https://apnews.com/article/north-korea-weapons-program-it-workers-f3df7c120522b0581db5c0b9682ebc9b
Court documents allege that the government of North Korea dispatched thousands of skilled IT workers to live primarily in China and Russia with the goal of deceiving businesses from the U.S. and elsewhere into hiring them as freelance remote employees.
I feel like in this case they are holding their families as hostages to keep them compliant.
Edit: Seems like they taught those IT workers to use lemmy too
This is why despite North Koreans being dumb enough to think Kim Jong Un doesn’t poop, I love that they’re all family men down to a man; thousands and not even a few percent of them defecting regardless? They’re amazing. They could also still keep contact with the press and the CIA anonymously, but then again after the last time the press/CIA released the identity of the guy helping them which saw his family get executed they’re probably scared; I can’t recall who that person is and I can’t seem to be able to find info on him but it must have happened cause why else wouldn’t they keep in contact with the press/CIA anonymously through the internet?
Unless for their thousands of IT workers they also have thousands of handlers, and their thousands of handlers also have their own handlers. The Chinese and Russian government would also have to be collaborating with this system to be allowing North Korean handlers to be keeping watch over their charges and to be doing so secretively, but they’re the bad guys so I’m sure that’s happening.
God I love that real life is like a James Bond movie.
Is the simplest explanation really that a hostage situation that is always active and victimizing like a minimum of 10,000 people at a time, with zero public leaks, defectors, or anything else, while opening the DPRK up to revolt by creating a class of thousands of people whose families they directly threatened who also have easy access to the broader internet (Korean IT workers in China), versus . . .
These workers are supporting their families and an income tax was applied? Or just that the US is making shit up?
Is the byzantine conspiracy with an astonishing level of success really the most probably answer? What does it say about your worldview that this was what you “feel like” they are doing?
I feel like the real threat is 10,000 people coming home and teaching their family (maybe even community?) about what the rest of the world is like and what the real world outside North Korea looks like; can you imagine what 10,000 individuals in addition to 10,000 families all learning about democracy and freedom from the internet can do to the country? But I’m sure Kim Jong Un thought of that already; 10,000 families learning about modern society can’t possibly spread like wildfire, after all it’s only 10,000 families, that’s nothing; Israel killed that many in individuals just this week.
You have been lied to about North Korea. It is simply not the evil dictatorship it’s constantly portrayed as. This was a shock to me too when I first started trying to dig into all the things I’d been hearing most of my life about the “hermit kingdom.” But if it is something you’re remotely interested in understanding, you owe it to yourself to start questioning those lies, which includes questioning the material reasons behind why they are told. Since you posted something from a “defector” below, that’s an excellent place to start asking questions about the veracity of claims made by defectors and understanding the industry they are incentivized to participate in (often to the point of having no other options).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3V4Hnl7J9H4 Loyal Citizens of Pyongyang in Seoul - “A documentary on the world of defectors and South Korean Intelligence”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDXxXYFweTs What’s the Deal with Defectors? - shorter video essay that covers the basics.
If you like podcasts, I’d recommend Blowback. Any of their 4 seasons are excellent, but season 3 is about the Korean war and its consequences.
Uh huh, sure. That’s why visitors are heavily monitored and often end up being detained and taken prisoner. Not to mention the lengths their people have to go to if they want to leave. Surely the signs of a healthy and stable country.
“Uh sure, I’m not going to question these lies because here is yet another set of lies I already don’t question that confirms the first set of lies. Checkmate, commie!” -You
Why might they have to go to such lengths? Hmmm…
“Plenty of North Koreans leave and live in China with no problem. The big reason it is so difficult for them to leave in general isn’t because they are being held prisoner there by the DPRK government, it’s because of restrictions imposed by the US and UN making it impossible for them to live most anywhere else.”
Meanwhile the DPRK has no official restriction on the people’s free movement.
People visit there all the fucking time without issue, but you can keep comforting yourself with more lies like that so you don’t have to confront reality. You’re really proving you have no curiousity and no will to examine your misconceptions. Here’s another vid I might have included in my other comment, this one about visiting North Korea. Not that you actually watched or have any intention of watching them, but this one is short and comedic, so maybe even someone with zero interest in intellectual honesty might watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BO83Ig-E8E
Yeah, and hellholes like the US have such health and stability that they have the most prisoners in absolute terms and per capita by far where their ethnic minorities are murdered by their militarized police death squads with impunity. And why soldiers from the US are now defecting to North Korea because of the insane racism and oppression they face in the US.
Westerners are the most propagandized people on the planet.
(Not the guy you’re responding to) Yo, thanks for the links about the US and UN laws; I’m showing them to my lib colleague (fat chance it’ll have any effect though, the American Cinematic Universe is too important for him).
Glad to help. Truth be told, I got the links myself from someone either on hexbear or lemmygrad. And
the info might help get through to your colleague, sometimes the “right sources,” like from characters in their precious ACU, actually can make an impact.
Juche Gang rise up!
I feel like in this case you are wrong. And probably in every case involving the DPRK
https://www.nknews.org/2015/03/studying-abroad-with-your-family-held-hostage/
Wouldn’t be the first time…
The closest thing i can find to a claim of fact in this link is:
So just to be clear you are citing a story told to the author by anonymous someone who heard it as a child from another child.
lmao
This is garbage from a professional defector (left in 2005) with no ability for the reader to verify anything, published by a single-purpose anti-DPRK propaganda mill.
Do you have a more compelling citation?
Things like these make me wish the US didn’t ban its passport holders from even setting foot in the DPRK, some irony that is
The individual who wrote this article sounds horrible; at the bottom of his page it says he’s from North Korea himself. I can’t believe he sacrificed the lives of his family like that. If his family managed to escape with him, I wonder if they went after his extended family. Either way, I can’t believe he’d/they’d sacrifice their family; absolutely callous.
Definitely not the first time you’ve been wrong about the DPRK.
If you want an actual conversation try starting with something that isn’t an unfalsifiable conspiracy theory next time
Congratulations, you are officially the dumbest motherfucker who ever lived. Your medal will arrive in the mail within 4-6 weeks.
Looking forward to it
That seems very likely. They probably have them all tied to chairs under the exhaust nozzles for the nuclear bombs the DPRK has aimed specifically at Meemaw’s beloved church, the Holy A$$emnblie of God in Cash located in the third string suburbs of Lubbock, TX.
Based on what?