North Korean Hackers Stole U.S.-South Korean Military Plans, Lawmaker Says (nytimes.com)

North Korean hackers stole a vast cache of data, including classified wartime contingency plans jointly drawn by the United States and South Korea, when they breached the computer network of the South Korean military last year, a South Korean lawmaker said Tuesday (alternative source). From a report: One of the plans included the South Korean military's plan to remove the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, referred to as a "decapitation" plan, should war break out on the Korean Peninsula, the lawmaker, Rhee Cheol-hee, told reporters. Mr. Rhee, a member of the governing Democratic Party who serves on the defense committee of the National Assembly, said he only recently learned of the scale of the North Korean hacking attack, which was first discovered in September last year. It was not known whether any of the military's top secrets were leaked, although Mr. Rhee said that nearly 300 lower-classification confidential documents were stolen. The military has not yet identified nearly 80 percent of the 235 gigabytes of leaked data, he said.

Comments

South Korea really should stop

[Spy Handler]

using IE 6 for everything...

Well, if the plans are _this_ badly protected

[gweihir]

Then I see a far larger problem here. Seems to me they are _not_ prepared.

Re:Well, if the plans are _this_ badly protected

[sittingnut]

actually it is impossible for south to fight north without capital seoul, which is well within north's artillery range, getting destroyed and million getting killed within minutes. north has a huge well entrenched artillery advantage just because of that.

so whenever you hear warmongering talk from usa, check the south korea media to see how people in seoul are responding to same news, if they are not worried, all the warmonger talk is just talk, not serious. probably aimed at american audience for some political reason.
everyone knows this, but american media pretends as if all the warmongering talk is real.

Re:Well, if the plans are _this_ badly protected

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. With computer security, you get what you deserve.

Re:Well, if the plans are _this_ badly protected

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the country where all citizens are required to join the military for years? Where North Korean relations are often THE issue that determines who wins Prime Minister? That's the country that doesn't think the threat is serious?

All you can say is that the two countries are in a MAD situation, but I think the US knows that as well. Obviously with a stalemate of 50+ years nobody thinks we are in an active war.

Re:Well, if the plans are _this_ badly protected

[Anonymous Coward]

South Korea is going to get leveled on a day when they are not prepared, because Kim can read the Art of War just as well as anyone.

Re: Well, if the plans are _this_ badly protected

[Anonymous Coward]

No Problem, plenty of Bunkers there. Just move Population into Bunkers, before removing the Idiot with Bad haircut.

Re: Well, if the plans are _this_ badly protected

[tgetzoya]

....which one?

Re: Well, if the plans are _this_ badly protected

[losfromla]

The fat one with daddy issues.

Re: Well, if the plans are _this_ badly protected

[Anonymous Coward]

Would he really want to bomb Seoul into oblivion? Wouldnâ(TM)t he want to capture and take it over for the North? On second thought, I guess he would just end up destroying it anyways, really. Too capitalist for his taste.

Re:Well, if the plans are _this_ badly protected

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Or maybe they are well prepared, and want North Korea to know it. After all, there's not much deterrent value to being secretly able to win a war.

Re:Well, if the plans are _this_ badly protected

[WrongMonkey]

These plans were stolen over a year ago. Considering events since then, does North Korea seem deterred?

Re:Well, if the plans are _this_ badly protected

[rahvin112]

In a normal US administration that would be true, but Donald Trump is relaying on Twitter to give direction to his own secretary of state I wouldn't count on such policy during the current administration. In the past all US administrations had promised to consult SK before undertaking any attack against the north for the very reason you listed. I have no faith that the current administration would react in the same manner.

Yes most of Seoul would be destroyed in such a war but NK would likely lose very quickly to the South. Even with a manpower advantage the south's military is so much better trained and equipped that they'd likely mop the floor with the NK army. Oh you'll hear people claim the North is different that they have special forces that are better trained than the west, that they will overwhelm the south. In reality it will go down just like it did with Saddam (who the same pundits said the same things about in '91), the north will enact heavy destruction on Seoul and may even advance a couple miles into the south. At that point the south will be mobilized and their technological advantage and better training will come to bear and they will quickly turn the tide. As the tide turns you'll likely see whole divisions surrender to the south.

Yes Seoul and the tech centers will likely get destroyed, but in the end North Korea will cease to exist. China has already begun talking about a unified peninsula under SK leadership as an acceptable result.

Re:Well, if the plans are _this_ badly protected

[gweihir]

Or alternatively, they were stolen because of gross incompetence. I know which scenario is much more likely...

Re:Well, if the plans are _this_ badly protected

[sysrammer]

One can assume that the Chinese military also talks about how it might send a million men south. Again.

Re: Well, if the plans are _this_ badly protected

[sysrammer]

Right. So, which one?

Re:Well, if the plans are _this_ badly protected

[sysrammer]

Yes, I started checking KT (Korean Times, oriented to (or by?) the govt), and another one more oriented to biz, I forget the name. I am reassuring my family that WWIII is not upon us, so I wanted to back up my assurances with information from ground zero^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H the local indigenous personnel.

I spent a bit of time in Korea in another life and remember things that Big Kimmy would say (and do), and Grandpappy Kimmy would say (and do). Threatening to shoot down a bomber is relatively mild. And, since there was no armistice, we technically *are* at war. So, most of what I read in the English language Korean news is that "this is lil' Kimmy acting out as he always does". But always with the caveat, "but we don't know what Trump will do". So, let's say that their interest has been "piqued" with the latest round of insults and threats.

Re:Well, if the plans are _this_ badly protected

[rahvin112]

The only way to know for sure what the Chinese intend is to read their party magazines which have been floating the idea for over a year that a unified Korea under the South's leadership isn't a huge problem as they'll be able to bully the south into doing what they want. See if there was no NK there would be no reason to have the US troops and assets there and China would be able to make that point to SK very well given how entwined their economies are at this point. In fact given the hostility to US troops by the Korean public they'd likely be pulled out within 2 years of such an event, Just like the Philippines got rid of us and most of the Japanese want us out as well.

The only real wildcard at this point is Russia who appears to be aiding NK just to poke the west in the eye even though they know NK is a much a threat to Russia as it is to everyone else.

Re:Well, if the plans are _this_ badly protected

[rtb61]

The entire US war industrial complex knows all this crap is a scam to generate profits, hence they have not the slightest qualm about selling any information that anyone wants to buy, makes no real difference except to their offshore bank account balance. Easiest way to transfer the information out in bulk, allow a hack to occur, done and finished. They pay for that hack ie millions of dollars and suck as much information as they can out of it, the more they get, the more they will pay for the next hack. The US government is for sale at every level, federal to local government, that should be pretty fucking obvious by now.

Re:Well, if the plans are _this_ badly protected

[Anonymous Coward]

actually it is impossible for south to fight north without capital seoul, which is well within north's artillery range, getting destroyed and million getting killed within minutes.

This gets repeated frequently, but I don't think it's accurate. The capital of South Korea, Seoul, is actually about 35 miles from the border. The North Korean artillery is not massed literally right on the border. It's probably within a few miles of the border which makes the range to Seoul more like 35-50 miles give or take a mile or two and depending upon the sighting of individual batteries. The maximum range for a typical howitzer type artillery piece is about 5 to 25 miles or so depending upon the type of shell and the diameter of the bore. For example, the current standard towed howitzer in the US arsenal is the M777 with a maximum range of about 15 miles with standard 155mm shells or up to 25 miles with extended range M982 Excalibur shell. Longer ranges are possible and have been historically achieved, as witnessed by the Paris Gun or the Schwerer Gustav super heavy guns with maximum ranges of 81 miles and 28 miles respectively. However, these massive howitzers were very impractical, consuming massive amounts of resources for very little relative yield of high explosives delivered over modest distances compared to strategic bombers, which is why they never saw widespread use. Rocket based artillery, such as that employed in the M270 offers much longer ranges but with much smaller warheads. These weapons are useful for attacking troop and vehicle formations or area denial, but the smaller warheads lack the punch that you get from heavier and shorter range artillery. Finally there are ballistic surface to surface missiles, but these are much more expensive and vulnerable to theater missile defense systems such as MIM-104 Patriot, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) or Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System. It seems reasonable to assume that most of the North Korean artillery, with the possible exception of their rocket artillery and ballistic missiles which are much more limited in number, are out of range of Seoul in their current emplacements. This means that only a fraction of the North Korean artillery is actually available to bombard Seoul itself and in very limited quantities. The rest can hit the DMZ and nearby areas, but Seoul is almost certainly out of range unless the North Korean army can advance to within range, but this would be absolutely impossible without air cover as the Germans discovered in WWII when attempting to advance tank formations to push back the D-Day landings under heavy air attack while taking very heavy losses. The North Korean artillery is basically frozen in place in their bunkers by superior US and allied air power, lacking both the fuel and the cover needed for any moves southward, never mind actually controlling that ground for long enough to set up a firing position and shell Seoul. A few well placed cluster bombs alone would produce mass casualties among North Korean towed artillery pieces or tanks attempting to move southward. The following article covers the situation in far greater detail, but the conclusion remains the same. The threat from the North Korean artillery to Seoul is overstated at best.

Re:Well, if the plans are _this_ badly protected

[Megol]

As everything in NK data is hard to get by however they had dedicated much effort in developing their artillery. They use rocked augmented (assisted?) projectiles at least for the 170mm guns and IIRC use base-bleed designs for other sizes.

At least the 170mm guns can reach Seoul but not with any kind of precision. I'd think NK would concentrate fire on military objectives in general because while destroying Seoul may have strategic significance tactical flexibility may be what decides if the state will survive.

Not a military freak/geek so YMMV.

Re:Well, if the plans are _this_ badly protected

[Megol]

NK know well that there are several current decapitation plans - because that's obvious unless the SK military/politicians were absolute incompetent!

The US probably have plans how to invade Switzerland if it would ever come to that, just as they had plans to nuke Finland.

Re:Well, if the plans are _this_ badly protected

[Megol]

How could we tell? Blustering and aggressive bullshitting is the standard PR from NK. It's like trying to determine if someone is friendly when threatening to only rape you after you're dead... ;)

Re: Well, if the plans are _this_ badly protected

[Hal_Porter]

Probably all North Korea can do is level Seoul. All the signs are that their military would fare extremely poorly against a US/South Korean force. E.g. North Korea doesn't have enough fuel to fight a modern war. It's aircraft are hopelessly out of date.

I think Seoul would be levelled, SK and maybe US forces would land north of the DMZ and try to capture Pyongyang and destroy NK artillery aimed at SK. The North Korean regime would collapse.

In terms of North Korea military some units would fight and be destroyed by SK/US air power. And some would probably decide to desert. Unfortunately not enough of them would desert to save Seoul from damage.

Once the regime collapsed there'd be evidence of spectacular atrocities in camps, and of course Seoul would be badly damaged or destroyed. Kim would be captured and executed by the vengeful South Koreans. Or he'd kill himself. Or flee to China. Most of the NK elite would end up facing war crimes charges for murdering North Koreans in camps or bombing South Korea.

Of course it would all get worse in China intervened to stop the regime collapsing or tried to set up a pro Chinese puppet regime to replace the Kim dynasty.

Re: Well, if the plans are _this_ badly protected

[Anonymous Coward]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/G5_howitzer

Re:Well, if the plans are _this_ badly protected

[Anonymous Coward]

either the military has gone totally stupid, or it's all part of a deception strategy.

e.g. ``In the event war breaks out, we'll park all of our VERY important stuff over there...'' (If you intercepted such a message, would you believe something like that, or would you suspect it's a trap?).

Re:Well, if the plans are _this_ badly protected

[Immerman]

>NK is a much a threat to Russia as it is to everyone else.

How do you figure? Contrary to the media portrayal, Kim's not stupid or crazy, for all his posturing to keep himself in power (internal politics requires him to publicly play the strong man to keep the populace in line and maintain his position and life). And Russia and China are the closest things he has to allies.

NK is a major conventional threat to SK, particularly Seoul. Might not win a war, even without outside intervention, but their artillery could do enough damage quickly enough to give SK good reason to want to avoid conflict. Beyond that, it could attack China if it wanted to trade a little damage for a thorough curb-stomping. It doesn't have the navy to reach anywhere else, so that's pretty much the limit of it's threat beyond maybe some missile-bombardment of Japan.

Nuclear weapons on long-range missiles give it a bit of a further reach, enough to do serous damage to SK or Japan (or China, or the Russian wilderness if they wanted to piss off their only hope of surviving such a play), but it's still dubious that they have the ability to reach any further, even assuming the US has no missile defenses within the Pacific (which would seem a pretty stupid assumption given our long-standing conflict with Russia)

Basically, even with nuclear weapons, they're not actually much of a threat. At worst they might manage to take out a major city or two. And if they actually tried to do so rather than firing sabre-rattling blanks, they would almost certainly be obliterated in return. The whole point of nukes for a small country is to discourage the major powers from picking a fight, as we've all shown ourselves to be quite happy to do when the mood suits us.

Really, there's only one nuclear-backed madman on the world stage to worry about, and he's right here in the good old US of A.

Re:Well, if the plans are _this_ badly protected

[Anonymous Coward]

Strategic missile defenses are unproven. You can't test them in combat situation either (for good reason). But more than that, they have to be positioned at the right place regarding the missile's trajectory. So perhaps you could position some to defend Hawaii (there's land based Aegis, but as a test site) and only Hawaii for protecting from a DPRK attack, and even there the outcome is doubtful. Missile defenses in Alaska or contiguous US would be entirely useless for that task.

Perhaps you want to defend from missiles falling in any place of interest in Japan. There are Aegis defenses on ships that might barely be able to do that. But that would only work if the DPRK coordinated with the Japanese by announcing their strike beforehand and giving them time to move the Aegis ships.
The only good thing is North Korean long range missiles are relatively untested i.e. unlike countries like France, US or Russia they can't easily do say a 9000 km-long test which would surely better for testing delivery than a nearly vertical trajectory with thousands kilometers of altitude. So if they were to nuke Hawaii tomorrow it would be likely there is some kind of failure in re-entry, warhead separation, warhead flight etc. or perhaps successfully detonating but missing the target because of a failure.

Re:Well, if the plans are _this_ badly protected

[sysrammer]

"Really, there's only one nuclear-backed madman on the world stage to worry about, and he's right here in the good old US of A."

Thankfully, our armed forces aren't triggered by tweets.

Re:Well, if the plans are _this_ badly protected

[Immerman]

Right. He'd have to pick up the phone to do that - he is still the supreme military authority. And we can hope the soldier on the other end wouldn't obey his orders. The soldier with his hand on the trigger has averted global nuclear war a few times already by refusing to obey orders.

Today I learned

[Anonymous Coward]

That there are North Korean hackers.

Re:Today I learned

[sittingnut]

north korea probably does have "hackers" (btw nk isn't as isolated from rest of the world as western propaganda pretends), but nsa can also trot out "hackers" from whoever they have an agenda against.

Re:Today I learned

[Anonymous Coward]

So that's why they needed another fibre link through Russia

Re:Today I learned

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd love to hear an explanation of how North Korea isn't isolated from the rest of the world.

Re:Today I learned

[winse]

two things:
1. They probably aren't north Korean, but were hired by the administration...ie mercenaries
2. I'm sure they got "da wheel pans" wink wink

Re:Today I learned

[bobbied]

I'm sure they got "da wheel pans" wink wink

Wink wink... Of course they wheel Uns.... No way the South Koreans are smart enough to do a diversionary gambit or feed Littl' Kimmy's Toy Army misinformation. They wouldn't dare try to trick der Leader... No way at all...

Re:Today I learned

[Anonymous Coward]

It is their business, just like american business to poke stupid nose into other people businesses.

Re: Today I learned

[WrongMonkey]

If the plans were a honeypot, then this announcement just spoiled the bait.

Re:Today I learned

[Anonymous Coward]

That's interesting. Today I learned that lots of arrogant people continue to underestimate N.K.

Re:Today I learned

[Swave An deBwoner]

No. Stealing South Korean military intelligence is not their business.

This is their business: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/07/business/north-korea-embassies.html

Re: Today I learned

[bobbied]

Or, did it?

Do you suppose that if somebody stole the actual plans that *anybody* would admit to it?

Also, do you suppose that given the apparent age of the plans in question and the changing of the governments of BOTH the USA and South Korea which included wholesale policy changes in regards to North Korea in both countries that even if the real plans had been laying out there for all to see that the *current* plans would be the same?

Finally, do you also suppose that the North Koreans didn't already have a sufficient understanding of their own situation to not be able to anticipate what the US forces could do? My guess is that the North's leadership fully understands what the plan of the USA is in specific enough detail to know what's going to happen at least for the first few hours anyway, and after that, any specific plans you may have had are likely OBE anyway..

Re: Today I learned

[Anonymous Coward]

I was wondering the same thing. I mean does the average North Korean even know how to use a computer or what one is? I seriously wonder about that place a lot. Do the people really worship that Kim guy or do at least some of them know he is bullshit and hate him. Do some of them yâ(TM)all shit about him at the dinner table? Or do they all praise him? Iâ(TM)m probably wrong but I just envision them all living real primitive type lives except they have 1 TV station that brainwashes them. I guess no one really knows. The Americans that have been there I know they all stay in one hotel and they go on a tour and see how âoegood and normalâ shit is. But they canâ(TM)t go off by themselves. You canâ(TM)t just go wherever you want to and Iâ(TM)m pretty sure you are told not to talk to any people on the street, if I remember correctly. Anyways, how the hell do they have âoehackersâ? Maybe Chinese, Russian, European, or hell even American hackers sold this info to them or work for them? Who fuckinâ(TM) knows with North Korea. I know I feel sorry for those people there. The ones that are truly brainwashed and have no idea of the rest of the world. Very fuckinâ(TM) sad. Some 1984 shit without as much technology. Sorry for rambling.

 

Re: Today I learned

[Anonymous Coward]

You can buy bootleg South Korean soap operas in the markets.

Re:Today I learned

[Megol]

You can visit them. They have diplomatic connections with several countries. They have trade agreements with several countries. A not insignificant number of people there get education abroad. They (as a country) have access to the Internet. They have radio broadcasts.

Yes it's mostly one-way but they aren't isolated.

South korea is lol korea?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The military has not yet identified nearly 80 percent of the 235 gigabytes of leaked data, he said." So they were incompetent last year but they're still idiots?

I have a super secret copy of the plans

[rsilvergun]

It's one page that reads "Drop lots and lots of bombs".

Seriously. It's North Bloody Korea. They can barely keep their army fed let alone fight a war with our nation. NK is a hostage situation. As soon as we move they start slinging rockets at South Korea because their leadership knows every last one of them is going to hang.

Re:I have a super secret copy of the plans

[mdm-adph]

That was the old plan, circa 1950. The new is just one page that says "Keep stalling them until they fall apart, even if it takes 500 years"

Re:I have a super secret copy of the plans

[Anonymous Coward]

Not with China and Russia keep'in them go'in.

N. Korea would fall immediately if China and Russia would back off.

We'd have plenty of resources if we weren't pissing around in the Middle East.

Re:I have a super secret copy of the plans

[rainer_d]

Sure, they'll go down. They know this.

But they'll also make sure to take as many Yanks and South Koreans with them as possible. And iif you consider they had 70 years to dig themselves in, you'll realize that the prize will be very, very high.

They have 15k artillery canons within a couple of dozens of km from Seoul. And they're not sitting in an open field. They're sitting in armored tunnels drilled into a granite mountain.

The only way to take those down is to throw a couple of really big nukes. And then you also take out Seoul at the same time.

Re:I have a super secret copy of the plans

[bobbied]

Even with the middle east, DPRK would be a cake walk for the USA, the problem isn't resources, the problem is how long it would take to deliver them... South Korea would suffer significant civilian causalities for the hour or so the North could keep up the shelling with the various chemical weapons they have in the field and I'm sure there would be a number of bloody infiltration attacks for a couple of days to contend with.

Any shooting war would be decidedly short, as short as the USA could make it and we have the resources to take care of DPRK close enough to make that time window into hours not days.

We could win the war with the resources already in the region. Of course, winning the peace would be a bit more of a challenge, but not as much of a challenge as Iraq was. There will be a short lived insurgency from some military holdouts, but given the north isn't currently at odds internally like Iraq was, it won't be sectarian violence.

Re: I have a super secret copy of the plans

[Anonymous Coward]

While I agree the US outguns NK; I imagine China will not stand by and let reunification happen. Russia also has some interest in a divided Korea. Not sure if either would start a hot war but neutrality is probably not going to happen.

Re:I have a super secret copy of the plans

[Anonymous Coward]

Even with the middle east, DPRK would be a cake walk for the USA, the problem isn't resources, the problem is how long it would take to deliver them... South Korea would suffer significant civilian causalities for the hour or so the North could keep up the shelling with the various chemical weapons they have in the field and I'm sure there would be a number of bloody infiltration attacks for a couple of days to contend with.

Any shooting war would be decidedly short, as short as the USA could make it and we have the resources to take care of DPRK close enough to make that time window into hours not days.

We could win the war with the resources already in the region. Of course, winning the peace would be a bit more of a challenge, but not as much of a challenge as Iraq was. There will be a short lived insurgency from some military holdouts, but given the north isn't currently at odds internally like Iraq was, it won't be sectarian violence.

?? You do realize NK has one of the largest military installations in the world! They outnumber SK 10 - 1 with troops and are within 35 miles of Seoul. Cakewalk my ass! SK does have 1,500,000 in reserves but that won't matter as Seoul would be invaded in a matter of hours before the orders to meet and take up arms can take place.

It is not Iraq. The NK are vigilant and brainwashed and want blood and revenge for their poverty on the Americans and SK for killing them during the famine (in their eyes) and would rather die than submit to imperial rule!

Remember they are not allowed to think and have no access to phones, internet, and have one TV station fed with 24 hour propaganda a day. They want war to end this and have been waiting patiently to end the USA and SK for decades.

No this would be worse than Vietnam and would take many years even if the Chinese do not get involved as the NK won't surrender period.

Re:I have a super secret copy of the plans

[losfromla]

I am visualizing some video game where missiles and artillery spawn from an impossibly small area in endless continuous barrages. It sounds impressive even if it is their swan dive into oblivion.

Re:I have a super secret copy of the plans

[rahvin112]

Artillery in tunnels like that is actually pretty easy to destroy with a missile, guided bomb or a fuel air bomb that can suck the air out of the tunnel. Reinforced tunnels like that haven't been secure for 30+ years when they developed the first bombs to take them out. And by they I mean everyone, pretty much every major military has the weapons to take out hardened bunkers like that, even Israel bought them after the last war with Hezbollah.

Re:I have a super secret copy of the plans

[rahvin112]

Jesus if you are gonna just make numbers up why post? NK has no where near 5 Million troops. They barely have a 1:1 match against the south's 600+K troops when you factor in capability. When you factor in starvation, lack of training and willingness to surrender you'll like see NK forces collapse as soon as the SK begins pushing back.

Just remember, they called Saddam's 1+million soldier invincible too. The US millitary bought 50,000 body bags for the first gulf war and friendly fire killed more US troops than Iraqis did. The largest tank battle since WWII resulted in no US casualties caused by enemy fire.

A war on the Korean peninsula will likely go down the same way, except rather than eating dog food like the Iraqi soliders the NK soldiers will wish they had the dog food and were as well fed as the Iraqis.

Re:I have a super secret copy of the plans

[aaarrrgggh]

How hard do you really think it is to cut off the north from border access effectively, and neutralize that large army? It wouldn't be pretty, but it would not take long. Seoul would still be heavily damaged, but it seems like there is no real strategy where Seoul can come out ahead.

Re:I have a super secret copy of the plans

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to keep forgetting that both Russia AND China are allied to NK and will NOT just sit and watch the US attack on their doorsteps. It may well be CHINA that takes out Seoul, and Tokyo and Guam.

Re:I have a super secret copy of the plans

[Megol]

Cake walk? Sure the US can defeat NK but at significant costs. Unless using a significant amount of nuclear weapons that is - which would make the US a pariah at least and potentially lead to wars with other countries.

Really you have no fucking clue what you are talking about. The NK have a strong army of lesser quality than US forces but they have a _lot_ of trained soldiers that are ready to die for their country (if not their leader(s)). Quantity is a quality in itself.

Re:I have a super secret copy of the plans

[Megol]

You are an idiot. Luckily the SK/US armies aren't.

Re:I have a super secret copy of the plans

[LordWabbit2]

Sure, they'll go down. They know this.

Yeah, like they did in the Korean war, the very war which caused the whole "North Korea" and "South Korea" instead of just "Korea".

Re:I have a super secret copy of the plans

[AmiMoJo]

North Korea's plan will involve China. China doesn't want US troops on its border. It doesn't want millions of NK refugees flooding in. If the war turns hot, China's response will be a key part of the NK plan.

That's one reason why nukes are out. Nuking NK will result in the US being nuked in retaliation, so basically WW3.

NK must also be factoring in SK's strong desire to avoid the very large number of casualties and massive damage that would result. It doesn't so much matter if the artillery is ineffective against advancing US/SK forces, it only needs to hit Seoul.

And that's not even counting the possibility of NK using its own nuclear weapons when there is no hope left for them. They can definitely hit SK and Japan, and maybe the US. It's unlikely that SK or Japan would be willing to risk that.

Re:I have a super secret copy of the plans

[bobbied]

Ground forces are not a problem and are easily immobilized by the Air Force, Army Air Corps, and Marines from the air. Remember the first gulf war? Iraq's ground forces got shellacked because they had zero control of the air. DPRK will have the same problem.

Look, I'm not trying to sell DPRK short, they DO have a bunch of troops, but they have nearly zero Air support and nearly non-existent air defenses. Technologically they are out matched, out gunned and easy prey should a shooting war start. The first Gulf War proved that without control of the air space, all the troops in the world won't stand a chance, even using conventional weapons. So millions of troops, on foot with no hope of logistical support once the shooting starts are not a huge concern. We do need to contain them where they are north of the DMZ and that may take a few hours, but they will quickly lose the capability to move, except on foot and then only in small infiltration teams which will be a bloody mess for civilians, but tactically insignificant.

If you cannot protect your troops from air attack, they will be limited to traveling on foot with what they can carry. If you cannot effectively resupply your ground troops they won't be an effective force and won't be able to move. They will be stuck in place, with any supplies they have, and that's about all.

There are two things that worry me though...

1. Shelling Seoul from north of the DMZ will be unavoidable. This will be short lived, but the causalities to civilian and military areas will be significant until it can be suppressed. BTW... You do realize that we have the ability to track incoming shells back to their origin and can have a return volley on the source within two rounds.. Right? As soon as DPRK forces fire, they will get 2 maybe 3 rounds before they die and it takes usually 2+ rounds to get on target unless you are lucky. Artillery will make a mess, but not for long. I'm worried about this mess and the relationship strain this will cause in the region.

2. The first round of the Korean War was clearly lost by the north, until China stepped in. They had their butts kicked all the way to the border and clearly they would again. My fear is that China will once again step in, for the same reasons (Or that the Russians will do something). This is where this shooting war could get out of hand.

Re:I have a super secret copy of the plans

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually not 24 hours a day. They're old fashioned such that TV doesn't air programming continuously, when there's no programming they air some kind of colorful test card with music playing in the background. The entire country is supposed to be at work or in school or in military duties or sleeping anyway.
They also have three TV stations one of them is better known. But it wouldn't surprise me if it turns into effectively a single channel for big announcements and the news. Perhaps in random rural areas only the analog broadcast of the main biggest station works, I'm merely speculating there.

When a kid in the 90s in Western Europe we had one of the public channels that did the test card (a duller one) and music thing but only in the dead of night.

Re:I have a super secret copy of the plans

[Anonymous Coward]

i don't know, would we be using the plans we had sitting on some fucking windows computers like the stupidest of fucks?

Re: I have a super secret copy of the plans

[Anonymous Coward]

I find your lack of faith disturbing.

NUMBER 10!

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not a number?

235GB

[thegreatbob]

I wonder how they managed to download 235GB of data while it was still remotely relevant.

Goes back to work imagining a datacenter full of hungry people trying to eat the dial-up modems...

Re:235GB

[rainer_d]

Text as hi-res images pasted into PPT files?

Re:235GB

[war4peace]

Seriously though, I assume it's many pages of typing machine written documents, scanned and saved as .TIFF files.
Probably something like 20-25K pages of shit.

Re:235GB

[sysrammer]

Probably something like 20-25K pages of shit.

...laid out on a table, photographed, then faxed to NK.

Re:235GB

[Anonymous Coward]

In before "high population density" excuses by the US ISP monopoly apologizers.

intentional

[Kristoph]

The US wants to let the North Korean's know that there will be 'fire and fury' ( and that the US really means it ) so they let their 'war plans' slip to put the fear of GOD into 'little rocket man'.

Re:intentional

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, intentional. It must be planted, false information that was left there for them to steal. Otherwise, we would need to assume that the military are a bunch of idiots. They're actually hoping that the other guy's military are the idiots.

Re: intentional

[WrongMonkey]

How has that worked out? Does North Korea seem to be backing down since last September?

Re:intentional

[losfromla]

GOD? What does that acronym mean?

What plans?

[fahrbot-bot]

What plans? You mean, if North Korean attacks, bomb them back to the Stone Age - meaning, "last week".

Re:What plans?

[Anonymous Coward]

What plans? You mean, if North Korean attacks, bomb them back to the Stone Age - meaning, "last week".

You are right. That worked so well for both the Soviets and the US in Afghanistan, didn't it?

Re:What plans?

[bobbied]

No, actually they have some pretty modern weapons... Just no roads to move them around or fuel for the trucks they are on.

Their air defense network is pretty good, being built from hand me down, hand me downs they purchased from the Russians paying with fish and held together with left over bailing wire. It will be good as long as they don't actually try to use it.

Re:What plans?

[BessBeysanmak]

What plans? You mean, if North Korean attacks, bomb them back to the Stone Age - meaning, "last week".

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Honeypot

[Anonymous Coward]

While it's certainly possible they got a hold of some actual plans I suspect this was nothing more than a honeypot containing disinformation. Do you really think they got 200gig of data unnoticed? I mean seriously, come on. I doubt NK even believes this is legit info. I'm sure they'll go through it extensively, but the chances of it being valid are slim to none. Besides, the real plan is just hand loose, let them make the first attack and then bury them with superior armaments. Sure SK will take a major beating and Tokyo could be lost, but there simply won't be a NK. In the crater where it used to be China will setup a small puppet government that will eventually become part of mother China and Russia will sit back and smile at all the trouble it caused the west, while enriching themselves in the profits of supplying logistics and materials to rebuild.

Re:Honeypot

[losfromla]

I missed the part where dRumpft profits from this. Unless this little conflagration enriches dRumpft there is zero chance of it happening.

Stop playing Warcraft

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

plan to remove the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, referred to as a "decapitation" plan

"Hey fatass! I know how you can lose 10 pounds real quick!"

Re:Stop playing Warcraft

[losfromla]

I hope dRumpft is listening, he could definitely lose 10 lbs at least. Maybe then he could get it up without a handful of viagra.

Re: Stop playing Warcraft

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you stopped raping your neighbor's goats yet?

Last year's plans

[reboot246]

There is a new American administration and there are new plans. Obama's plans were probably just kicking the can down the road, like every President since the 1950s.

Plus, even if they did happen to steal legitimate plans, who is to say that they were "allowed" to steal them? We can read the "Art of War", too. :)

Re:Last year's plans

[bobbied]

...as opposed to orange hair il Douchebag's plan, which is to be as ignorant as any human can be, and then demonstrate said ignorance by starting WW3 as soon as possible.

Hyperbolae much? As soon as possible would have been on January 20th right about noon. North Korea could have been a glowing parking lot by 3 PM eastern if the whole plan was to start a war with them. Trump must really be in your head or something.

Seriously, do try to at least understand the man a bit better it will help you survive the full 8 year treatment you are in for... He's not trying to start a war, but he's not kicking the can down the road anymore either. He's not the smooth talking political animal you are used to, but a brash outspoken loud mouth that gets stuff done in his own way. He loves to tweak folks and get in his advisories heads, which is what he's doing to Kimmy boy in North Korea. I think that's a good thing actually. I want Kim to be looking over his shoulder and not sleeping well at night worried about what Trump might actually do. Nervous people make mistakes, costly mistakes, so all Trump need do is sit back and tweak the kid, get time for the sanctions to start to bite and see if Kim makes an unforced error of some kind.

You don't have to like Trump, but at least try to understand that there might be a method in the madness you see.

Re:Last year's plans

[AHuxley]

An Operation Mincemeat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... got started by one part of the smarter parts of the US mil.
Another part of the US gov desperate from some cyber action told the waiting media about the US cyber skills in action seeing plans "moving" down the internet tubes.
The US gov is now so big its spying on its own tubes and different sections are desperate for bigger budgets and good cyber news stories.
One good hidden mil plan becomes a contractor race to tell the media.

Timing is interesting

[WrongMonkey]

This hack took place just before the US election in November 2016. Which puts a different context to all rocket test launches that have happened since then. It suggests North Korea isn't just rattling sabers at an untested administration. They might actually have a larger scale plan.

Re:Timing is interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Tin Foil Hat Time

What if it's information that was ' accidentally ' left on a system for them to find ?
Why bother with a false-flag event, when you can just manipulate ol Kimbo into becoming the boogey man for you ?

Granted that's giving our own government a whole lot of points in the forward-planning department, but still.

Isn't it sad when you have to even consider such a possibility from our own government ? It's really sad when the trust level of both nations are pretty much on par with one another.

Can you be more specific?

[Okian Warrior]

This hack took place just before the US election in November 2016. Which puts a different context to all rocket test launches that have happened since then. It suggests North Korea isn't just rattling sabers at an untested administration. They might actually have a larger scale plan.

I'm probably being dense here, but... can you be more specific about what is suggested or what might be their plan, instead of the innuendo?

Innuendo is good when everyone is on the same page and the circumstances suggest something obvious, but I'm not getting it here.

Right before the election, Hillary was the overwhelming favourite to win. Trump's win couldn't have been reasonably predicted, so how could the "timing" of the data incident lead to the larger scale plan?

I would expect such a tremendous upset (the election) would cause NK to *change* their plans. Development and deployment of missiles doesn't happen overnight, so...

What does this suggest? Can you be more specific?

(Could it also be a crime of opportunity? Where some NK hacker "got lucky" and grabbed the data without being a targetted, planned and orchestrated event?)

Re:Can you be more specific?

[Trailer Trash]

No offense intended, but you do realize you look like an idiot when you're still pushing the "Russians haxored the 2016 election to make Trump win" thing at this point, right?

Re:Can you be more specific?

[PopeRatzo]

No offense intended, but you do realize you look like an idiot when you're still pushing the "Russians haxored the 2016 election to make Trump win" thing at this point, right?

Yes, like most Americans, I believe Russia intervened on Trump's behalf in the 2016 election.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/22/...

and the raw data...

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2...

Re:Can you be more specific?

[Anonymous Coward]

At this stage, it doesn't matter what he believes, or even if most people agree with him. The champion of the lowest common denominator establishes the narrative and is beloved by all, but he will not escape the law.

Re:Can you be more specific?

[AmiMoJo]

North Korea's plan is to develop a nuclear defence capability and thus ensure they are not invaded by the US.

Trump has been assisting them with this through his threats and name calling, and general weakness. It's given NK more justification to protect themselves, forced China and Russia to warn the US to back off, and further weakened Trump because he can never follow through on his threats of violence.

Everyone is taking maximum advantage of Trump. NK, Russia, China, the EU, even Mexico...

Re:Can you be more specific?

[painandgreed]

No offense intended, but you do realize you look like an idiot when you're still pushing the "Russians haxored the 2016 election to make Trump win" thing at this point, right?

Actually, the major point isn't even that the Russians tried to affect our elections. Like most forms of espionage, we do it, they do it, everybody does it. That's the nature of the game, but when somebody gets caught, there is the political game of making a stink about it. That signifies to the foreign power they have gone too far and should pull it back some. This time, they get caught and the person who won not only hasn't made a stink about it, standing behind his country, but even encourages it. Signifying to the foreign power that they have not reached the limit of what they can do but can step up attempts to affect our politics even more before they are even told to stop. So now we have an American politician that is siding with foreign powers against American sovereignty because it favors him. The major threat here is that they are being influenced by a foreign power over the nation they are supposed to be acting in the best welfare of. This is after there was already suspicions that the same political figure was in financial debt to institutions of the same foreign power to which they refuse to clear up by even releasing information that is traditional for such candidates to release to the public even after winning. The major fear here is not that some foreign power tried to sway our elections, but that the winner of said election is being influenced if not acting complicitly with said foreign power for personal gain.

Re:Can you be more specific?

[Anonymous Coward]

Raw data about a meaningless poll.

It does show that yellow journalism and old fashioned propaganda still work.
The story of the 3,000 facebook ads got me a first but it's actually as unsubstantiated as the others. FB execs were pressured into returning a result, came empty handed, then when pressured again came out with weak "evidence". Only 44 percents of the ads were show before election and the criterion for "Russian government stooge" is that failbook served the user in Russian language (the user may be an unknown 19-year-old part of the Russian minority in a Baltic state or Romania for all we know, or may be based in the UK or US). Then the ads were part of click bait schemes, including the page about cute puppies which was denounced by "mainstream" US media as an ominous and nefarious scheme by Russian intelligence services or whatever evil influencing Russians.

Sadly but this "affair" would best be termed as a conspiracy theory, albeit with a few seals of authority stamped on.
Likely it's a bunch of disconnected teens that followed the example of the Macedonian teen who earned over $1000 a month in advertising revenues by peddling fake news "TRUMP!!!" stories on a web site. And they are at best "guilty" of using Failbook the way it's intended to be. They're young, educated, poor; unemployed and internet connected - many could do this but eastern European might be more likely to as you can earn that sort of money in the rest of the US/European world by working Wal Mart kinds of jobs, fast food, waiting tables etc.

If you fall for the story, it might be because you're incredulous that journalists could fall this low or perhaps society would really be in danger if the poltical/media establishment is fooling people with extraordinarily empty claims, but it is what it is.
It might not even have much to do with Trump. Many in the elites are likely horrified or panicking that Russia and Syria are winning the war in Syria and the US is losing it. They have no real plan but "RUSSIA BAD!!" stories serve their interests.

Re:Can you be more specific?

[khandom08]

BRAVO! +1 if I had mod points left.

Re:Can you be more specific?

[Trailer Trash]

Holy shit. You think a link to a CNN poll proves something?

Holy. Shit.

Did somebody say h-o-n-e-y-p-o-t

[Anonymous Coward]

Betcha all those plans are a nickle late & dime south. Honeypot !

I call cyber bullshit on this story ..

[Anonymous Coward]

I call cyber bullshit on this story ..

During Obama Times? No Worries.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, too lazy to check the time frame. But there is no worry if these plans were made during the Obama times. Trump would stop breathing if he heard that Obama invented respiration... so I'm sure the plans will be ignored too. Trump will want to wag his giant nuclear codes around just to show how willing he is to stand up to Kim Jong Un. He has no concept what will happen if he actually pushes the button. He just knows he wants to.

Fake plans?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was thinking the plans that NK supposedly stole, might be fake.

Afaik, it is normal for one belligerent party to create fake plans for the other belligerent party to react to.

Re:Fake plans?

[Anonymous Coward]

Also I should add, because of how I think of USA as being a terrorist organization (a country run amok) I don't trust anything I read in the news.

Drones, lots and lots of drones

[Anonymous Coward]

Assign at least two drones to each of NKs thousands of artillery pieces near Seoul. Stage the attack so that each piece of artillery is hit at approximately the same time. Use conventional bombers and cruise missiles to target any mobile forces moving south. Drop a few of the bunker buster bombs on their subterranean nuclear facilities. Cut off their capital from the rest of the country. Wait for winter and the eventual collapse.

Re:During Obama Times? No Worries.

[Anonymous Coward]

I would agree but I doubt Trump has much if any control on the military. There even are a bunch of generals working high or top level positions in the White House and called "the adults in the room". So I figure out they're free to stick with their plans or draw their own plans in general while Trump has the power of blustering and playing with the nuclear button.

captcha is : "freakish"