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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.)

9 of 166 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Dem haxxorz dey be haxxin. by greenfruitsalad · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm also sure the guy who was never in the inner circle knows all the details and isn't making anything up.

  2. I'm not surprised they don't want to defect by Nutria · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:I'm not surprised they don't want to defect by tentative · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's not just country, you know. These people have families they would leave behind at the mercy of their former comrades.

    2. Re: I'm not surprised they don't want to defect by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Didn't you just describe the Wall St mentality?

  3. Re:Sorry media by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    those stories are so hilarious. Best thing is they keep coming and the get funnier.

    Obviously most Americans dont remember the non existent WMD in Iraq. Well its the same thing. NK had nothing to do with the Sony debacle.

  4. his name is Nayirah al-aba ? by citizenr · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.
  5. Re:Dem haxxorz dey be haxxin. by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
  6. Re:Sorry media by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    those stories are so hilarious. Best thing is they keep coming and the get funnier.

    Obviously most Americans dont remember the non existent WMD in Iraq. Well its the same thing. NK had nothing to do with the Sony debacle.

    Let's not also forget, defectors are great at telling their latest new best friends exactly what their latest new best friends want to hear...

  7. Re:Sorry media by PvtVoid · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yeah, and global warming is faked by the left wing media, and vaccines are poison, and municipal water flouridation is a communist plot. Oh, and by the way, you don't really believe that you are anonymous here on /., do you?

    Doubting the official line on the Sony hack is hardly the stuff of tinfoil-hat denialism. How's this for a scenario: (1) Garden-variety haxx0rz and/or a disgruntled employee steal a bunch of embarrassing files from Sony -- plenty of motive there -- and dump the files on the web. (2) Some moron in the media starts speculating that it has something to do with an idiotic movie about North Korea, and the echo chamber amplifies it as truth. (3) Haxx0rz, sensing an epic opportunity for lulz, play along with the feeding frenzy in the media with some crazy threats against screening the movie, then sit back and watch the fun as paranoia in the FBI and mindless nationalism in the population do the rest of their work for them.

    Couldn't be.