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North Korea Training "Cyberwarriors" Abroad
jfruhlinger writes "A North Korean defector claims that the secretive totalitarian state is nurturing a team of "cyberwarriors," identifying young people with computer skills and sending them abroad to learn the latest hacking techniques, while lavishing privileges on their families at home to keep them loyal. This could lead to an escalation in tensions, especially given that the US military believes that cyberattacks from foreign countries constitute acts of war."
Well, if its state sponsored, i have to agree. An attack on a countries infrastructure is still war.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The US has already got their cyber warriors in training for this. They are using the highly sophisticate program/simulation game called "Homefront"
Attention... all grammer nazi"s! Is they're anything; wrong with: my post,
They are doing a war act and the universities if they are us should be ad risk of losing alot I say start at must give up all clams / must pay off any student loan debt and maybe even not being accredited any more. The people sent from there need to go into POW better then gitmo but with the risk of going to place like that if they don't give up there intel.
So, the totalitarian state with a complete control of the news sends its best and most idealistic young men outside the country, to learn about the internet, with the idea that they will go back home and use their knowledge to destroy the foreign enemies.
A fiendish plan. How could it possibly go wrong?
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
The Y2 issue was a 00 issue.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Defector says something host country wants to hear
Who would of thought such a thing would happen? . .
Who do they think these guys are going to learn from? Most of the "hacker underground" just wants some lulz or quick and easy cash these days. If the North Koreans think they are going to get their spies in touch with the Stuxnet authors, they have another thing coming.
Palm trees and 8
Meanwhile, back on the home front, applicants for the US Air Force's Cyber Command are redirected to a website with no working links for which to submit their resume, ask questions, or express their interest in any meaningful way. Those who spend hours on the phone trying to track down a recruiter who actually knows the requirements will eventually be told they don't qualify because of age, their eyesight is too bad, or that a (deceased) member of their family was involved in anti-war protesting fifty years ago, and so they would never qualify for a security clearance. The best of the best of the best... see rules for official details. Some restrictions may apply.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
If you think the psychopathic dictators in North Korea use carrots to keep expats loyal, you're crazy. Their families are held hostage - to the extreme. These expats know full well that, should they fail to return, their families will be moved to one of many NK concentration camps (best scenario) or just summarily executed (more likely).
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
So......do they actually let their families have electricity for a few hours a day? Maybe even give them a bit of rice every now and then?
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
They are doing a war act and the universities if they are us should be ad risk of losing alot
So universities shouldn't accept students from Korea? Or China?
If the Internet is going to be a theater of future conflicts, then isn't it sensible for *all* countries to have some aptitude in the area? Has the US sworn off having any "cyberwarriors" of its own? Or is there really going to be one set of rules for the US and another set of rules for the rest of the world?
Republican fearmongering says we need to invade North Korea.
Don't be silly. North Korea *actually* has nukes. The US has no problem invading people *suspected* of having nukes, but hell if they'll set foot in any place that actually has them. They had plenty of legitimate opportunities to invade North Korea and just shrugged it off. 1) North Korea routinely threatens the South AND the US. 2) They aren't bullshitting - they've actually sunk SK military ships, bombed islands, kidnapped people from the south, counterfeit US currency, etc, etc 3) They openly test above ground nuclear weapons and *long range* missiles in an attempt to put Japan in range WHO IS NOT allowed to have a military (Plus they have the balls to use the word "dong" to name their missile name... Type-of-Dong which would make getting deep-throated by one that much more humiliating) 5) Any threat to Japan is a threat to the US who is in charge of protecting them in exchange for giving up the military.
But none of these compare at all to an OPEC member threatening to sell oil in Euros.
If you haven't noticed yet, these people can get really good at anything they set their mind to. They have crazy work ethic, they can work themselves to death. Of course there is not much to do in North Korea other than work and sleep. And having your family hold hostage probably helps too. You do know how they identify the potential hackers? They pick them from geek forums like this.
Since when has fear mongering been solely a Republican vice? Remember Senator Clinton got right in line behind Bush to start the Iraq fiasco ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtK9AzcU42g ), and Obama has gotten us into a third war.
The only hope we have is that China will stop lending us money to blow up shit, but neither Democrats nor Republicans have demonstrated any motivation to decelerate our entry into any war possible.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Sounds like kim jun ill might have done a bit of frank herbert reading. Isn't that how the emperor kept the sardaukar loyal? by telling them that it was a test all along and that they were the best of the best, then lavish perks on them.
except when such cyber warfare is directed at Iran by a join Israel/U.S. operation. Then it's just ... uh. Definitely not war.
We're technically still at war with North Korea, at least they still think we are. We're really going to get them now...
Exactly, 3 weeks out of North Korea and they'll never go back.
N. Korea has no oil (*), nor is it in any shipping lanes. It's safe.
Libya: oil exporter
Iraq: oil exporter
Afghanistan: Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline (proposed Natural Gas route)
(*) Well maybe a little -- an estimated 12 million barrels: http://www1.korea-np.co.jp/pk/072nd_issue/98120202.htm
For context, the US burns 19.15m barrels per day, so N. Korea's potential reserves amount to about a 15 hour supply for the US. In other words, N. Korea has no oil.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Cyberwarrior is the most ridiculous piece of psy-op, misinformation the public is bombarded with. A Cyberwarrior is no more a "Warrior" than my tea-cup poodle is a "Guard" dog. We do need skilled computer scientist, information security specialist, cryptologist, and cryptanalyst to fight against those who would stage attacks against freedom loving internet enthusiasts. But "Warriors" they are not. If you don't agree with me, then you don't agree with the dictionary either....I have no love for North Korea but they are only trying to protect themselves from the (US Government and Israel) which the evidence points to them as the aggressors in the Iranian Nuclear Power Plant computer virus...
"WHO IS NOT allowed to have a military (Plus they have the balls to use the word "dong" to name their missile name... Type-of-Dong which would make getting deep-throated by one that much more humiliating) 5) Any threat to Japan is a threat to the US who is in charge of protecting them in exchange for giving up the military."
Totally false. Japan spends almost as much on their military as the United Kingdom. They just don't call it one.
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?cid=GPD_42
Japan: (1/100)*5068996399491 = 5.07 10^10 UK: 2174529808278*(2.7/100) = 5.87 10^10
By some (possibly more reliable) estimates, it is more: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/japan/jda.htm
Great Intellect...
In Dictatorship of North Korea : You Hack Government!
We don't know that. We should send some prospectors in there just to be sure. Maybe we will find some gold? I think the US Treasury is going to need some soon...
I am John Hurt.
Also, North Korea is developing nuclear weapons. This could lead to an escalation of tensions, given that the US military believes that nuclear attacks constitute acts of war.
...they should do that with some economists, and maybe try to feed their people.
"This could lead to an escalation in tensions, especially given that the US military believes that cyberattacks from foreign countries constitute acts of war."
*cough CHINA cough*
RTFS.
"sending them abroad to learn the latest hacking techniques, while lavishing privileges on their families at home to keep them loyal", where the privileges probably mean the precious privilege of being alive.
They are not put to a prison camp. If their offspring defects, that privilege is revoked.
Or more accurately, the precious privilege of keeping one's family alive.
Of course they have to send computer students to study computers in places where computers exist.
Simply not the case for two main reasons. One, North Korea is not Eastern Europe with a disgruntled population resenting an oppressive government, but essentially a nation of true believers. Their Stalinist propaganda state has reached levels that Stalin only dreamed of. The government not only controls all the methods of communication, but actually has the population believing what they say. It's like an entire national cult, and anybody who might not believe or doubts gets put in a camp along with their family. That gets to two, which is they put a great deal into the family. If somebody screws up, they don't just pay, but their entire family pays. Defector's families go to camps. Piss off a party member and your entire family gets moved to some even worse part of NK and will never get a good job again. That they are even allowed enough education to find out they are good at hacking means they come from a loyal family to begin with. To defect, they'd have to not only betray their country, but also their family and upbringing. Traditionally, defectors only happened when they found out their heads were to be put on the block in the short future. In the choice between dieing and having their families go to camps, they chose to defect and have their families go to camps. These days, the lower classes are defecting more and more to SK but point one kicks in and they find it difficult to even understand it and some even go back, or then two kicks in and they end up sending money back home. It's even suspected that NK is sending workers to SK so they can send money back home, where it is collected by the government.
north korea the best korea
A cyber team would need botnets. Good computers. Expensive software.
Little in the way of resources? You can't even crack passwords without a decently powered computer or series of computers to do it.
Yes you might be able to do it with a PS3 and sure it's cheaper to pay for cyber warriors than for airforce pilots or something like that, but it's cheaper on paper than it will be in practice.
Finally it depends on the kind of attack. Not every attack requires a lot of money or resources. The expense would come in the form of support. If someone is going to hack some important network they are going to need state of the art communications equipment and this wont be chap. They will need support which might require satellite images and other help which once again wont be cheap.
On the other hand if you just want them to DDOS a bunch of websites and act like script kiddies this sort of "hacking" doesn't require any support because anybody could do it, and it's relatively easy.
If you have better hardware to run your botnet on, you can crack passwords faster, crash servers faster via DDOS, or do many things better.
Beyond this for coordination, communication and intelligence high technology is essential. Satellites aren't cheap. Truly secure encrypted communication mechanisms aren't cheap. None of this stuff will be cheap.
North Koreans do not have the advantage in computing power. They might have the advantage in man power, training, skill, but not in computing power. This means everything you are saying is right and that cyberwarfare will require a lot of resources but I think the resources would mainly be support resources. I don't think training will be all that necessary, theres more than enough people with the skill in the USA. The problem is organizing them.
Step one, create a service and draft people. Step two, fully fund the service and the missions. Step three, pay for the best tools, best hardware, best support team.
Whatever the US is doing right now obviously isn't working. The US (at least the FBI) last I checked is still focused on crime fighting, on child porn, and on everything but cyberwarfare. Cyber crime isn't really the same problem as cyberwarfare. Cyberwarfare is backed by a state while cybercrime usually results in a lot of American hackers being arrested over stupid charges.
They'll probably recruit from the underground. Since the underground needs cash, North Korea would probably just offer cash for code.
Then they'll read the code, learn to write their own code, and thats how they'll learn.
The Stuxnet authors? You think they are the only skilled programmers? They are the skilled programmers recognized by the government, probably with clearance, but not the only skilled programmers. The North Korens can target game developers and find programmers with an equal level of skill if not greater.
I doubt these North Koreans have a better choice. They either serve North Korea and their families get privileges or they don't an their families get tortured or killed.
Since nobody knows exactly what goes on in North Korea, the privilege could be allowing them to stay alive.
That is a good question. Nobody actually defines what a cyber warrior is. I assume it's any hacker or former hacker who helps the feds.
The government needs to decide what a cyber warrior is and what their mission is. That being said anyone who risks their life and who fights in war is either a soldier or a warrior. Hackers get killed, hackers risk their lives, so they are warriors as much as anybody else, but they are information warriors.
Each of these technologies requires a base station, a point of ingress into an internal network. You cant simply just beam a microwave signal into nowhere. If a country wanted to cut itself off from the internet, it would be quite easy as you can simply shut down the transmitters and outgoing routers.
Where did you learn about wide area networking?
Or wireless, I'm yet to see a wireless technology that did not require a receiver. That would a physical bit of hardware that can be shut down, well, physically.
Countries like Thailand and China already control all the points of interconnect for data, it wouldn't be hard for the US or UK to completely isolate themselves if the need arises (they simply have more points of interconnect to send troops to). But what is more likely is that vital infrastructure is simply removed from the public grid. An air gap can easily be gated by a human. When Mil.net 1 wants to send something to Mil.net 2, the data can be loaded onto USB key, a Pvt simply moves this from the private USB slot to the public USB slot where it can be transmitted (or just carries the key over manually).
Seriously, what do they teach people about network security these days.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.