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

theregister.com

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

#31

Post by AnimalMuppet »

gpm wrote: post #14
ck2 wrote: post #6

Actual atomic weapons not just stockpile, hundreds stave to death there daily, and everyone knows the famous satellite view of the entire country in darkness at night (while his palace is lit) Yet no oil so they will be one of the longest surviving tyrannies in history We can bet every country like them now will be building massive war drone factories too

It's not the lack of oil that enabled this. The west* fought a bloody war to defeat North Korea. We just didn't win (though we did prevent the north from taking the south...). Now you've got a dictatorship protected by their ability to deal devastating damage to South Korea via nukes, huge stockpiles of conventional artillery (and Seoul is within range), etc. Moreover one backed by a superpower (China, and before Chi…

We didn't win because China intervened in massive numbers to keep the regime in the North from losing the whole country.

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

#32

Post by catigula »

abtinf wrote: post #7

I’m a little unclear on the usage of the word “fake” here. Going by article, these are real people doing actual real work, they often use stolen identities to conceal information about themselves, and they get help from outside sources to do their jobs better. Whatever the right word is, it’s not “fake”. Maybe fraudulent? Or ulterior motives? Or deceptive? Or pretext? Or threat actor? Or foreign agents?

The implication is that they're pretending to be legitimate employees whereas they are actually exfiltrating IP from a hostile nation state. Seems valid.

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

#33

Post by simonbw »

GuestFAUniverse wrote: post #5

If anyone pays so much money to someone they never met, or _dependable_ know their identity, that seems like a major fail. The whole idea that someone who couldn't legally enter the US, gets easier clearance than any tourist, or foreign academic with an opinion about the current gov that seems uncomfortable to them baffles me. Not the first time some priorities seem out of touch with reality.

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.

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

#34

Post by dopesoap »

abtinf wrote: post #7

I’m a little unclear on the usage of the word “fake” here. Going by article, these are real people doing actual real work, they often use stolen identities to conceal information about themselves, and they get help from outside sources to do their jobs better. Whatever the right word is, it’s not “fake”. Maybe fraudulent? Or ulterior motives? Or deceptive? Or pretext? Or threat actor? Or foreign agents?

It's North Korea though and they're all eViL. Imagine a world where the U.S lifted sanctions on N.K. traded with them and stopped crying about losing a war 70 years ago. Ah well a boy can dream.

Edit: Lol saying anything positive about North Korea on hacker news and people instantly freak out. This fucking website man. North Korea isn't what I would call a free society but it's also not the hell on earth that most liberals want you to think it is. So much of the misery that normal North Koreans have to face is because of western imposed sanctions. We've tried punishing them for 30 years now, it hasn't destroyed the regime if anything they double down. I guess it's easy for a bunch of overfed over paid tech workers to not feel any kind of solidarity for a North Korean though and insist on punishing them even more. Hell the North Korean government would even be open for this kind of agreement if we would actually guarantee their sovereignty, sadly trusting the United States of America to hold up any kind of deal you make with them is fucking impossible.

Here is a quote I came up with but is attributed to Henry Kissinger

Having the United States as your enemy is dangerous, but having them as your friend is fatal.

That old bag liked it so much he had no problem taking credit for it.

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

#35

Post by saltyoldman »

abtinf wrote: post #7

I’m a little unclear on the usage of the word “fake” here. Going by article, these are real people doing actual real work, they often use stolen identities to conceal information about themselves, and they get help from outside sources to do their jobs better. Whatever the right word is, it’s not “fake”. Maybe fraudulent? Or ulterior motives? Or deceptive? Or pretext? Or threat actor? Or foreign agents?

I agree that fake is an odd word to describe this. Most likely much of our IT infrastructure is extremely compromised. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the major password/healthcare/etc... leaks in the past 6 years were the result of someone "accidentally" setting a cloud bucket to public.

I actually turned down a fly-to-texas for an in person interview about a year back, but I do think in the age of the internet if we don't sacrifice some of the things we have taken for granted in the past, we're going to lose our country. Perhaps there should be a law that requires a picture of any employee standing next to their boss for continued employment - at some point in the future. (this is just an idea, not to start a flamewar, don't attack the specific idea, but attack the idea of some kind of extra checking if you don't agree with it)

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

#36

Post by mlmonkey »

A friend of mine got two such "fake" candidates for a coding interview. His experience reminded me of those "Nigerian Prince" emails from 20 years ago. These two gentlemen had western names (like "Brandon Smith") but Asian features and a tenuous grasp of spoken English; even though they claimed to have undergrad degrees from US universities. And he could tell they were looking at another screen to copy code from. After just a few minutes he realized what was going on, but continued the interview just to get the experience.

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

#38

Post by simonbw »

OutOfHere wrote: post #30

How is it that corporations can't get their act together wrt sensible hiring of remote workers? Before giving someone a final offer letter, why is it so difficult to meet them once (somewhere outside of North Korea and China)? The cost is negligible compared to a large salary. What corporations actually do for verification also is equally damning. They ask for references, which no coworker really has an obligation to…

I mean, if the North Korean employees are doing good work, the companies employing them aren't exactly incentivized to find out that they're really North Koreans, cuz then they have an obligation to fire their actually productive employee.

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

#39

Post by Bombthecat »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #9
abtinf wrote: post #7

I’m a little unclear on the usage of the word “fake” here. Going by article, these are real people doing actual real work, they often use stolen identities to conceal information about themselves, and they get help from outside sources to do their jobs better. Whatever the right word is, it’s not “fake”. Maybe fraudulent? Or ulterior motives? Or deceptive? Or pretext? Or threat actor? Or foreign agents?

I don't think we have a word for this. At best, it is disingenuous work.

Spies, at the end of the day they are spies.

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

#40

Post by alephnerd »

simonbw wrote: post #33
GuestFAUniverse wrote: post #5

If anyone pays so much money to someone they never met, or _dependable_ know their identity, that seems like a major fail. The whole idea that someone who couldn't legally enter the US, gets easier clearance than any tourist, or foreign academic with an opinion about the current gov that seems uncomfortable to them baffles me. Not the first time some priorities seem out of touch with reality.

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.

> The point is that there are legit American citizens who are in on the con...

For example - https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/arizona-woman-sentenced-17m-i...

And another one ironically by a Ukrainian national who is ethnic Ukrainian and not Donbas Russian - https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/ukrainian-national-senten...

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