7 ms·
North Korea sent him abroad to be a secret IT worker
- aaron695 1y ago[dead]
- yapyap 1y agoOdd 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
- _mlbt 1y agoThey 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 1y agoNo. 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 1y agoIts 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 1y agoI admit this is a presumption, but I doubt they send people out without leverage of some sort.
- tough 1y agodictatorships are the worst. but true, even professional athlete's when travelling defect etc
- dh2022 1y agoIn 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 1y agoIt'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.
- alwa 1y agoThey can also select which citizens to send based on their ties. Much as a bank might size up collateral for a loan.
- throawaywpg 1y agosome NK do choose that option
- dizhn 1y agoMaybe it's not so bad in North Korea? :)
- yapyap 1y agolol.
- deadbabe 1y agoIt’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 1y agoPeople 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
- Yeul 1y agoAnd 30 years later people get nostalgic for the simple days...
- dh2022 1y agoOh 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 1y agoYou have no idea what happens in NK and are trying to pretend you do because you read some western propaganda. Get a clue.
- tdeck 1y agoEvery 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.
- abdulhaq 1y agoIn the UK they let us keep 50%
- horns4lyfe 1y ago[flagged]
- crop_rotation 1y agoI 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 1y agoI 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 1y agothere 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
- vuffert 1y ago[flagged]
- baxtr 1y ago> 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 1y ago> 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 1y agoOk makes sense. So only once you see his face in the interview you realize it’s not the UK person?
- heelix 1y agoWe'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 1y agoAnd, 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.
- deadbabe 1y agoperfect 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 1y agoHow 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 1y agoA 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 1y agoThey 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.
- forinti 1y agoBut 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 1y agoThe 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 1y agoIt'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 1y agoThe 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 1y agoIf not production, they can usually read all the backups, DR systems, logging telemetry, legal discovery systems etc...
- freedomben 1y agoZero trust doesn't do anything for you when you give the person a legitimate account with access, which presumably you must do for employees else they can't typically do any work
- lathefarger 1y agomy wages fund the american regime