Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

North Korea Advertises Military Hardware On Twitter and YouTube, Defying Sanctions (vice.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the out-in-the-open dept.

eatmorekix shares a report from Motherboard: Glocom, a front company for the government of North Korea that sells sanctioned equipment, isn't giving up. In 2017, before YouTube quietly removed Glocom's channel, the company was advertising missile navigation and other military products on the video platform. But Glocom has returned. It setup a new channel, and also had a presence on Twitter, until Motherboard flagged Glocom's accounts to social media companies. The news not only signals the perseverance of parts of the North Korean's money-making enterprises, but also a slice of the content moderation issues that tech platforms constantly face. Glocom "is using them as platforms to market sanctions violating products," Shea Cotton, research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, and who has a particular focus on North Korea, told Motherboard in an email. A United Nations report says that Glocom is run by North Korean intelligence agents, even though it pitches itself as a Malaysian company.

Cotton said "this company continues to operate openly. Most DPRK [Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea] fronts, when exposed, usually fold or at the very least shut down and move their operations to another country and re-open under a new name. This one hasn't done that. We've seen them try to create this spin off brand called 'FACOM' and sell a few of their products under it but as you've seen their main brand is still thriving apparently."

11 of 61 comments (clear)

  1. who is buying? by phantomfive · · Score: 2

    Sanctions make it illegal to buy from them, but they don't make it illegal for them to try to sell. The real question is, who is buying all that hardware?

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    1. Re:who is buying? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      "but they don't make it illegal for them to try to sell." It makes facilitating the advertising of a sale illegal, yes it sure does. Lots of countries in Africa buy NK weapons. They're dirt cheap and the US won't sell to them.

    2. Re:who is buying? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It would only be illegal if North Korea were under anyone's legal authority. They aren't and can do what they like.

    3. Re:who is buying? by AHuxley · · Score: 2

      The same nations who buy a huge German computer controlled "lathe" for "vocational education" near a mil base.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    4. Re: who is buying? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Son, that comment wreaks of communism. Turn your heart to Jesus and pass the ammo.

    5. Re: who is buying? by Aighearach · · Score: 2

      This is slashdot, don't underestimate the energy people put into farting.

  2. Treaties by JBMcB · · Score: 2

    Anyone who didn't sign the UN treaty on the sanctions. Probably Iran, Myanmar, Cuba, etc...

    --
    My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
  3. Re:Start a war! by bobbied · · Score: 2

    LOL.. You DO realize that they really do have laws in DPRK lots of laws in fact, what they lack is freedom access to information.

    Remember, they just re-elected Kim's party in an overwhelming majority and are in the process of rounding up anybody who voted the wrong way and shipping them off, along with their immediate family and any distant relatives who are suspect, to the "reeducation camps" where you make little rocks out of big ones.

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
  4. Wrong site, innit? by virtig01 · · Score: 2

    Twitter? Isn't this kind of thing more appropriate for Etsy?

    "Handmade by local artisans, not by a big corporation. Our carbon footprint is 5x lower than other countries in the region."

  5. Looks like Trump's little buddy is a busy boy by Miles_O'Toole · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Short of waving his pecker in Donald Trump's face, is there anything more blatant Kim Jong Un could to to show the US he will do whatever he likes, and because he has nukes, there's sweet FA the US can do about it?

    --
    Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
    1. Re:Looks like Trump's little buddy is a busy boy by Aighearach · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Japan does have missile defense, and in a war in Korea, Seoul is the prize, they wouldn't want to nuke it. There isn't much else for them to shoot at other than Guam or Hawaii.

      The whole "bombard Seoul to shit in 30 minutes" stuff is a load of math-challenged crap. They have n artillery pieces, but in a war they have to aim most of them at the enemy artillery pieces, or in the 30 minutes they don't even have artillery anymore. They have lots of artillery pieces, but the number believed to be aimed to Seoul is more like "dozens."

      And if they did aim it all at Seoul, artillery doesn't destroy a city that fast. With artillery it takes continuous bombardment for months to level a city; in 30 minutes you're not even knocking down buildings. People moved away from the exposed side of buildings in the first few minutes, and are taking shelter on the far sides and in basements. You would have thousands of casualties, sure, but not millions.

      It isn't like they can send waves of bombers over the city or anything like that.

      Carpet bombing wouldn't be needed to stop it, they have computers that observe the artillery fire and calculate the location. Some of it is dug in, but accurate return fire still plugs the cave they're firing out of.