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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."
But what about the NSA?
An acronym of ADD could lead to great jokes about... ... hey wanna go ride bikes?
1. how does north korea get any bandwidth? Do they cross connect with china?
2. what good do mad hacking skills do you when you've just been assigned farm duty?
3. How can you hack with out access to doritos and pepsi?
My God folks, how is this news? Is anyone really surprised that a militant nation engages in information warfare?
------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
So does this mean that North Korean hackers have outdated information about their own country's WMDs?
maybe if the CIA wasn't using such out dated software and dedicated so much of their time searching for the evils of the world then they could catch up on their reading and protect us from larger threats than a plane going into a building. I'm sure there is some pretty smart guys in the CIA, but what motive to they have to improve their skills? I'm too tired to put much more thought into this but this is nothing surprising we all know the russians are way better than us as well. By the way how are the people working on stem cells comparing the rest of the world right now. . . about the same that figures. this is my 2 cents for the moment, please mister CIA guys don't come knocking on my door, i've gotta go to sleep before work tomarrow.
Force of Will = Glue 'nuff said.
Perhaps instead of employing 500-600 hackers to deter a threat that they create to intimidate their own people they should consider giving their people some food so they don't starve to death.
Thankfully, our intelligence-gathering/spying community is awful!
Well, first of all: The CIA isn't tasked with electronic/computerised intelligence/counterintelligence; that's the NSA's job.
And, second of all: Having experienced the wrath of korean hax0r's myself, while playing Counter-Strike, I can easily believe this.
/dev/random
I watched Hackers and I KNOW this is what it takes to be l33t.
If they could haxor a Gibson, I'd be f34ring 3m.
-J4
Silly Rabbit: tricks are for kids.
Can somebody give this to me in Libraries of Congress or Volkswagon Bugs?
He means, "They're not very good, but ignorant sheep will probably assume that they are."
Now why he would want to say something like that is, IMO, a more interesting question...
[o]_O
why does democratic South Korea compare N. Korea to the U.S.? Is this something they want to draw international attention to because it "threatens" their security? I know S. Korea is the closest land to N. Korea but this is over-reacting.
Everyone knows that the CIA hackers are 31337 and hack people ALL the time! They even hack into computers that aren't even connected to the 'net! I once saw this hacker and he hacked a system so much that it EXPLODED and it KILLED like a million people! And that was just with his pinky. And I knew right then he had to be a CIA hacker d00d. And I asked him. And he hacked my laptop which was OFF and closed AND HAD no battery! And he did it just by looking at it and he scowled and he turned around and then he hacked a park bench and then digitally vanished. And when I opened my laptop it said "I'm a CIA hacker d00d and am 31337. Tell n0 0n3." Oh crap... ,mnb,b4, #$$# NO CARRIER>>>
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
Hackers? Simple. Embargo asbestos shipments.
Insane fascist dictators in southeast Asia?
I agree with your post, but are you referring to North Korea/Kim Jong-il? I'm no geography buff, but I could swear North Korea was, well, north.
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
"a five-year school that has been turning out about 100 cyber warfare specialists a year since 1981" -- back in 1981 computers weren't very prevalent and hackers were a minor nuisance at worst. The Internet was limited strictly to research labs and universities, I strongly doubt that NK even had a single internet connection in the whole country back in 1981. Yet they were turning out 100 cyber warriors per year?
This is a joke. If North Korea did try a "cyber attack" on America we could cut off their internet with a pair of scissors. The average cable modem user in America has more bandwidth than their entire country. It's hard to afford computers and network access when 99.9% of your GDP goes to support your military and feed your people.
korea.blackholes.us :-)...
Maybe you should look at a map of Asia.
I've seen this mentioned here quite some time ago (no, I don't have the relavent link at hand). Anyway, my guess is these 'hackers' might be 'cookbookers' who are just 'following scripts' put out by 'real hackers' (really system crackers). However, as North Korea is a recoginzed 'terrorist state' and has 'The Bomb', this threat should not be taken lightly.
If the CIA or any other world famous security organization have their act together, all the 'good stuff' is on an internal computer network that has ABSOLUTELY NO CONNECTION TO THE INTERNET (or any other form of 'at large' telecommunications). This is very important as it is impossible to break into such a system -- there is no 'front door' to use to gain access. The usual procedure is to have two computers side by side: one on the secure internal network and the other connected to the internet/unsecure network. A human being is required to type information from the insecure PC to the secure one and vice versa. In this setup, the only way the secrets can get out is if the human in this situation is incompetent, being blackmailed (and told no one who can help them), or an outright traitor -- there are no other alternatives.
There is a slight chance of passively picking up the secret stuff with a so called TEMPEST attack but surely the IT people at these kind of organizations have already taken measures to make such attacks effectively impossible.
The CIA Factbook has little to say, but a Wired article seems to dismiss the threat, although it notes information is hard to come by.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
One of the reasons we removed Saddam from power was to prevent him from getting nuclear weapons and becoming another Kim Jong-il. You seem to ask why we didn't liberate North Korea instead of Iraq. The reason is simple - if we go after North Korea then millions of our allies in South Korea will die. Seoul is very close to the border, and NK has a ton of missiles aimed at the SK capital right now - possibly some nuclear missiles. Right now the only way to deal with NK is to use diplomacy and to isolate Jong-il from the rest of the world. As each year passes, the world advances and becomes richer while NK stays stuck in 1950 forever. We can afford to wait this one out.
North Korea is not in southeast Asia. Northeast Asia is comprised of China, Japan, and the Koreas (plus places like Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Okinawa). I'm very much aware that north is a relative term, but my point was that Korea is still Northeast Asia.
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
And I bet they play golf like their Glorious Leader does!
The same map in which the Koreas, Japan, China, and regions like Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Okinawa make up East (not southeast) Asia. I'm quite aware that the "north" in North Korea is relative, but if you think North Korea is in southeast Asia, you're a fecking retard.
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
When your country is run by a bunch of egomaniacal psychopathic nutjobs who are rapidly developing intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching your shores it doesn't really matter whether they have .0001 or 10000 times more nukes than you.
"LAPTOP IN HAND!"
Maybe they kidnap them from Japan.
See for example their history of doing the same to acquire knowledge about the outside world:
http://slate.msn.com/id/2087627/
I once saw The Wrath of Kahn dubbed in Pakistani. The "KAAHHHHHHHNNNNN" line was mysteriously removed and replaced with a "nothing to see hear" placard.
Ok, first off, China won't handle it because of conflicting interests: It's interested in the SK economy, but ideologically NK is more likely to be their "friend". Second: Europe has had its own share of wars and enough internal problems to deal with. Once those problems are dealt with, maybe we'll see something happening. Third: The US has a national debt deeper than a black hole! The US owes money to everyone, so guess what, they bargain! They say "you owe us this much, so go take care of that, and we'll scrap that much off your debt". Of course, to go in and fix things costs $$, and we borrow more money... Thus it's a vicious circle, which our president obviously has NO CLUE of, since he virtually sank our debt when he took power. At least Clinton had realized the problem and was trying to get us independent! Now you go and think like that, and we'll be in a deeper shithole than we already are. Oh, and by the way, the US has less population than Europe, and China dwarves just about anyone on the planet. Should they try an invasion anywhere, they're guaranteed success just because of numbers. Just because we've got technology for "surgical strikes" doesn't mean we can stop everything. What good is a surgical strike going to do against 10,000 people coming after us? Get a basic idea of military strategy and a few reality checks now and then. I don't believe NK can dedicate that many ressources to hackers. More likely they're multiplying those numbers by 10 to make it sound great, but to tell you the truth, the hackers are probably under constant surveillance, because the leader trusts no one who has had contact with the outside. Besides, he didn't say it was the US' job to take care of the problem, did he? He just compared their hackers to what our CIA can do. Which, to be honest, is rather poor a standard. A comparison to the NSA would've been a better choice, if their level was good. Obviously they're confused. And I can't blame them. The whole planet has the impression the CIA is spying on them, thanks to those great myths created by Gary Powell and the Cuban Missile crisis... Times change, myths too, but usually they don't disappear, they get shadier the whole time.
---- I am certain of only one thing : I know nothing else.
As soon as the north magnetic pole drifts over N. Korea then it will be. That is, until the Earth's magnetic poles flip, at which time it will south of everything.
If you don't want crime to pay, let the government run it.
The Korea Times has a more informative version of this article.
One of the reasons we removed Saddam from power was to prevent him from getting nuclear weapons and becoming another Kim Jong-il.
Actually, it wasn't known that Korea had nuclear weapons until after the end of the Iraq war - the war ended halfway through 2003 and Korea claimed they had nukes in September 2004.
One good turn - gets all the covers.
This could be true, but the hackers would have to be based outside North Korea.
Why? Because NK doesn't have a whole slew of bandwidth coming in / going out. Every single packet going in/out of NK is probably intercepted by the U.S. and S. Korea. And it would not be any sort of disruption to cut off NK internet access.
However, I am assuming NK could send covert agents to SK, and launch their cyber attack there. Intercepting and analysing all packets would not be an option with a wired country like SK... and cutting off SK from the U.S. would not be economicly or politicly viable, if it could even be done.
Personally, I am not worried about some great cyber attack. Every day on the Internet is a cyber attack. There are people who are not affiliated with any government, and maybe aren't even political, who are probably just as good as NK hackers, and do all kinds of mischief and mayhem every day. In a strange way, all the hackers, work creaters, script kiddies, and zombie spammers have made the net immune to any sort of attack (because any sort of attack would probably be unnoticable from any normal day).
President Bush to Liberate Alaska!
they're in their mothers basements.
Two years ago, we received an application from a S.Korean, and I emailed him back advising that we had receieved his application, etc.
Then, it happened: my office account was added to some anti-N.Korean mailing list, run by the applicant. For weeks, I was treated to his views of N.Korea.
Moral of the story: The applicant was not accepted.
Why don't those communists wear any ties?
Because.... we all know a hacker is a short-sleeved man with a tie!
|<1|\/| j0|\|8 i1-337
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
In other words, North Carolina is a Southern state, while South Dakota is not.
Hear recorded Slashdot headlines on your phone! New service beta testing. Just call (248) 434-5508
"Iraq has the 4th largest army in the world". That's what they kept telling us before the first Iraq war.
Now North Korea has an almost as big army of hackers as US...
Pattern or coincidence?
Sneak teach kids Algebra using a game
Um no, we knew they had nukes, they just didn't admit it until a little while ago.
I mean first it's the NSA that concerns itself with electrionic intelligence, not the CIA. The CIA is about human intelligence. Also an offensive tasking seems like it would more likely be a DoD thing, Airforce maybe though who knows. NSA/CIA are more about intelligence gathering than any kind of direct offensive support, at least offically.
At any rate, how the hell would this guy have any idea how good they are, espically given he can't keep the agencies straight? I mean the NSA is very secretive, they don't say much on how they operate, what particularly they do, etc. The nature of an intelligence agency. What's more, there hasn't been a conflict where any sort of US syber warfare division would have had much to do to demonstrate their prowess.
So we have no information on training, no public demonstrations of capabilities, and no wartime demonstrations. Ok, great, so basically anything we say about it is total specualtion. The US's capability could be anything from three teenagers playing Counterstrike all day to a huge team of the best trained hackers in the world. There's just no way to know.
So it looks like this guy is talking out his ass on the US capabilities, which makes me think he's probably doing the same on North Korean capabilites. I mean they may have lots, they may have none, but who knows?
However it really seems to be of little concern, given that North Korea has little Internet access to their nation. I mean people in the US and Europe tend to take for granted the large number of well connected providers around, that's not the case in NK. It wouldn't take much to totally cut them off from the rest of the Internet.
Besdies, in theory at least, all US military control and all classified data travels on networks physically seperate from the Internet. Goes back to the Kennedy assanation where the government found the PSTN so clogged they couldn't communicate and so worke don getting their own. Today the policy, and hopefulyl the implementation, is an air gap: physical seperation of classified networks from the Internet. So a "cyber attack" might screw a bunch of people with in secure comptuers for a couple days, but it wouldn't stop the B-2s from comming.
How does Dr. Byeon (Byun?) Jae-jeong know what capabilities the CIA has? If South Korea is aware of "39 wiretapping devices", shouldn't they be able to shut them down? Assuming all of this is true, even if the US power grid is hacked into and knocked out by North Korea, would it really take that long to get it back up and running? The Blackout of 2003 didn't seem to be a huge catastrophe. I *highly* doubt that US Pacific Command is vulnerable to any sort of internet attack, but I could be wrong. (From The Korea Times) "Byun called on the government to increase the budget for the buildup of the core capability needed to cope with advanced scientific and information warfare, especially for the protection of information." Maybe this guy just wants more money and is willing to make stuff up to get it?
"US has less population than Europe, and China dwarves just about anyone on the planet. Should they try an invasion anywhere, they're guaranteed success just because of numbers. Just because we've got technology for "surgical strikes" doesn't mean we can stop everything. What good is a surgical strike going to do against 10,000 people coming after us?" I don't think it is you who doesn't understand how strategy and tactics work. What good are your 10,000 people if I knock down their power station, fuel and food suply, and use an EMP weapon to disable their communication and electronics, they are just as good as 10,000 cows ready to get slaughtered. Or maybe they'll just start jumping in sync hoping to cause an earthquake. We are long past the "let's dig trenches and shoot each other with machines guns for months on end without gaining any ground." The one who has the technology wins today not the one who has the numbers. Look at the numbers of US military casualties in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan versus the casualties of the other side, that will explain what "surgical strikes" can do.
And as much as I would prefer living in the south to the north any day, information about North Korea coming from the south is not very reliable.
He claims the DPRK hackers to be 'equal to that of the CIA,' whatever that might mean.
1. S. Korea knows how good N. Korean hackers are. meaning they've seen their work or have been attacked.
2. S. Korea knows how good CIA hackers are through the same methods.
3. CIA's hacking qualities has to be 'up there' or else making the comparison would be meaningless.
HD Trailers
You can spot the affected systems right away - the screens are frozen and display the cryptic message: "All your base belong to us!"
The country itself need not have enough bandwidth. Distributed DoS could take down a box using american zombie PCs. And let me tell you, there is no dearth of those. An attack from the inside of the network is perfectly possible - ever read Andromeda Strain ?. A compromised machine inside your network would need you to have a LOT of scissors :)
> It's hard to afford computers and network access when 99.9% of your GDP goes to support your military and feed your people.Cyber warfare is military funded ... It is military without all the blood and guts routine - with all the Art of War fire tactics.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
I'm not going to say our guys are smarter than their guys. But something tells me they don't have anywhere NEAR the cool toys that the CIA has to play with. Crypto smackdown, bring it on.
include $sig;
1;
Seems to me that the Iraq war is still going on - after all, US troops (and Iraqi civilians) keep on getting attacked and killed there.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
...8 years ago, as this article will show you.
When the Koreans find out the western world is using PC's now instead of the Amiga 500's they got off the black-market, they will surely shiver when they realize their X-Copy Pro skills are useless.
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
Bar actual *trenches* (they use sandbags?) that sounds pretty much like Iraq to me. The US still doesnt have full control of baghdad.
I know the US soldier deaths to iraqi civilian deaths ratio is still pretty impressive but this just shows the correct conclusion is "Technology means we can kill more of them while losing less of our own" - it still doesnt win a war.
Bush and Blair ate my sig!
"But hopefully no one will cut the phone-
cable, which we use to connect us phreaka-like
to da infiltraded south-imperialistic
satellite-uplink-station. And from dere to da
communikation bagbone of da world.
This would destroy all our dreams of aoa world dominadion...
Stalin is a cool!"
North Korea is known to be actively trying to achieve nuclear weapons.
North Korea is known to have killed thousands, if not millions of its own people thanks to its goverment (predominately famine).
North Korea is run by a complete and utter barking mad nutter.
So nuclear weapons... that puts them up with first world nations from the... 1940s and 50s. They have a rocket that can't even make it to Japan and their leader is much more interested in self-publicity and oppressing his population than almost anything else.
Having 500 "hackers" trying to compromise networks in the west... well they've been SPECTACULARLY successfull haven't they with all the networks they've caused to fail over the last few years.
North Korea is a Bad Country(tm) but lets not believe what South Korea says. We know that North Korea has no RADAR worth talking of as the US have deployed stealth fighters, which means the radar must be 20+ years out of date.
Backward country, backward leader, backward tech. They could build a huge amount (see South Korea) if they just stopped killing their own people, fortunately for all of us (and unfortunately for N Koreans) their leader appears to quite like doing the killing and posturing, more than actually delivering.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
To make sure we are on the right side of the impending war. Quite simple really:
George can have his war there is he wants to. - but can america afford it ?
Send Peter Clifford Francis Macrae comdoms to 23 Bedford St, St.Neots, PE19 1AX, England
Yeah, but are they as good as my neigbor's 12 year old?
Dont they need electricity first? Last time i checked a night lights satellite of the world N Korea was one of the few dark spots.
And Iraq had more hacking capabilities than North Korea anyway. At least they dropped off the good guy list only in the 90es (meaning, they had access to all the technologies dveloped in the meantime. Plus, they had oil, so I think Putin sold his mother to them too, before the war).
Anyway, what's the problem with North Korea is that they're fucking aliens. I mean, in Iraq, nobody loved Saddam, and nobody wants him back. But in NK, they got their brains washed for ages. They'll bomb us the next day with nukes, if they actually HAVE some. I seriously doubt they have. Along with hacking capabilities.
Now, we might invade them tomorrow, with maybe 10 losses from our side and give them democracy and such shit. But then, they'll probably start making cars instead of nukes and kill our economy even more.
Long life to Kim Jong-Il!
nbody2002:If you can read this you may be addicted to the internet
If pwned = owned, does DPRK = DORK?
-- jay proulx pollensoft
This clame sounds like a farce. Political smoke.
Hackers are advanced techno spys. Announcing you have them really screws up how effective they are.
If they were as effective as the CIA counterparts they aren't anymore. Sure everyone knows the CIA has hackers but as a rule nobody thinks about them. You make your hackers know everyone is on guard against you.
As for how good they are, If they exist there is no way to know if they are any good at all.
They could be the authors of all the spam zombie viruses. They may have created the root kits. Or there hacking may be limited to TV ads saying you should share your passwords with the state.
I don't actually exist.
Look at the numbers of US military casualties in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan versus the casualties of the other side, that will explain what "surgical strikes" can do.
No, that would explain what a policy of carpet bombing can do. Really less of a surgical strike and more a brute force style attack.
Past the stage of 'lets dig trenches and shoot at each other for months on end'? Refresh my memory how long has the US been 'policing' Iraq now?
Aside from the fact that that's a mostly meaningless statement, perhaps he was referring to the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA).
"Our interests are to see if we can't scale it up to something more exciting," he said.
First hire a bunch of hot babes to work for you.
Now use those hot babes to make geeks post randomly on Slashdot.
Now your hacking as good as the hackers in the CIA.
I don't actually exist.
This is a SOUTH korean paper about NORTH korean hackers. This is not one nation calling their own hackers l33t as numerous posts above have suggested.
Given how absurd some of his information is and given how much NK like to exaggerate and fabricate when self promoting, could this SK guy be working with NK? Did he just blow his cover?
What better reason to make such a dumbfounded statement that over-glorifies NK. This guy was paid to do it. Or at least his information source was.
Night vs. Day.
South Korea is the most "connected" nation in the world, with some 80% of households having broadband, and the average broadband connection being 4 MBits/s.
North Korea, well, can hardly feed themselves.
Take a look at North Korea vs South Korea in this NASA "Earth at night" image; it's really telling. South Korea is amongst brightest countries in the world, while North Korea is just this sudden dark, dark "void" sitting conspicuously between South Korea and China.
It is interested how the argument changes. At first Bush said we had to get Saddam out because he had WMD. Now that we know that the CIA and the Republicans once agina lied, as they did during Nixon and Reagan, the story is that he was going to get them.
N Korea has been taunting the US during most of the Bush II presidency. And while we seem to have no problem going in and killing old men and children, and torturing civilians, and peeing on the Koran, the truth is we have no stomach for a real battle. I mean one helicopter shot down has kept us out of anarchist country for years.
And it would be a good idea to stay out of trouble for a few years. Given our violations of international law over the past few years, it would be extremely dangerous for us to get into a real war. Now that the world knows we will torture, and we will leave wounded enemy soldiers ont he ground, and we will shoot defenseless wounded soldiers, our soldiers are going to be in more danger than in a very long while. The enemy is going it going to know the choices are kill, be killed, or be tortured. There is no hope anymore of sitting out the war in cozy American prison camp.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
But I call BS. Probably nothing more than FUD, paranoia, and hot air
I am Spartacus
The CIA? That blows any sort of credibility in the report. The CIA doesnt run "hakcers", the Department of Defense does, HQ'd on an Airforce base. It was publicised back in April in this article on Wired.com Yes there is a trehat to the free world's information infrastructure. And it is a danger. But the main article far overstates it. The referenced original article is propaganda, pure and simple. Someone must want some budget money, so they scare up a foe to be bigger than it is.
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo! http://goo.gl/J9bkO
Of the many ridiculous and unsuported comments you made I will address this one.
The marines who were going street to street in Fallujah will probably take exception to the "no stomach for real battle" comment. We aren't playing patty-cake over there.
The message was talking about a country invading us. Now of, course if we want to invade a country we'll have to do with insurgency like we had to do in Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan, but if Europe or China wanted to launch an attack on us, even though they have all the men, they will not be able to do it with just bowls of rice and AK-47, they need communication and support infrastructure, which, if disabled would disable and disarm the offensive rather quickly.
Fighting guerillas is another story, I was talking about WWIII type of conflict.
The message was talking about a country invading us. Now of, course if we want to invade a country we'll have to do with insurgency like we had to do in Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan, but if Europe or China wanted to launch an attack on us, even though they have all the men, they will not be able to do it.
Fighting guerillas is another story, I was talking about WWIII, and how it would differ significantly from WWI and WWII.
He claims the DPRK hackers to be 'equal to that of the CIA,' whatever that might mean."
I take that to mean their sloppy script kiddies with government funding. They get caught frequently, only successful in the most rudementry of attempts, and are hired because their budy was the step son of the director.
If he had said the NSA I'd be impressed.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Those who love their country know that there's no such thing as "good enough".
Those who hate everything good about America tend to rant on and on about liberals.
[o]_O
You should consider that in warfare (electronic or physical) one of the major breakers isn't manpower but technology. A country with an armed force of a a million soldiers carrying rifles isn't going to do much against several thousand fighter-jets, laser-guided bombs, battleships, and tanks.
The internet is a bit of a different battleground though, your tech doesn't have to be good so long as you can 0WNZ3R somebody else's tech... and trust me there are lots of powerful botnets etc there out on the market...
Yes, we know how well Diplomacy and Isolation work. It was working perfectly well on Iraq for over 10 years. Saddam was no threat at all to the world until you fools elected Bush. Thanks to Bush, you have no right at all to claim diplomacy and isolation is the answer to anything.
Bush had only one simple intention: To destabilize world oil markets through his lies and false fears in order to increase the price of oil so he and his oil buddies could make more profit.
The results of the war:
No evidence whatsoever of any WMD's. No evidence whatsoever that any WMD's were removed from Iraq to other countries. Your preventative war was an absolute bust and a waste of lives.
Your own president has publicaly stated that there was no evidence at all that Iraq had anything to do with 911 or Al Qaeda.
But you did manage to murder hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, 1600+ US citizens so far, and make millions more around the world hate you.
The only scraps of technology found in Iraq related in any way to WMD's were the blown up remains of what the first gulf war destroyed.
Meanwhile, Bush is best friends with a proven terrorist with Billions to spend on any weapon he wants (Khadaffi), and best friends with a nuclear military dictatorship (pakistan). Woo! Khadaffi has renounced terrorism! I guess that absolves him of the responsibility for the hundreds he murdered blowing up airliners.
And lets not forget that the chemical weapons Saddam used on his own people were given to him by the USA during the Reagan administration. That's another 100,000+ deaths to blame on the USA.
The only 'preventative' war that would truly make the world a better place would be to blast every american politician to hell.
I don't blame Iran one bit for going ahead with nuclear research, its the only way to keep the USA out.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
"the Iraq war ended halfway through 2003"
Over 700 civillians died in the LAST MONTH in Iraq due to suicide bombings. I'll bet my last dollar that as bad as Hussein was, the citizens of Iraq were better off before the war then they are now.
Most of the US casualties have happened since "mission Accomplished".
Ya sure, the war's over all right.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
Westwood has known this for years.
somebody is in need of extra funding. Just bring out the terrorists and the koreans (the EVIL commie ones).
There may in fact be a small bit of hope for the USA afterall.
I hope there are millions more like you.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
North Korea is a recognized terrorist state
Overview of State-Sponsored Terrorism
This page is over 4 years old but still seems to be official as it is still 'up' at the time of this post.
Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, and Syria are also on this list for various reasons. Read the page for more information if you want to.
P.S. Want to export crypto outside USA/Canada and are in the USA? Read this first!
Crypto is (ultimately?) math.
Why treat a reversible mathematical transformation as a 'dangerous weapon' just because it can be used to hide secrets?
The 'terrorists' are using strong crypto in defiance of any countries rules on the subject. Why hamstring e-commerce and computer programmers world wide because of it?
Well, as a last resort, there is always Chaffing and Winnowing: Confidentiality without Encryption Let's see governments worldwide outlaw that!
this whole topic is l33t. We all know that the real reason North Korea is trying to hack the US is because they want access to free pr0n.
There are 10 types of people in the world; those who can read binary, and those who can't.
don't know but was this the work of the north korean hackers? http://news.techwhack.com/1347/04060505-msn-korea- hacked-for-stealing-user-passwords/
by the way...notice the article says independent parties reported this perhaps there are other independent parties in the U.S. who are even more capable than the CIA. just a guess
Some people believe 1-1=3 and for the sake of being politically correct, we should respect their differences
Saddam hadn't exactly been making a lot of progress on the nukes. All of the evidence cited by President Bush was, quite simply, wrong. There was "evidence" about Saddam trying to get yellow cake (uranium ore) from Nigeria (at least I think it was Nigeria). Completely unfounded; only a small fraction of the experts gave that report any credit. Then there was the one about Saddam getting metal tubes suitable for uranium enrichment. It really was too bad that the tubes were absolutely, completely unsuitable for uranium enrichment. The walls were too thick, the anti-weathering coating on the tubes would make some obvious problems for uranium enrichment. Of course, George Tenet conveniently forgot to tell Bush that all but one CIA expert on the matter thought the idea was total BS. So no, nukes weren't a reason. It was just the hawks rationalize.
"it's not about aptitude, it's the way you're viewed" - Galinda
As such I reiterate my earlier statement that a technologicaly superior force would succumb to a numerically superior and motivated force equiped with reliable weaponry. Again I refer to recent history to reinforce my point. The vietnam war and the Iraqi conflict. In the first instances the US was the agressor with a technologically superior army but succumbed to a motivated force with basic but reliable weaponry. In the second instance the technologically superior force has struggled to occupy and 'police' a nation with inferior weaponry.
It may have passed you by, but nevertheless my point was that any future global conflict would still involve a substantial ammount of 'trenchline' fighting. And in such a situation, as proved historically, the technologicaly superior force would not necessarily be the victor.
I agree with you whole heartedly. When the nukes are flying we'll see which is easier, having a large army with missile defence capability, a disparate population, and liquid movemnent - or companies making backup.
I cant help but think, we've seen what the world did in response to S11. Lets see what they do to a national threat.
> North Korea 'employs 500-600 hackers who are tasked with hacking into
> computer networks and disabling enemy command and communication systems.'
I served as an officer in an IT unit in the IDF.
All the computers that were connected to the Internet or to any other outside networks, were dedicated to the task and disconnected from the military networks.
North Korea, or any other organization of "hackers" for that matter, are going to have a hard time "hacking into computer networks" they don't have physical access to.
Captain: What happen ?
....
Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb.
Operator: We get signal.
Captain: What !
Operator: Main screen turn on.
Captain: It's you !!
CATS: How are you gentlemen !!
CATS: All your base are belong to us.
CATS: You are on the way to destruction.
Captain: What you say !!
CATS: You have no chance to survive make your time.
CATS: Ha Ha Ha Ha
Marques Johansson
That's the great thing about partisan politics - they allow stupid people like yourself to get by in life without having to do any thinking!
Gee, your two criticisms have been "your image looks bad" and "you're stupid." Huh. How FASCINATING. And, well, typical.
No thinking? Tell you what, chubby, why don't you think on this: Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo have been an incredible propaganda tool for al Qaeda and have caused untold damage to our chances of success in Iraq and against terrorism in general. Or this: dominionist Christians are in positions of high power in the GOP, and are doing everything in their power to turn America into a theocracy. Or this: Newsweek was lambasted by the right wing anti-free speech brigade, but it was Newsweek that was utterly correct. Or this: Ditto Dan Rather. Or this: the Pentagon lies with regularity; supporting the military does not mean believing the lies the Pentagon tells. Or this: two wrongs don't make a right. Or this: you've been brainwashed by right-wing propagandists who would rather you hate than think critically.
Don't fuck with me. I've shit bigger turds than you.
You may never read this being and AC, but if you do, remember that you have not made a point in your own favor here.
Here is why, you say 1.5+ million people died due to the sanctions. Fine, that is ok with me. However, the government of Iraq was actively circumventing the sanctions, trading oil for currency under the table. Ok, so the fine and upstanding government of Iraq uses this money to buy food and infrastructure improvements for the people that they love so much, right? Well no, I guess they didn't. In fact, they loved their people so much that they spent all that money on weapons and lining the pockets of the ruling family.
All you have done is point out EXACTLY what I am pointing out. Unfortunately you are like so many people that I see that think that each country lives in a bubble, isolated in all of its decisions, not affecting others outside its borders, never deserving of intervention regardless of the actions of its rulers.
Think on this, you observe a man in his home, his children are starving, he beats his wife, his home is falling apart, the lights are turned off, there is no running water and he is buying lots of guns and bombs instead of feeding his children. This is a microcosm of Iraq. They were falling apart internally and the majority of their funds were spent keeping their people in line and arming themselves for international wars, all the while comitting the most heinous human rights violations imaginable on their own populace.
And the US is unscrupulous for intervening? Where were you when these thing were going on in Iraq? Why speak up against it now that it is changing, even getting better for many of the people in that area of the world?
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
Apparently North Korea granted political asylum to some hijackers...in 1970, and they might have sold some weapons to a seperatist group that the Phillipino government regards as terrorists...or they might not have.
According to http://cfrterrorism.org/sponsors/northkorea2.html
# a 1983 bombing during a South Korean state visit to Burma that killed 17 South Koreans, including several cabinet members, and narrowly missed killing then South Korean President Chun Doo Hwan;
# and a 1987 in-flight bombing of a Korean Air Lines passenger jet that killed all 115 people on board.
Of course, you can't prove any of this beyond a shadow of a doubt.
The tubes were, however, the exact size specified in a particularly old (1950's), and unclassified set of documents on Uranium enrichment. They weren't totally unsuitable, just not very good. Weather coating can be removed.
I'm not saying he was getting anywhere on his program, but one can definitely make the case that the tubes were bought for this purpose because a) they matched a document on Uranium enrichment that it is very likely Saddam's scientists would have sought, and b) dual-use materials are the best way to get supplies for weapons development if you're under scrutiny.
I'm not disagreeing with your point, however.
And all of them seem to be coming out of your mouth...
Boo-hoo, go whine to mommy. Your fake sanctimony fools absolutely no one.
Kim Jong-Il is elected God, rides shooting star to Heaven. People among fittest in world. Rice production up 300%. DRPK doubleplusgood, America doubleplusungood. End of disinformation.