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North Korean Hackers Rival CIA?
Bitchslap_69 writes "According to a report in the South Korean paper Cho Sun Ilbo, North Korea 'employs 500-600 hackers who are tasked with hacking into computer networks and disabling enemy command and communication systems.' The person making this claim is Dr. Byeon Jae-jeong of the South Korean Defense Ministry's Agency for Defense Development (ADD). He claims the DPRK hackers to be 'equal to that of the CIA,' whatever that might mean."
There are two very large differences between the Korean War round 2, and Vietnam. The biggest being that there is no way to 'loose' such a war. What is the worst that could happen? North Korea holds off the invasion and has every last piece of infrastructure burned down?
The big difference is that there is no where for North Korean to go. Charging across the border into South Korea would be insane. Not only would they have to go over the most heavily defended border in the world, fight the South Koreans which easily rank in the top 5 of best militaries who are backed up by the number one in military might, they would have to pick their way through a very hostile indigenous population very much willing to fight to the end rather then be ruled over by the North. North Korea doesn't want a fight with the US. The best the North could ever hope for is that they devastate South Korea with WMDs and artillery and that after the US is done nuking their asses for using chemical weapons, the US doesn't feel the number of lives lost in the invasion of the radioactive cesspool that would remain would be worth it.
The closest to victory North Korea can get is the collapse of its central government and devastation to rival South Korea, while letting the US gets off having just expended a sick amount of explosives on what little there is to blow up. Maybe if they really felt ambitious they could manage to nuke L.A. and have their nation turned glass by the retaliatory nuclear strike.
I think the big difference between North Korea and Iraq is that the US went in with a screwed up neo-con belief that they could make the place better. Anything that would provoke the US into attacking North Korea (and thus damning Seoul) would be done out of sheer rage, and be done with absolutely no regard to civilian life or thoughts about rebuilding the nations. Having the US thrash your nation with its full power, totally indifferent to collateral damage, is really not going to be pretty.