[HN Gopher] North Korea sent him abroad to be a secret IT worker
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North Korea sent him abroad to be a secret IT worker
Author : tellarin
Score : 80 points
Date : 2025-08-02 10:18 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| yapyap wrote:
| Odd that he was sent abroad to do it, I always assumed they just
| did it from NK instead of abroad.
|
| Also only having to give 85% to the regime seems pretty weird to
| me, it'd seem more logical to give 100% to the regime and have
| them provide the workers with a very cheap bed and food
| dlachausse wrote:
| They probably hoped that the remaining 15% was just enough to
| keep the workers from defecting. That combined with the threat
| to brutally torture and kill their family that remained in
| North Korea were probably pretty effective motivators to stay
| loyal to the regime.
| apwell23 wrote:
| No. They don't need to worry about defections. Unless the guy
| really wants condemn his whole extended family and next 7
| generations into labor camps.
| tough wrote:
| Its quite presumptuous to assume that
|
| 1. Every citizen will have ties or family to -think of- 2.
| The current regime (which is now on its third generation)
| will last 7 generations more. 3. You have any descendants
| at all
| furyofantares wrote:
| I admit this is a presumption, but I doubt they send
| people out without leverage of some sort.
| tough wrote:
| dictatorships are the worst. but true, even professional
| athlete's when travelling defect etc
| dh2022 wrote:
| In Romania during the 70s and 80s the only people who
| would go to specialization/training in the West had
| spouse and kids that stayed behind. The punishment for
| defecting was that the defector would not see their
| wife/husband/kids ever again (well, it seemed to be for
| ever. Nobody expected the regime to crumble). AFAIK there
| were no labor camps in Romania.
|
| With this in mind-I am quite sure NK is selecting the
| people win a similar fashion. I would not be surprised if
| the punishment for defection is more sinuster than just
| not seeing their spouse/kids ever again.
| D-Coder wrote:
| It's a _threat_. It doesn 't have to be perfect. If the
| citizen does have a family or descendants, it will have a
| significant effective rate.
| throawaywpg wrote:
| some NK do choose that option
| dizhn wrote:
| Maybe it's not so bad in North Korea? :)
| yapyap wrote:
| lol.
| deadbabe wrote:
| It's bad but not as bad as we're made to believe, people
| still have lives worth living. They live, they laugh, they
| love. They do fun normal stuff, they have free thoughts, they
| have family.
| klik99 wrote:
| People will see kids laughing and playing in a war zone and
| think "it can't be that bad, if it was that bad they'd be
| cowering in fear 24/7" - but people always find a way to
| live and find snippets of joy in even the worst situations
| dh2022 wrote:
| Oh my God, you are so naive. Normal stuff in NK is watching
| your kids wasting away because of lack of calories (average
| North Korean is 10 inches shorter than average South
| Korean-even though 70nyears ago they were the same people
| genetically). Is living with a radio in your home that does
| not stop singing praise to the regime - neighbors will
| report you if they think you turned off the radio. If they
| have free thoughts they do not share these out of their
| family (and most likely hide them from their kids because
| kids talk unsupervised). I could go on for a page or so but
| I hope you get the idea.
| dttze wrote:
| You have no idea what happens in NK and are trying to
| pretend you do because you read some western propaganda.
| Get a clue.
| braingravy wrote:
| Found the NK IT worker :)
| phatfish wrote:
| Gone on, tell us, which podcast should we be listening
| to?
| deadbabe wrote:
| You're just feeding into western propaganda. Yes North
| Korean people are poor and there's tons of inequality but
| they are still real people. They are not in a constant
| war being bombed and tortured endlessly. They tend to
| farms, chat with friends, make jokes, feel pain and joy,
| they do what they can. I know that sounds like literal
| hell to a tech obsessed population that has to filter
| everything through the lens of social media, but for many
| people this is just life.
|
| A lot of North Koreans probably don't even think about
| the government, it just has always existed and always
| will exist to them, they don't think about things being
| anther way because it won't be, so they just get on with
| it. It's like the people who believe propaganda that
| America has turned into a hell hole now under Trump where
| people have no rights or opportunity and have to live in
| fear of mass shootings or being kidnapped by ICE
| everyday. For the vast majority of American's that just
| not accurate at all. Touch grass.
| dh2022 wrote:
| The only bad things in the daily NK life you mentioned
| are poverty and inequality (more about that below [0]).
| You did not mention famine, physical oppression, lack of
| healthcare, censorship-all of which are well documented.
| I am afraid it is not me who is pushing some type of
| propaganda...
|
| [0] about inequality in communist countries- these
| countries had much less inequality than western
| countries. Almost everyone was equally poor. In my home
| country of Romania the top 100 level apparatchiks (people
| who rworked directly with Nicolas Ceausescu) had the life
| style of a surgeon or wealthy dentist in the west: they
| had a "villa" with 3-4 bedrooms in the Primaverii
| neighbourdhood and a cottage somewhere. They still had to
| drive their own Romanian Dacia car. They had good heating
| and the electrical blackouts did not happen in their
| neighborhood. They had access to special stores to buy
| food( they did not wear western clothing). The rest
| 99.99% of Romanian people were all equally poor: they
| lined up at the same food queues, lived in the same cold
| apartments, lacked electricity and medicines equally,
| drank the same yellow/ brown tap water, listened to the
| same 2 or 3 western radio stations broadcasting in
| Romania, etc...
|
| Stalin and the members of his governments also did not
| live lavishly: Stalin always wore a military coat and all
| through the 80s the Kremlin looked as drab as ever. His
| dacha had 4 bedrooms and two floors.
|
| Compare this inequality vs what has been going on in the
| west. Wealthy people in the west own islands: both Google
| guys, JP Morgan, the Bush family. They own not just 1
| yacht, but another one to follow along with their help on
| the summer Mediterranean milk-run. They own not just one
| mansion, but multiple mansions.
|
| I want to conclude this long post by saying that under
| communism I was personally aware of this difference
| between the inequality in the west and the equality in
| communist Romania. And that once Romania overthrew their
| dictator and inequality exploded I personally felt much
| better. Sure, 2 or 3 of my classmates started driving to
| high school in their BMWs-and I spent all of high school
| in the same patched up jacket. The rich boys had their
| group physically close and yet separated from us. They
| were sure to tell girls how much their latest gizmo
| costed or how big the disco bill from previous night was.
| Of course they did that in front of poor guys like
| myself(labagii) All of which is not nice at all. But at
| least now I had food, heat and electricity-and a chance
| to leave for better places. I would take this trade-off
| today just as eagerly as I took it in Dec 89.
| tdeck wrote:
| Every regime needs some way to encourage people other than
| "we'll kill you if you don't". Letting them keep 15% makes the
| work more attractive.
| horns4lyfe wrote:
| [flagged]
| crop_rotation wrote:
| I doubt these North Koreans are getting hired due to wage
| disparities (these are roles supposed to be in the US where
| they have a contact person in the US), more like they have
| perfected the interview process as the most important thing in
| their life.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| I got the impression from the article he was working with
| people in Turkey and Hungary to use their identities to get
| jobs in the UK and US. So US company found this amazing
| Hungarian dev who would work for 1/5 what an American would
| ask for, but they paid for it either way their privacy (hey
| wait a minute, sounds familiar...)
| tough wrote:
| there was recently this soham dude on SV/YC doing the rounds
| a few weeks ago
|
| if all you do everyday is interview, you obviously get great
| at it
| dang wrote:
| " _Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents._ "
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| baxtr wrote:
| _> Jin-su spent most of his time trying to secure fraudulent
| identities which he could use to apply for jobs. He would first
| pose as Chinese, and contact people in Hungary, Turkey and other
| countries to ask them to use their identity in exchange for a
| percentage of his earnings, he told the BBC.
|
| "If you put an 'Asian face' on that profile, you'll never get a
| job." He would then use those borrowed identities to approach
| people in Western Europe for their identities, which he'd use to
| apply for jobs in the US and Europe. Jin-su often found success
| targeting UK citizens.
|
| "With a little bit of chat, people in the UK passed on their
| identities so easily," he said._
|
| Interesting. I was under the impression that most large employers
| perform basic background checks on new employees?
| apwell23 wrote:
| > basic background checks on new employees?
|
| yes background check is done on UK person's identity and then
| Jin-su shows up to the job.
|
| This is a happening a lot for regular tech jobs. Person who
| interviews and person who shows up for job are completely
| different ppl. we had to start taking screenshots of faces in
| interview so we can compare. This is happening big time.
| baxtr wrote:
| Ok makes sense. So only once you see his face in the
| interview you realize it's not the UK person?
| heelix wrote:
| We've had people interview remarkably well, get hired, and
| when they showed up on the team - they did not know the
| stories/experiences they mentioned in the interview.
| Realized the person we screened was not the same that
| showed up to work. Back when we were doing a lot of hiring,
| this sort of scam worked.
| miki123211 wrote:
| And, at least as far as I've heard, those people often target
| small-ish companies, something like 20-100 employees. Large
| enough where you can stay unnoticed, small enough that you
| don't have strict policies and background checks.
| ManuelKiessling wrote:
| Over the past years I was approached multiple times with
| innocent sounding emails that clearly had the goal to use my
| identity in the way described here.
|
| I've always simply ignored these.
|
| Is there a better way?
| deadbabe wrote:
| perfect example of why you shouldn't bother hiring these cheap
| offshore engineers.
|
| you're hiring an engineer thousands of miles away in another
| country for a fraction of the cost of an American engineer and
| you just assume they can be trusted with access to your most
| sensitive data and systems? And that they even are who they say
| they are and not just a frontman for some cabal?
| jfengel wrote:
| How trustworthy is that American?
|
| You know that the North Korean is untrustworthy, but that's
| kind of a special case. Is a random American more trustworthy
| than a random Bangladeshi or Slovakian?
|
| I suppose that you have a bit more ability to do background
| checks on US citizens. But those background checks aren't so
| great, either.
| graemep wrote:
| A random person in your own country is more trustworthy for
| two reasons.
|
| 1. background checks 2. more ability to meet face to face. 3.
| ability to go after them for wrongdoing (either civil cases
| or chances of getting the police to follow up on anything
| criminal.
| miki123211 wrote:
| They _thought_ they were hiring American engineers, though.
|
| The only way to prevent this is to do in-person only, but
| that's another can of worms.
| pixl97 wrote:
| I mean at least have some in person and commonly check in
| with video calls.
|
| Heh, maybe we need to make a 2FA device with biometrics and
| GPS, where it's setup in person the first time.
| forinti wrote:
| But are they any good? I suppose they must be, as they seem to
| retain their jobs, but how do they rank overall?
|
| Also, I tend to think that maintaining these interactions going
| might be a way to let more information into Naughty Korea and
| might actually have a positive influence in the long run.
| kibwen wrote:
| The risk is not the quality of the work that the person might
| do. The risk is that you now have a state-controlled North
| Korean asset operating inside your security perimeter.
| sugarpimpdorsey wrote:
| It's 2025, it's all about zero-trust now. Can't be inside the
| security perimeter when there is no security perimeter.
|
| Hiring mischievous North Koreans is fully in line with your
| CIO's new priorities, which she heard about at a conference
| once.
| kibwen wrote:
| The reason that North Korea targets IT roles in particular
| is precisely because they're the weak link in zero-trust
| implementations. Someone, somewhere, has the unfettered
| rights to access the production database, and they're in
| the IT department.
| mgiampapa wrote:
| If not production, they can usually read all the backups,
| DR systems, logging telemetry, legal discovery systems
| etc...
| mhurron wrote:
| A lot of these are not there to breach your data, they're
| there to make money and fund the DRPK.
|
| That's why there's no one industry or types of businesses
| being targeted, it's anywhere they can get hired. If your a
| high profile target, that's a bonus not the original goal.
| kibwen wrote:
| NK is a client state of Russia and China. Their handlers
| are all too happy to pay for sneaking loyal dogs inside the
| henhouse.
| vinceguidry wrote:
| They're very good. They get training directly from the regime.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| I interviewed one guy who probably was one of them and he was
| not a genius enough that I could ignore the aura of confusion
| and sus. I didn't think it was NK until way later but now it
| makes sense
|
| Probably got lucky otherwise I would have no work myself
| because I think the client isn't that rich, they would go out
| of business from ransomware attack
| charlieyu1 wrote:
| If you're picked from the top of a country with 26 mil
| population you are probably good
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