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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

#51

Post by rustyhancock »

mlmonkey wrote: post #36

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. Aft…

Frankly sounds like many "real" candidates I've interviewed.

The tenuous grasp of spoken English despite a degree taught in English is also not unusual.

Setting aside the fraud for a moment (which is an insurmountable barrier to employeeing them).

To some extent I'd be satisfied if they actually had a degree and were productive. They obviously need good enough receptive and written English to work.

Especially if they are earning 5k per year as the title suggests.

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

#52

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

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…

>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.

It wouldn't matter. They'd hire some actor to do it. If you insist that they take precautions to be sure the person in the video interview looks like the guy they meet, they'll do that too... but the one doing the work will do so remotely from Pyongyang. There might be technology fixes for this, but they almost certainly involve isolating the United States' internet from most of the rest of the world.

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

#53

Post by gpm »

FpUser wrote: post #45
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The US did not win because the US did not win. Crying about the reasons does not help. Usual FAFO. Does not hurt to think of consequences before starting something

South Korea and its allies did not win - but they did successfully defeat the North Korean invasion of South Korea that started the war. Resulting in 53 million people today who live good lives in a high tech liberal democracy instead of living in abject poverty under the dictatorship that controls the north.

Despite not winning, the consequences of the western nations going to war in this case appear to have been significantly positive. It's really the only war since WWII that I think I can confidently say that about.

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

#54

Post by OutOfHere »

simonbw wrote: post #38
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.

Huh. The onus is to do the personal verification during the interview and offer process. It doesn't make any sense to do it once the employee has already been onboarded, although it makes sense to visually ensure from time to time that they're still the same person that was interviewed.

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

#55

Post by narrator »

North Korea runs like a big organized crime family that specializes in forced labor human trafficking and drugs. I've read that they even operate overseas businesses that send slaves that aren't allowed to leave those businesses such as for timber harvesting in the Russian far east and various businesses in South East Asia.

The Latin American cartels operate almost like miniature North Koreas.

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

#56

Post by OutOfHere »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #52
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…

>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. It wouldn't matter. They'd hire some actor to do it. If you insist that they take precautions to be sure the person in the video interview looks like the guy they meet, they'll do that too... but the one doing the work will do so remotely from Pyongyang. There might be technology…

Yes, but it makes it a bit harder. Every verification step lowers the risk, if only a little bit. It does matter that much.

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

#57

Post by potatoman22 »

alephnerd wrote: post #40
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.

> 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...

Bloomberg made a good video about this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gjnrMg9iSo

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

#58

Post by maest »

ambicapter wrote: post #27
gradyfps wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, "illegal" here doesn't matter. North Korea doesn't follow American law.

Weird take on legality. They're working American jobs, breaking American law. Yes it matters.

I'm sure American law enforcement will get the chance to arrest them next time they set foot in the US. Or maybe DPKR will extradite them, who knows?

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

#59

Post by OutOfHere »

jasonvorhe wrote: post #47

I'm so tired of this intellectually dishonest phrasing of making everything about "controversial" individuals whenever they're perceived as being the current villain, whether that's Putin, Elon, Kim or whatever. Just terrible writing.

They aren't just perceived as being the villain; they are the villain. They will copy your corporate data and exploit it in multiple ways. They will steal your corporate funds. As an aside, they also do significant cryptocurrency theft.
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