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Communications The Internet

North Korea's Internet Use Surges, Thwarting Sanctions and Fueling Theft (nytimes.com) 33

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
North Korea has vastly expanded its use of the internet in ways that enable its leader, Kim Jong-un, to evade a "maximum pressure" American sanctions campaign and turn to new forms of cybercrime to prop up his government, according to a new study. From a report: The study concludes that since 2017 -- the year President Trump threatened "fire and fury like the world has never seen" against the country -- the North's use of the internet has surged about 300 percent. Nearly half of that traffic now flows through a new connection in Russia, avoiding the North's longtime dependency on a single digital pipeline through China. The surge has a clear purpose, according to the report released Sunday by Recorded Future, a Cambridge, Mass., group known for its deep examinations of how nations use digital weaponry: circumventing financial pressure and sanctions by the West. Over the past three years, the study concluded, North Korea has improved its ability to both steal and "mine" cryptocurrencies, hide its footprints in gaining technology for its nuclear program and cyberoperations, and use the internet for day-to-day control of its government.

"What this tells you is that our entire concept of how to control the North's financial engagement with the world is based on an image of the North that is fixed in the past," said Priscilla Moriuchi, a former National Security Agency analyst who directed the study and has long focused on North Korea and Iran. "They have succeeded at an easy-to-replicate model of how to move large amounts of money around the world, and do it in a way our sanctions do not touch. Our sanctions system needs a radical update," she concluded. The report helps solve the mystery of why the country's economy appears to have survived, and in some sectors actually grown, as the United States and its allies have talked about their success in choking off oil supplies and cracking down on North Korea's skillful production of counterfeit American currency.
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North Korea's Internet Use Surges, Thwarting Sanctions and Fueling Theft More

North Korea's Internet Use Surges, Thwarting Sanctions and Fueling Theft

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  • 4k TV (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dan East ( 318230 ) on Monday February 10, 2020 @11:52AM (#59711306) Journal

    The explanation is simple. Kim Jong Un must have smuggled in a 4K TV. Now he's consuming 3 times as much data watching Netflix.

  • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bobbied ( 2522392 )

      Wow, what a liberal snow flake.

      IF you really think NK doesn't matter to you in your little corner of the world, I'm afraid I cannot help you understand the geopolitical realities of the world. It's not JUST "the nukes" here, there is a more, a lot more that should concern you. As the wise man once said, "those who know history are doomed to watch helplessly while those who don't know history repeat it over their objections."

      North Korea borders BOTH of the top two geopolitical challengers of the USA, one

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Kjella ( 173770 )

        NK was already holding South Korea hostage, but when you've been threatened by hostilities since Bush declared them part of the "Axis of evil" up to the Cheeto-in-Chief I'd strengthen my hand any way I could too. So let's say they become a full blown member of the MAD club, a first strike is still suicidal. The only thing that couldn't happen is another invasion like Afghanistan or Iraq, but that already wasn't going to happen unless you'd let Seoul turn to rubble. Hopefully he won't see the need to sell nu

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by winse ( 39597 )

      four words: proxy war China Russia. If you don't understand who is still propping up North Korea and supplying what little military might they have, then you perhaps need to listen to some old people between Matlock episodes.

    • 1950. That's when the Korean war started. For bonus points, can you tell the class who invaded whom? And it ended without NK formally declaring it, so you can imagine why virtually everyone still considers NK an enemy.

      • I realize you wanted people to say the North, but that isnâ(TM)t accurate. Japan invaded first. What happened after that was a civil war, no invader required, that got escalated and messed with by major powers using it as a proxy. I.e. something no longer relevant and something that never should have happened.

        • Japan is out-of-scope for this particular topic. (Personally, I blame Chinggis Khan.)

          I believe that a comparison of the fortunes of the two states is relevant today.

    • Since those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
      • 1945 - WWII ends, administrative rule of Korea (formerly Japanese-occupied territory) is split between the U.S. and Soviet Union (whom the U.S. asked to invade Japan in case the atomic bombings didn't result in a surrender). Both agree to vacate Korea, but the Soviets leave all their weapons behind.
      • 1950 (June) - North Korea uses those weapons to invade South Korea.
      • 1950 (July) - The Soviet Union is boycotting the UN. The UN Security Counci

    • At this point most of the people who remember the war are either elderly former statesmen or boomers watching matlock in a nursing home.

      Or the soldiers who spent a year or three over there. Still quite a lot of those around. My father, for one...and no, he's not in a nursing home....

  • Wait till Lil Kim gets his bill for going over his usage cap.

  • They could have allowed the internet to educate their citizens and bring them in to the first world but they would rather play 1950s war games with it. How many generations of the Kim family will this go on for?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Shotgun ( 30919 )

      Lead the citizens to first world status, and the first thing they will do is throw out Kim. They do not want their people educated. Well, most likely, they really don't care. They just want to maintain their own power.

    • Even assuming the unrealistic intention of freeig theie population from their own propaganda, how would they prevent them drowning in OUR propaganda?
      (Assuming becoming actually free people is the goal here.)

      Oh, you think we don't drown in NK-level propaganda?
      Riiight... ^^
      Sure thing, buddy. :D
      Our propaganda is THAT good!

      • Even assuming the unrealistic intention of freeig theie population from their own propaganda, how would they prevent them drowning in OUR propaganda?
        (Assuming becoming actually free people is the goal here.)

        Oh, you think we don't drown in NK-level propaganda?
        Riiight... ^^
        Sure thing, buddy. :D
        Our propaganda is THAT good!

        Is this serious? I suppose one could argue that we get propaganda from the US government, but there are so many sources of such propaganda that covers the entire gamut of ideologies that the combined effect of that propaganda is arguably closer to white noise. Throw in the US press which spans the extreme right to the extreme left, and the white noise is even noisier. North Korean, Chinese, etc. propaganda is polarized and has the ability to control thought. US propaganda is unpolarized; the best it ca

  • North Korea is a joke. Empty words, silly fakes, pathetic power.

    They are way back in the line of evil, after even medium-sized corporations. Way behind Monsanto, Gold Man-Sacks, and even the Mont Pellerin Society. Way way behind any bigger religious leadership. No chance of ever playing in the big league of total evil, like Russia, China, let alone the world champion, USA!

    The US has meddled with almost every country's government on the planet! Including Russia's elections! (Yeltsin)
    Russia has meddled in man

    • If you look at history then you'll see that there is no other reason for North Korea/South Korea separation than conflict between USSR and US armies at the end WW2. Since that entire conflict is obsolete because even Russia is on US leash now(Yeltsin and his chosen ideological successor Putin), you can't consider hostile US policy against North Korea as anything other than US's hissy fit at NK's unwillingness to go along with them. Nobody should dare to remain outside of US hegemony. Everyone should kow-tow

      • "Russia is on the US leash now": What kind of alternate reality do you live in? Sounds better than ours.

        • Would they support Yeltsin if he was anything other than vassal leader? Russia is vassal in all ways that matter. They just use it as scapegoat now for US gov's own screw-ups.

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