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How not to hire a North Korean plant posing as a techie

theregister.com

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Re: How not to hire a North Korean plant posing as a techie

#51

Post by salamanderss »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #43
BossingAround wrote: post #12

> Evading in-person meetings or requests for drug tests Why would they evade drug tests and meeting in person? Do the "techies" claim they are not Korean at all? Surely, a North Korean would pass as a South Korean to (at least) any non-Korean colleague?

Yeah, plenty of people will adopt the persona of someone else just to get hired. If you're a white person on a freelancer website, you may get approached by someone who wants to buy your account.

Is this really a thing? Who would willingly burn their reputation and risk federal charges for sanctions violations over measly account sellout.

Re: How not to hire a North Korean plant posing as a techie

#52

Post by mcpackieh »

wongarsu wrote: post #13
garba_dlm wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

still racist, it's the worst kind of racism, brother Vs brother (or possibly more accurate cousins? dunno) for long term effects of this practice see the Gaza v. Israel fiasco

> for long term effects of this practice see the Gaza v. Israel fiasco Isn't the core of the Gaza conflict rather that Isrealis and Muslims aren't related, but both want the same piece of land

Visually and physically, Palestinians and Israelis are virtually impossible to distinguish. Some of them obviously can be distinguished by their fashion choices and circumstance, but physically they're basically identical. There are instances of people posting pictures of injured or scared Palestinian children mistaking them for Israeli children, their confusion evident from their outraged remarks accompanying the picture, then deleting the post shortly later when somebody points out their mistake.

https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/jamie-l...

Somebody could probably run this trick deliberately to make a point; go around to American evangelical churches using pictures of Palestinians presented as Israelis to tear-jerk the (overwhelmingly zionist) evangelical Christians, then reveal the truth to them. Maybe the message would get through to a few.

Re: How not to hire a North Korean plant posing as a techie

#53

Post by rob74 »

some_random wrote: post #16
BossingAround wrote: post #12

> Evading in-person meetings or requests for drug tests Why would they evade drug tests and meeting in person? Do the "techies" claim they are not Korean at all? Surely, a North Korean would pass as a South Korean to (at least) any non-Korean colleague?

Because they're slaves kept in dorms in various South East Asian countries that can't leave, their handler wouldn't allow to go to an in person meeting or take a drug test. They're also usually lying about the city and country they're working from.

Ok... but if the job is remote anyway, why can't they work from North Korea itself and use VPN (as another commenter mentioned) to simulate being in another country? Or would that run into bandwidth/"Great Firewall"/other problems?

Re: How not to hire a North Korean plant posing as a techie

#54

Post by mcpackieh »

denton-scratch wrote: post #22
toss1 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that, plus a dozen Arab states actively financing their proxy military organizations (Hezbollah/Hamas/etc.) and foisting them on the Palestinians as their "government" to further those states goal of exterminating Israel.

> foisting them on the Palestinians as their "government" Hamas (the political wing) is the duly-elected political representative of all Palestinians. It's not surprising that Mohammed Abbas cancelled elections in 2021. The military wing of Hamas is in the ascendant, likely as a direct result of the extreme suppression of Hamas as a political organisation.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the last time they had an election was 2006, and Hamas only won a plurality, not majority, of the votes then.

Assuming Palestinians had to be 18 to vote in that election, which was 17 years ago now, any Palestinian about 34 years old or younger didn't vote for Hamas, and most Palestinians older than that didn't vote for them either.

Re: How not to hire a North Korean plant posing as a techie

#55

Post by RIMR »

Tabular-Iceberg wrote: post #36

Wouldn’t throwing tantrums and threatening to violate NDAs over petty cash just undermine their entire spying operation?

It sounds to me like the US released a report about NK espionage operations, and then people "thought" (as the article phrases it) that NK operatives were everywhere, and now we have this article that just seems to tie the most obnoxious freelancer behavior to NK espionage, without any actual evidence.

Re: How not to hire a North Korean plant posing as a techie

#56

Post by Pigalowda »

throw747488 wrote: post #47

Here is my opinion as someone who worked with alongside North Koreans (textile factory) and visited NK. I am from East Europe and have 10 years in IT. - NK secret service (or whatever you call it) is more sophisticated than this. They will act as proper company from Turkey, India, China or even EU countries... - if you actually manage to get some North Korean who escaped to West, they are 10x more dedicated than anyo…

This is a guide for online platforms, such as upwork

Re: How not to hire a North Korean plant posing as a techie

#57

Post by hotnfresh »

gumby wrote: post #41
BossingAround wrote: post #12

> Evading in-person meetings or requests for drug tests Why would they evade drug tests and meeting in person? Do the "techies" claim they are not Korean at all? Surely, a North Korean would pass as a South Korean to (at least) any non-Korean colleague?

How do you do a drug test on a remote worker? And why? If they can’t do the job you fire them.

Government contractors. It’s a legal requirement. They schedule you at a local-to-you testing center. They’re everywhere, because truck drivers and some other jobs are legally required to test.

It’s very dumb. Scheduled-in-advance piss tests aren’t great for catching much other than weed. Most other things aren’t detected in urine after 2-3 days. Weed metabolites, which is what they test for, stick around for potentially weeks. The whole exercise will be practically pointless if weed ever gets removed from the set of things they’re testing for.

[edit] what I’d love to see replace this junk is some kind of probably-computerized attention and reaction test, for jobs where it actually matters. Which is only a subset of the ones that currently test, but, when it comes to truck drivers and heavy machinery operators and such, I don’t care if they like to do drugs off hours, but I do care if some straight-edge driver is too tired to drive, and that’d catch those cases, too. Maybe open to cheating, but piss tests are routinely cheated anyway.

Re: How not to hire a North Korean plant posing as a techie

#58

Post by mariojv »

throw747488 wrote: post #47

Here is my opinion as someone who worked with alongside North Koreans (textile factory) and visited NK. I am from East Europe and have 10 years in IT. - NK secret service (or whatever you call it) is more sophisticated than this. They will act as proper company from Turkey, India, China or even EU countries... - if you actually manage to get some North Korean who escaped to West, they are 10x more dedicated than anyo…

Out of curiosity, how would a North Korean who escaped to the West even get money to relatives still there?

Re: How not to hire a North Korean plant posing as a techie

#59

Post by hattmall »

hotnfresh wrote: post #57
gumby wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you do a drug test on a remote worker? And why? If they can’t do the job you fire them.

Government contractors. It’s a legal requirement. They schedule you at a local-to-you testing center. They’re everywhere, because truck drivers and some other jobs are legally required to test. It’s very dumb. Scheduled-in-advance piss tests aren’t great for catching much other than weed. Most other things aren’t detected in urine after 2-3 days. Weed metabolites, which is what they test for, stick around for potenti…

But hordes of people still fail them for non-weed. I think if you can go the 3 days needed to be clean then it's not really an issue. People with real opiate, benzo or stimulant addictions can't typically go 3 days without using. And there's build up so you can have extended duration of being positive.

Re: How not to hire a North Korean plant posing as a techie

#60

Post by eunos »

mariojv wrote: post #58
throw747488 wrote: post #47

Here is my opinion as someone who worked with alongside North Koreans (textile factory) and visited NK. I am from East Europe and have 10 years in IT. - NK secret service (or whatever you call it) is more sophisticated than this. They will act as proper company from Turkey, India, China or even EU countries... - if you actually manage to get some North Korean who escaped to West, they are 10x more dedicated than anyo…

Out of curiosity, how would a North Korean who escaped to the West even get money to relatives still there?

Maybe some network in CN, HK, Macau or even TW!
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