relations with America and certainly the rest of the world and trades with everybody. North Korea is economically isolated because they refuse to be norm…

I don’t think you know what “communist standards” means.

> “North Korea is economically isolated because they refuse to be normal even by communist standards.”

“Kim is isolated because she refuses to be normal like the other submissive housewives beaten by their husbands”

You are blaming the victim while acting like the aggressor oppressors actions are not their own responsibility.

Re: North Korean's 100k fake IT workers net $500M a year for Kim

#112

Post by skinnymuch » Wed, Mar 18, 2026, 7:35 PM UTC

mikkupikku wrote: post #73

948382828528 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[dead]

Even other communist dictatorships are pretty sick of North Korea's shit!

Oh yeah you don’t know what you’re talking about haha. The west isn’t a dictatorship! Only the Others.

Re: North Korean's 100k fake IT workers net $500M a year for Kim

#113

Post by skinnymuch » Wed, Mar 18, 2026, 7:37 PM UTC

dopesoap wrote: post #103

mikkupikku wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even other communist dictatorships are pretty sick of North Korea's shit!

Wow so you guys don't have ideological brain worms at all. I can tell you guys have never studied international relations because you refuse to try an take North Koreas concerns seriously. Do I have to remind you that a South Korean attempted a fascist coup recently and that it was left wing organisations and trade unions that mobilised to stop him? Also which "communist dictators" are you talking about, and how do y…

Those scholars are blowhards. Trump is basically the same as any other time. As you state the US is unipolar in how it treats Others. Aka authoritarian.

Blowback was great I should finish that season.

Re: North Korean's 100k fake IT workers net $500M a year for Kim

#114

Post by edm0nd » Wed, Mar 18, 2026, 7:43 PM UTC

dopesoap wrote: post #93

mikkupikku wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lot's of people have tried trading with North Korea, but they're politically unreliable. China and Russia both try obviously, but so has South Korea. These cooperations usually work for a while but eventually the unreliable reality of the North Korean government wrecks it for them. If it were all America's fault, as these sort of regimes always claim, they'd be able to get on well enough with their neighbors, but the…

The United States plays a large role in destabilizing them I went to a lecture at my university where a South Korean professor said as much. He was hardly a fan of the North Korean regime. At this point the regime has zero interest in cooperation, I'm sorry but your government is slowly becoming an authoritarian state in its own right and is currently causing chaos at the behest of Israel a country which just commute…

ah yes, its Americas fault NK citizens are starving and cannot freely leave the country lmao what kind of weird cope are you talking about here

Re: North Korean's 100k fake IT workers net $500M a year for Kim

#115

Post by bit-anarchist » Wed, Mar 18, 2026, 7:50 PM UTC

dopesoap wrote: post #103

mikkupikku wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even other communist dictatorships are pretty sick of North Korea's shit!

Wow so you guys don't have ideological brain worms at all. I can tell you guys have never studied international relations because you refuse to try an take North Koreas concerns seriously. Do I have to remind you that a South Korean attempted a fascist coup recently and that it was left wing organisations and trade unions that mobilised to stop him? Also which "communist dictators" are you talking about, and how do y…

> Do I have to remind you that a South Korean attempted a fascist coup recently

By "fascist", I suppose you mean right-wing. Going by the average RW authoritarian dictatorship, that's still better than the documented NK conditions, specially given that most fall later.

> ...[...] and that it left wing organizations and trade unions that mobilized to stop him?

Nice cherry picking. Even Yoon's own party turned against him. But even ignoring the right wing here, said left wing organizations are also in opposition to NK.

> You do realize that the United States is a one party state when it comes to foreign policy right?

That sentence doesn't make sense. There's no such thing as "one party state foreign policy". The idea of a one party state is specifically about a state that is intolerant to any other ideas other than those accepted by the one true party. If you are referring to USA's aggressiveness, may I remind you that that switches between presidents.

> If you love freedom so much shouldn't this be worrying more?

Whataboutism.

Re: North Korean's 100k fake IT workers net $500M a year for Kim

#116

Post by koliber » Wed, Mar 18, 2026, 7:53 PM UTC

hsuduebc2 wrote: post #102

>Alternatively, there is a killer interview question, as reported by The Register previously: ask them something like "How fat is Kim Jong Un?" and if they are a North Korean, they will terminate the call instantly. I wonder if they know that he is fat and are afraid to tell, or that it is strictly forbidden to answer these types of questions. I don't really believe this "hack" can work long term.

I’ve had the call terminate with such candidates after frankly stating that they are from North Korea and lying about everything. The person in front of the camera would try to maneuver out of it and then the call ended as if someone pulled the plug behind the scenes. I’ve built some pretty decent heuristics to identify them before wasting time on interviews.

Re: North Korean's 100k fake IT workers net $500M a year for Kim

#117

Post by yongjik » Wed, Mar 18, 2026, 7:57 PM UTC

dopesoap wrote: post #103

mikkupikku wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even other communist dictatorships are pretty sick of North Korea's shit!

Wow so you guys don't have ideological brain worms at all. I can tell you guys have never studied international relations because you refuse to try an take North Koreas concerns seriously. Do I have to remind you that a South Korean attempted a fascist coup recently and that it was left wing organisations and trade unions that mobilised to stop him? Also which "communist dictators" are you talking about, and how do y…

> Do I have to remind you that a South Korean attempted a fascist coup recently and that it was left wing organisations and trade unions that mobilised to stop him?

Those "left wing organizations" encompass the majority of South Korea, almost 2/3 of the current parliament, and the current sitting government. And may I remind you that South Korea's current "leftist" president recently gifted Trump a golden crown to get favorable deals?

He's about as leftist as Joe Biden.

Re: North Korean's 100k fake IT workers net $500M a year for Kim

#118

Post by lelandfe » Wed, Mar 18, 2026, 7:58 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #74

simonbw wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that there are legit American citizens who are in on the con. They have real SSNs and an actual presence in the US. They run proxy servers out of their house to make it seem like that's where their web traffic is coming from. From the company's perspective, everything seems like a regular remote employee.

A proxy server can't fool an in-person interview. Totally bizarre how in-person interviews have fallen out of fashion, now that they're needed the most.

I actually have first hand experience with this! One person came for the on site interview, and a different and much worse dev did the remote work once hired. This was over a decade ago now.

Re: North Korean's 100k fake IT workers net $500M a year for Kim

#119

Post by renewiltord » Wed, Mar 18, 2026, 8:02 PM UTC

memonkey wrote: post #89

tylerchilds wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not an apt metaphor because we can just walk away and never see our employers again if that’s our free will.

I know we're getting deep in the meta discussion but the free will that you're describing involves basically starving to death. Sure, you can walk away but unless you're well off, we all basically live in the same society that makes sure you are ALWAYS dependent on some kind of wage. You cannot live off the land, build housing, or eat food without some kind of income in the modern world. And thus the concept of wage…

[flagged]

Re: North Korean's 100k fake IT workers net $500M a year for Kim

#120

Post by bit-anarchist » Wed, Mar 18, 2026, 8:03 PM UTC

skinnymuch wrote: post #105

bit-anarchist wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But wage slavery, while bad, isn't slavery still. In slavery proper, the option of walking away straight up doesn't exist. In fact, in extreme cases, even the option of dying might not be available.

It is slavery. Chattel slavery is much more severe than what we normally consider slavery. Yet “slavery” and chattel slavery are both still slavery. The reason what you’re saying is so accepted is because we are currently living under a universal liberal world order that says wage slavery id freedom.

I hope you notice I didn't mention chattel slavery. Even prior to it, all forms of slavery were about removing the agency of person and subjugating the will of the slave to the owner. That requires an active action. Not hiring someone is a passive action. As said by many, you are not entitled to a wage. In fact, suggesting otherwise would actually require slavery. Wage slavery, instead, is a description of a particular material condition of destitution, not necessarily connected to the ethical evaluation to proper slavery. No one says "wage slavery is freedom". What the "universal liberal world", that is, the pro-free market side says is that people should be free to associate with each other as they see fit. Being hired to provide labor in exchange for wage, the basis for wage work, is merely an extension of this. While wage work is a requirement for wage slavery, at no point economic liberals said that everyone should live under wage slavery conditions.