Slashdot Mirror
North Korea Advertises Military Hardware On Twitter and YouTube, Defying Sanctions (vice.com)
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."
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."
Son, that comment wreaks of communism. Turn your heart to Jesus and pass the ammo.
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.