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North Korean Defector Spills Details On the Country's Elite Hacking Force
mattydread23 writes Business Insider interviewed Jang Se-yul, a North Korean defector who trained in the country's Mirim University alongside some of the hackers who make up its elite Bureau 121 hacking squad. He explains how they train: 'They take six 90-minute classes every day, learning different coding languages and operating systems, from C to Linux. Jang says a lot of time was spent dissecting Microsoft programs, like the Windows operating system, and how to attack the overall computer IT systems of enemy countries like the U.S. or South Korea.' He also explains that these hackers are among the elite in North Korea, and even though they have unfiltered information about the outside world that their countrymen lack, most of them would never dream of leaving. (See also this story from earlier this month about the life of North Korea's elite hackers.)
Well that's quite the range.
I'm also sure the guy who was never in the inner circle knows all the details and isn't making anything up.
I don't believe you! I definitely think this hack was an inside job.
As a sidenote, The Interview has now a torrent available.
Maybe we can torture him to confess a link between North Korea and al Qaeda?
[...] these hackers are all aware of what’s going on in the outside world and how reclusive their country is — but they still won’t leave their country. “No matter how hard you try to convince them, they won’t leave [...]
Communist "loyalty" exam: do you love your family?
I think he'd just admit that we installed a puppet regime in NK.
Might as well have them permanently DDOS'd.
During the Cold War, how many KGB agents and upper level apparatchiks had unfiltered access to the West and yet stayed?
Love of County is a very powerful emotion, and elitist snobs who dismiss it can not understand a whole panoply of human motivations.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Hmm. Another piece of news that we need to be scared of North Korea, and that they hacked Sony for sure. I'm a bit suspicious of this, actually...
Considering what we learned from Edward Snowden I'd say this is actually the absolute minimum I'd expect them to be doing. When your enemy is the United States, obviously you are going to have strong cyber defence.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I bet it's better than this shit Security Course you get at Stanford.
this is Nayirah al-aba all over again
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
CIA/NSA propaganda machine is in full force. I predict US will be "liberating" north Korea in 2015.
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
In a country where the internet is about as commonplace as for us having your own rocket launch system in the backyard? Please. How do you hit NKor via internet? Take down their online payment system? Hack their official pages so their citizens would get to see defaced pics of li'l Kim?
How?
I can see that as an offensive force, but defense? Please.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Lame....lets peddle fear mongering "news" until the public feels we have enough reason to "liberate" another country. First WMD's under false pretenses, now this.
I just wonder what the Korean peninsula would be like if MacArthur followed orders instead of being an arrogant ass.
As long as we have dictatorships like in N. Korea, we will be a World that will always be in turmoil. I think the US and the rest of the World including (especially) China should do everything they can to undermine and discredit the leadership in that country. And then move on to other oppressive regimes around the World - I vote for Saudi Arabia and Iran as the next targets.
Do not get me wrong. The USA is not the beacon of Truth and Justice we like to think we are. During my workout this morning, I became disgusted with the propaganda that I saw on the morning shows. I will not give the summary of the propaganda I saw because it is extremely politically incorrect and the explanation always gets misunderstood by folks who have been brainwashed by the jingoist rhetoric we have been hearing for over a decade. (HINT: Start reading about the USA's geopolitics since WWII regarding oil supplies.)
The boogyman is ISIS now. Get with the rimes.
They forgot to mention how the final test, called the Kobayashi Maru, involves hacking a Gibson by playing tic-tac-toe while receiving a blow job from Jeff Bridges.
By this point it's not that difficult, because it's Unix and you know this, but making your MacBook interface with the alien computer you built from the schematics sent by Setec Astronomy is a bit of a challenge.
And of course those who fail will be taken away by agents and made to mow the lawn for the rest of their lives or something.
This is the biggest bunch of fake bullshit I've read in awhile.
The evil hackers in north korea are gonna get us! They have rocked the very foundations of america's national propaganda (hollywood) by attacking a japanese company and the only way to protect the children is to ram through whatever variation of SOPA / PIPA or other similar laws that failed or some other internet censorship bill that will be promoted as "security".
Whatever.
They take six 90-minute classes every day, learning different coding languages and operating systems, from C to Linux. And no lessons on how to draw a skeleton.
Will be to tell everyone about the uber elite, super scary NK hacking force, or we are sending you back.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
I wonder if Kim Jong Un has given this elite unit extra "field guidance" in light of their recent failure to quash the movie? Maybe a few of these l33t h4x0rs have been exterminated as an example for others.
"Bureau 121". Did they ask Marvel to make that up? This article in whole reads much like *fart fart fart* burp burp burp* *blah blah blah*.
To be Communist. They have some jingoistic nationalism with worship of the divine leader going on.
So their loyalty exam is: Do you love your glorious imperial nation that is the finest on Earth, and do you want your family to keep living here? (loose translation, since I don't know the transcoding.)
I wouldn't bet on it. North Korea wouldn't be able to take us in a conventional war, but they would inflict pretty severe casualties on us and our South Korean allies.
In-house technical training available, daily. Unfiltered access to the internet at work. Nearly 100% retention rate. Must be an awesome place to work!
You overestimate their abilities. The South Korean army alone could take them on and win if they mobilized. The Norks have utterly obsolete military equipment.
The problem is it would not happen without large casualties and probably a bombing of Seoul so I doubt they want to do it.
Except that 1) your neighbor has no lawn mower, 2) your neighbor has no lawn.
Yep, a worker’s paradise.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
Who teaches these fabled courses?
This article is pure bs.
Did you read the article? This defector was as inner circle as it gets without doing the actual haxxorz. Whether he is lying is a different story, but your dismissal is groundless.
The USA doesn't "Liberate" countries with nuclear weapons. Uncle Sam doesn't want to risk getting hurt while taking the other kids lunch money.
Actually, to me it sounds like they pretty much are saying the same thing. NK has no hope of winning, but can blow up a bunch of people in retaliation before they fall.
Well, someone did DDOS their entire country offline, taking down their official news outlets etc, so apparently they do need some kind of cyber security force.
In fact they do have an internal network, used by universities and companies, and a 3G mobile network. There is something to defend.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Bollocks.
Won't happen as long as China is still around to bitch-slap US around like in Korean War.
this is Nayirah al-aba all over again https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
CIA/NSA propaganda machine is in full force. I predict US will be "liberating" north Korea in 2015.
You are an idiot, then. NK has very little we want and they are not a real threat as a nation state. No, they are not. There's no profit in fucking with them, and nation states don't go in for terrorism. Despite all the absolutely silly bluster, the Norks aren't going to invite the staggering reprisals that would be sure to follow if they actually carried out a tenth of what they threaten.
Well, someone did DDOS their entire country offline,
Yeah, all 1000 NK IP addresses were DDOS attacked. The California University of Pennsylvania (you read that right) network dwarfs NK's. The only "defense" they need is some guy to call everyone on a landline to tell them to shut their computer down till tomorrow.
What about their Elite Photoshopping Force?
How did we start from someone hacking the network of the distributor of a 3rd rate Xmas-release comedy to apocalyptic throw-downs from a child dictator? This sounds like a South Park episode.
Everything I've ever learned the hard way was based on a statistically invalid sample.
Seriously? "Insightful" for believing that North Korea doesn't need liberation?
Yep no oil fields so we wont bother
Pakistan accidentally knocked themselves off the internet when trying to essentially null route traffic to facebook (or YouTube?) a few years ago. Countries sometimes do stupid stuff - and Pakistan's network is significantly bigger than North Korea's.
If North Korea has any sense, their internal networks carrying communication within the nation is isolated from the precious few places where their networks interface with the world wide network known as the Internet.
I've got bug free Microsoft Software for sale.
Dirt cheap!
- A Frog in a pond utters an azure cry. -
I have to agree with citizenr.
The setup is just too convenient, too coincidental...too cute.
Nobody has ever heard of this "Jang Se-yul" for starters.
A NK defector with hacking experience (wow really convenient), would be extremely highly prized by all government and media right now.
He chooses "Business Insider", which also nobody has ever heard of.
If he wants to put his story out, he would be a fucking idiot to go "Hello, is this Business Insider?". It's going to be BBC, CNN, Fox...
This is equivalent to colleagues of the pilot of the missing Malaysian Airliners MH370 scooped by some dickless media outlet after the airliner disappeared.
This sounds like a South Park episode.
It is!
You overestimate their abilities. The South Korean army alone could take them on and win if they mobilized.
Ever heard of Pyrrhic victory? Yes, South Korea with aid from US would certainly achieve it if they tried a "military solution".
The only "defense" they need is some guy to call everyone on a landline to tell them to shut their computer down till tomorrow.
In fact, he recently left this in everyone's voice mailbox.
Yes, you heard that right. The first wave of attacks (against Sony & Microsoft) Xbox and Playstation was a success. Our beloved leader has given us 2 days off, but before you leave please shutdown. Even I get this reward and am going to watch that 'interview' over pizza & beer. Good night everyone!
I'm sure they're writing it already.
Sounds like the promised land. A place where geeks are truly appreciated and put up on a pedestal. All I would have to do is snap my fingers and point at my neighbor across the street who is cutting his lawn at 6 AM, and immediately a squad of large goons would appear out of nowhere, tackle him off his push reel mower, and haul his ass off to 5 years of hard manual labor.
FTFY
Presumably their internal network only has a few closely-watched links to the wider internet that can easily be cut in the event of a DDOS, leaving the internal network running. AFAIK, the DDOS only affected their connectivity to the wide internet, which is essentially just a toy for the elite anyway. I haven't seen any reports to the contrary.
Gotta agree with your sarcasm. Se-yul is also saying the exact things US officials would want him to say if they're trying to justify a typical bloated 'cyberwarfare' budget and new laws that limit freedoms in the US. "OMG the scary North Korea and their elite hackers are going to bring the US (home to the programmers of most of the worlds' major software) to its knees!"
--- We need more Ron Paul!
Well.
So who payed this shit 3-million-dollarsUS?-currency
Oh! it Was YaHoo.
Now, that explains it all.
Yahoo can't tell C from A! Or A/UX from Linux. Or FORTRAN from FORT.
That means that North Korea Government Servers are running A/UX on 68k-based Macintosh with an FPU and a paged memory management unit.
Splendid. I have enough info the do a nasty, just for shits and giggles.
Ha ha.
Learn from the past. Iraqui defectors swore up and down that there were massive nuclear programs. They were physicists, they were believable, they testified in secret, in public, on TV. None of it mattered, they were proven liars after we invaded.
Claims from defectors require extraordinary evidence, especially when what's coming out of their mouths is what the government or the intel agencies want to hear.
Liberty.
Hey, here is this guy who just happens to be able to backup the bullshit we've been spewing about North Korea all month. Imagine that!
Speaking of which, how did they go from losing their collective shit over The Interview last week to being able to send all the artware and licensing and agreements and negotiations and distributing the content and adding it to the stores on EVERY FUCKING DIGITAL SERVICE ON THE PLANET INCLUDING XBOX LIVE on CHRISTMAS FUCKING DAY?
It's almost as if this was all arranged months in advance.
You just restated what he stated using mostly different words..
Apparently North Korea has several trillion dollars worth of rare-earth metals. Regime change would provide a more accomodating business environment for mining companies.
Not being familiar with Linux.. That's even more cute.
Seriously; who doesn't know these guys are just Chi-Com puppets?
In a country where the internet is about as commonplace as for us having your own rocket launch system in the backyard? Please. How do you hit NKor via internet? Take down their online payment system? Hack their official pages so their citizens would get to see defaced pics of li'l Kim?
How?
I can see that as an offensive force, but defense? Please.
From what I read, and what I am led to believe, probably every water treatment plant, every electrical generating system, including the interconnects, has been identified and an attack prepared. The USA electrical grid needs only a core state to fail, and the entire country would fail.
And if you include airports in their attack catalogues then the North Korean protections are complete. Attack them and most probably, the USA part of the internet, and possibly the entire world would be downed.
So, its ok to joke about the NKs capabilities, , Its ok to believe that the commercial anti-viruses give you a false sense of protection, but... there is no protection. Stuxnet was a perfect example. Perhaps the NKs virus software is already installed and laying dormant, just in case....
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Yeah. Google and Amazon think Linux works. That's why they use it for their servers.
Since North Korea is just a chihuahua bully dog for China (any time China needs to pick a fight it can use N Korea) invading North Korea would be a larger problem vis a vis China. China simply enslaves the North Koreans for that simple functional purpose.
so I'm not surprised at all they're not defecting... our world is not so appealing if you get your information by the internet... Media in general tends to emphasize news, and too often the worst they are, the better. Bad news are way too diffuse. If I were an alien from a galaxy far, far away I would be probably scared reading news. Actually I think our world is depicted in very distorted way but if you're an alien or a north korean hacker - I see no difference here - chances are you can't make yourself a realistic idea about our so called world of freedom and democracy.
Install/configure http://wiki.debian.org/iptable... and you'll be safe
Casteism
from C to shining C (singing voice)
from C to shinning C (singing voice)
Kim Jon Un is a character from a South Park episode..
Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..
Maybe we can torture him to confess a link between North Korea and al Qaeda?
Where's Dick Chaney when you need him?
Well imagine South Korea installed a system like Iron Dome or THEL around Seoul which could successfully intercept most of the artillery shells the Norks could fire. Then an invasion of North Korea would be quite likely to be successful with minor losses.