How Online Clues Located North Korea's Missile-Launcher Factories

itwbennett writes "It all started with a parade through Pyongyang on April 15, 2012, held to commemorate the birthday of the country's founder, Kim Il Sung. At this parade, one thing had analysts buzzing: six mobile launchers carrying KN-08 intercontinental ballistic missiles. Bloggers in China quickly noted the similarities between the trucks and those used by the Chinese military, right down to the shape of the windows and the grille pattern. It's the stuff of spy thrillers. A few seconds of video, literature, a couple of memoirs and Google Earth helped locate a secret North Korean military plant — and using none of the classified tools of the intelligence trade."

Comments

Open Source Intelligence

[Anonymous Coward]

"This is the world of open-source intelligence."

Remind me again as to how reddit foiled the Boston Marathon Bombing plot?

Re:Open Source Intelligence

[Technician]

This is called Overt Intelligence. Covert is spying on the hidden. Overt is gathering public info.

Re:Open Source Intelligence

[davester666]

What do you mean? We TOTALLY FOILED Germany's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

Unfortunately, we were looking West for the next attack, when we should have had at least a ship or two with radar pointed eastward.

Re:Open Source Intelligence

[nitehawk214]

reddit.... intelligence...

I see the problem with this logic.

Re:Can They Locate Slashdot Users??

[Calydor]

There's a comment boycott going on to protest the Beta. It's a step up from the flood of Fuck Beta comments.

Oh, really?

[CrimsonAvenger]

carrying KN-08 intercontinental ballistic missiles

Last I checked, those KN-08 ICBM's were mock-ups, not real missiles.

Note that apparently the KN-08 is a liquid-fueled ICBM, which means it is completely useless for defensive purposes (you don't store liquid fueled missiles fueled-up, you fuel them just before launch - which would take too long to allow them to be used to react to an attack), and only really useful for a first strike.

Re:Oh, really?

[Richard_at_work]

The KN-08 missiles on show were training rounds - you don't want live ordnance, even made safe, in a parade.

And there are many liquid fuelled missiles which dont need fuelling at the last moment.

Re:Oh, really?

[erice]

Note that apparently the KN-08 is a liquid-fueled ICBM, which means it is completely useless for defensive purposes (you don't store liquid fueled missiles fueled-up, you fuel them just before launch - which would take too long to allow them to be used to react to an attack), and only really useful for a first strike.

Not necessarily. Titan II used liquid fuel and could be kept fully fueled in the silo indefinitely.

Atlas could be fueled in 15 minutes. Late variants reduced this further but loading the kerosene in times of high tension, which could remain in the rocket for long periods, and only waiting to the last minute to load the liquid oxygen. These versions were also kept in silos so they were only vulnerable during the time needed to load the oxidizer.

Open Source?

[bobbied]

Ah, come on. Open source intelligence? What's unusual about this?

I remember from Tom Clancy's "Clear and Present Danger" where the CIA was watching Cable News, getting lots of information from what was freely available from the likes of CNN and Fox. I also remember watching CNN reporting from Down Town Baghdad while the US was dropping bombs at the start of desert storm. Can you say instant BDA on the raid? "Yes, our power just went out! Good thing we have battery powered equipment so we can show you what's happening next to ground zero. Oh wow, Baghdad TV just went off the air too!" You know that this often happens in real life.

What's important about this story is that the North Koreans messed up, assuming they intended to keep this development a secret. Somehow, I doubt they made a mistake, but this release was calculated, knowing that the west would figure out what's going on. They are simply too controlling.

Re:Open Source?

[Havokmon]

Ah, come on. Open source intelligence? What's unusual about this?

I remember from Tom Clancy's "Clear and Present Danger" where the CIA was watching Cable News, getting lots of information from what was freely available from the likes of CNN and Fox. I also remember watching CNN reporting from Down Town Baghdad while the US was dropping bombs at the start of desert storm. Can you say instant BDA on the raid? "Yes, our power just went out! Good thing we have battery powered equipment so we can show you what's happening next to ground zero. Oh wow, Baghdad TV just went off the air too!" You know that this often happens in real life.

What's important about this story is that the North Koreans messed up, assuming they intended to keep this development a secret. Somehow, I doubt they made a mistake, but this release was calculated, knowing that the west would figure out what's going on. They are simply too controlling.

The assumption is that the west didn't know anything about it. I bet the CIA has rooms full of people going over satellite images of North Korea that would make Google Maps look like something Magellan used.

I would be surprised if the west didn't know about it.

Now, that's totally different from discovering the Icelandic military (is there one?) has ICBMs. I would assume that's not a place we're actively looking to protect ourselves from.

Re:Open Source?

[X0563511]

You do realize that Tom Clancy's fiction novels are, well, fiction?

Re:Open Source?

[bobbied]

Yes, but I've had more than one person who was "in the know" about specific classified things tell me that Tom Clancy had an uncanny ability to somehow come up with fiction that matched reality too close and too often to be just a coincidence. I think he did a lot of careful research but he was also given information about some things he shouldn't have known as well.

But that begs the question why would he be given such information? I think the answer is more complex than it looks at first blush. I actually think that he was given real and exaggerated information on purpose in an effort to make the US sound more capable than we actually where at the time, while having the aura of being valid by providing known classified information along side the fiction. It was partially fact, partially propaganda.

But, even if he wasn't feed information on purpose, I'm sure he ferreted out a number of things that where classified by his careful investigation and observation of the things he wrote about. Some where lucky guesses, but NOBODY is that lucky.... (Even card counters in Vegas)....

So if his story says field CIA offices in foreign countries watch cable news, I'm going to bet they likely do. In fact, I'll bet they have folks assigned to this 24/7/365 for every major news service in every language they can to raise warnings of world events.

Re:Can They Locate Slashdot Users??

[Talderas]

Risking getting downmodded by lurking boycotters....

Filtering out the "fuck beta" comments. I found the comments on slashdot to be saner and more useful on the whole. I'm questioning what loss slashdot might suffer from losing those user because to me it seems like a lot of the acerbic toxicity has gone and disappeared.

Next steps

[sunking2]

Launch some missiles at it, wait for reports to come in on N.K.s largest indoor wedding reception hall being destroyed.