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North Korean hackers stole a record $1.7B of crypto last year

economist.com

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Re: North Korean hackers stole a record $1.7B of crypto last year

#81

Post by csomar »

axlee wrote: post #51
acidtakes1 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why technology that provides a modicum of privacy must be demonized. It must be for money laundering and criminals. It can't have a legitimate use case. Is it used for nefarious activities? Of course, but not exclusively so.

If 99% of BTC mixers' volume is helping laundering international drug trade money, arms or human trafficking, it's not exactly hard to demonize mixing itself. I have no data to base this on, but I assume that privacy absolutists are a tiny, tiny drop in the pool of blood and crime.

Funny thing is, you can barely launder any tangible amount of money with Bitcoin let alone crypto.

Re: North Korean hackers stole a record $1.7B of crypto last year

#82

Post by arp242 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #62
bdcravens wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest risk with North Korea is seeing the state of the country, and underestimating the regime itself.

Spot on. I once heard the Kims described as multimillionaires with one of the largest armies in the world [1] and nukes. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_...

Size isn't everything when it comes to armies. See: Russia and Ukraine, USSR and the US in Afghanistan, Afghan army and Taliban, Boudica and the Romans, etc.

Nuclear weapons and the fortified long-range artillery that can shell Seoul are the main point of concern, which are essentially a small-scale version of cold war era mutually assured destruction. The number of people in the army as such? I'm not so sure that's really something that's all that meaningful.

Re: North Korean hackers stole a record $1.7B of crypto last year

#83

Post by exo762 »

Phlarp wrote: post #77
exo762 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scenario one. Individual (while working in a startup) is receiving some tokens as a compensation. Time passes. Their remuneration being on-chain and visible is a problem when negotiating salary in the next job. Scenario two. I want to have on-chain identity (e.g. exo762.eth domain name). To register it I need to have some ETH (gas, registration fee). If I sent this ETH directly from my "money" account, I will forever…

How are these scenarios "use cases" for a mixer and not critical flaws in the underlying system? We're in a thread about a rogue state using the tech to steal money to fund their operations (Chemical attacks in airports, nuclear warheads, intercontinental ballistic missiles, etc.) How many nuclear detonations would you consider acceptable in exchange for the cryptobros to have their toys?

How "Operation Choke Point" is not a critical flow of the underlying system? I care about civil rights way more than I care about NK.

Re: North Korean hackers stole a record $1.7B of crypto last year

#84

Post by ttyprintk »

mountainriver wrote: post #7
rahen wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not bad for a supposedly backwards repressed regime What do you mean by supposedly? > It also exposes a wider problem the crypto community are not addressing. What wider problem? That money (in any form) can be stolen by a malevolent state?

I think crypto has made it easier for them to steal money. I would be curious to see how much money oppressive regimes were able to steal and use before crypto to after

Years ago, I heard that the top industrial export from North Korea was counterfeit $100 bills. When traveling in the surrounding countries, people treat that denomination with more skepticism as you get closer to North Korea. Special paper-protecting and flaw-spotting techniques that I have never seen inside the USA.

Re: North Korean hackers stole a record $1.7B of crypto last year

#85

Post by blitzar »

danielvf wrote: post #29

As a blockchain security guy, it's really easy to spot the occasional North Korean heists on Ethereum. The big tells are: 1. They hack computers not code. Their normal plan is to steal keys by compromising users and computers. This is in contrast to the normal "hack" that works by finding and exploiting bugs in code. 2. They immediately exfiltrate the stolen money back to the real world via bazillions of mule account…

> steal keys by compromising users and computers

Their keys their coins.

Re: North Korean hackers stole a record $1.7B of crypto last year

#87

Post by warner25 »

bsamuels wrote: post #75
axlee wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If 99% of BTC mixers' volume is helping laundering international drug trade money, arms or human trafficking, it's not exactly hard to demonize mixing itself. I have no data to base this on, but I assume that privacy absolutists are a tiny, tiny drop in the pool of blood and crime.

do you feel the same way about Tor? If 99% of Tor's volume is helping laundering international drug trade money, distributing CSAM, etc, should it be demonized as well?

I think most people do feel that way about Tor, both in terms of assuming that 99% of its users are criminals and that it should be demonized. It's interesting to me because I think most of those people don't feel the same way about encryption in general, which of course enables Tor and all sorts of criminal activity in other contexts. Everyone has something to hide from someone and wants to see the green lock symbol in their browser's address bar along with other assurances of some degree of privacy. I don't know how most people decide where to draw a line.

Re: North Korean hackers stole a record $1.7B of crypto last year

#88

Post by miguelazo »

It may be a totalitarian dictatorship, but this is totally expected behavior given the sanctions in place against them. Sanctions that amount to collective punishment, which is supposedly illegal under international law. Perhaps if the sanctions were reduced/removed, they’d feel like this sort of activity was less necessary/justified to get hard currency.

Re: North Korean hackers stole a record $1.7B of crypto last year

#89

Post by ttyprintk »

H8crilA wrote: post #24
55555 wrote: post #15

I wonder how much their hackers stole using bank wires? Surely they are doing both.

Not only that but they're even printing their own US dollar bills (see superdollar or kattalio).

Thank you, I couldn’t remember the name of it.
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