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Hunting for North Korean Fiber Optic Cables

(nkinternet.com)
288 points Bezod | 8 comments | 08 Dec 25 16:38 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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liversage ◴[08 Dec 25 19:03 UTC] No.46196256[source]▶
My understanding is that there are three mobile networks in North Korea: the normal one used by the citizens (they have smartphones made specifically for North Korea), one used by the government/military and one for tourists (requires a local SIM card only available in a specific hotel in Pyongyang).

The last one is connected to the internet and this is why you can see (or at least before the pandemic could see) Instagram posts from North Korea.

I have no idea if this information is still or ever was completely true though.

There's a somewhat dated but very interesting AMA on Reddit by an American teaching computer science in Pyongyang:

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1ucl11/iama_american_...

Reading about the internet knowledge possessed by North Korean students, I'm always surprised how they supposedly also manage to be some of the most cunning and evil actors when it comes to hacking.

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1. foota ◴[08 Dec 25 22:11 UTC] No.46198338[source]▶
Re: "I'm always surprised how they supposedly also manage to be some of the most cunning and evil actors when it comes to hacking."

I sort of suspect this is just the result of a nation state that is willing to be a pariah. That is, I think nearly any large state could do it if they didn't mind burning bridges.

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2. louthy ◴[08 Dec 25 22:20 UTC] No.46198424[source]▶
It’s not just that they don’t care about being a pariah state, it’s a literal fund raising exercise, unlike most other state sanctioned hacking.
3. ipdashc ◴[09 Dec 25 02:04 UTC] No.46200445[source]▶
This is my assumption as well. In general it seems like hacking becomes a lot easier (still not easy of course, just easier) when you have no fear of getting caught or going to jail.

Does anyone remember LAPSUS$ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapsus$ from a while back? It was reported for a while that it was largely made up of teenagers, and it seems two did get caught. I recall their whole MO being brazen social engineering/using stolen credentials in a way that got them caught pretty quickly, but also got results fast.

4. Atlas667 ◴[09 Dec 25 06:11 UTC] No.46201799[source]▶
"Pariah", they've had the longest embargo on earth (which has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths), they had 90% of their whole countries infrastructure bombed by the US, and the Korean war has been called a genocide in the North by many scholars.

The world doesnt make sense if you ignore history.

They probably hack for the same reason the west does it: attack/defense and money.

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5. joshfraser ◴[09 Dec 25 07:57 UTC] No.46202409[source]▶
What other options do they have? They've been sanctioned to the point where they have few options left but to turn to crime.
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6. lysace ◴[09 Dec 25 11:39 UTC] No.46203789{3}[source]▶
Their brutal dictatorship is a choice.
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7. wongarsu ◴[09 Dec 25 12:00 UTC] No.46203965[source]▶
See also Russian hackers being notorious simply because Russia is willing to turn a blind eye to cyber crime that doesn't target Russia

Crime being illegal doesn't prevent crime, but it adds an enormous amount of friction. In the West if you are decent at hacking, low-level APIs or reverse engineering you could turn to cyber crime. But if you instead get a regular job in cyber security or software engineering you still get a good salary, and don't have to worry about your online friends being police informants, can tell your potential significant other what you do to earn a living, get money wired directly to your bank account instead of having to go through costly intermediaries with significant risks, don't have trouble with the tax authority, etc.

If you reduce the legal opportunities and remove the downsides of the illegal ones the calculation completely changes, and with it the talent pool

8. Dibby053 ◴[09 Dec 25 15:18 UTC] No.46205828{4}[source]▶
Isn't the whole point of a dictatorship that you don't get to choose?