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North Korean IT workers have infiltrated the Fortune 500

(www.yahoo.com)
145 points cwwc | 10 comments | 08 Apr 25 00:47 UTC | HN request time: 1.007s | source | bottom
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throwaway_ab ◴[08 Apr 25 04:27 UTC] No.43618350[source]▶
A flagged post mentions this is racist and typical anti immigration rhetoric.

That's not true, there are only two types of North Korean people you'll meet, either those that have defected and escaped North Korea or those that are agents of the state of North Korea.

There are very few defectors in existence and once they escape they're given full South Korean citizenship. This article is not about those people.

The vast majority of North Koreans outside North Korea are not defectors, instead they are controlled state assets. There are no North Korean people outside the country that are free citizens. Every single North Korean authorised to leave the country is working directly for their government often to raise money for the regime, to steal IP, to infiltrate for some nefarious purpose.

Having one of these North Korean active assets in your company is extremely dangerous, your business is now at risk of leaks, theft, or worst something being modified like added vulnerabilities that could be exploited later in cyber attacks.

So no, this article is not racist at all and really has nothing to do with the recent political situation.

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plsbenice34 ◴[08 Apr 25 05:01 UTC] No.43618479[source]▶
What about Australia in comparison? Australians can be legally compelled in secret courts to install backdoors in the companies in which they are employed, and gagged from telling the company itself or any journalists (see the Access and Assistance Bill). That doesn't cross the same 'agents of the state' line?
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1. donnachangstein ◴[08 Apr 25 05:07 UTC] No.43618504[source]▶
Are you seriously comparing Australia to... North Korea?
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2. ◴[08 Apr 25 05:24 UTC] No.43618576[source]▶
3. itake ◴[08 Apr 25 05:29 UTC] No.43618593[source]▶
And? governments shouldn't require their citizens to introduce backdoors into private companies.
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4. DaSHacka ◴[08 Apr 25 05:40 UTC] No.43618647[source]▶
Source?
5. atoav ◴[08 Apr 25 05:41 UTC] No.43618650[source]▶
It is a comparison between a North Korean practise to an apparently similar Australian practise.

The ideology each state has nothing to do with the risk coming from employing people who can be compelled to follow such rules.

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6. pyrale ◴[08 Apr 25 06:05 UTC] No.43618772[source]▶
I understand your point, and that law is a problem. But there is a big difference between a law and a practice. In the case of NK, we have a long, documented trail showing that the country controls its foreign nationals. Despite that law, the same is not true of Australia.
7. immibis ◴[08 Apr 25 08:43 UTC] No.43619591[source]▶
And they mostly don't, but North Korea does 100% of the time.
8. infecto ◴[08 Apr 25 20:48 UTC] No.43626298[source]▶
Surprising we have so many NK sympathizers here. We have decades of reporting for different groups and yet here we are defending NK and calling folks racists.
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9. mvdtnz ◴[08 Apr 25 22:05 UTC] No.43626940[source]▶
> The ideology each state has nothing to do with the risk coming from employing people who can be compelled to follow such rules

What? You can't be serious. Of course the state ideology impacts the risk of the state acting ideologically.

10. atoav ◴[09 Apr 25 07:14 UTC] No.43629621{3}[source]▶
I do not sympathize with NK at all, they are monsters.

What I am surprised about is that the same people who criticized other countries for doing X will not criticize their own/allied country doing a variation of X. I believe that we in the free West have a duty to keep our democrackes and we do that by not copying rules from the like of North Korea and by not constantly creating tools that help abolishing the division of powers.

That means when I critique Australia for that law I do so on the moral ground that Australia should know better, while North Korea is more or less openly evil.

I am a big fan of fixing our own problems instead of pointing elsewhere where it is even worse.

But I learned that there is a big group of people who think that pointing out that there is dog shit on the carpet makes you somehow a traiter and not someone who wants to live in a country without dogshit on the carpet.