A federal court in St Louis has indicted 14 North Koreans for allegedly being part of a long-running conspiracy aimed at extorting funds from US companies and funneling money to Pyongyang’s weapons programmes.
The wider scheme allegedly involves thousands of North Korean IT workers who use false, stolen, and borrowed identities from people in the US and other countries to get hired and work remotely for US firms.
The indictement says the defendants and others working with them generated at least $88m (£51.5m) for the North Korean regime over a six-year period.
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The prosecutors say the suspects worked for two North Korean-controlled companies - China-based Yanbian Silverstar and Russia-based Volasys Silverstar.
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Oh no! People making money by … checks notes … working for it!!
No, I don’t care that they are doing it for a communist regime bent on developing nuclear weapons. The only consistent result of depriving rogue states of money and trade is the starvation of their people. Its a little hard to overthrow or reform a government on an empty stomach.
These people didn’t work to earn money their families, they worked for the regime using stolen identities. North Koreans are not even allowed to get in touch with companies (or individuals) in the West, let alone work for them.
I don’t think anyone is disputing that they shouldn’t be stealing identities, but are they in fact doing the work they’re being paid for? That’s just called having a job. It’s not like the US government isn’t using tax money to fund its continued arms development, including nukes.
Given that in North Korea military jobs are the most stable ways to provide for your family, I’d say both are likely true.
The problem for the ordinary non-political person could still be that the allegation is the work was remotely done from North Korea using remote control software on computers in the US set up by people off paid in the US; no one other than the military-based government is capable of doing this as things are. A government not generous enough to let a decent share see it made back to ‘families’ anyway. It would be a small part at most.
The model of North Korea is mainly oppressing its own citizens, and trying a bit to oppress others as well. I don’t particularly feel sympathy for those who feel it is justified and righteous to join such an endeavour such as its military for the same of ‘feeding families’. I rather feel sympathy for those these people oppress—whether the people harming them do so out of their own choice, or because they feel there’s no other way than to go along with it to survive while believing that as long as they themselves are not in a bad situation it is fine. Causing problems for others, aiding in causing problems for others, is never fine based on any sort of justification. Even if most (if not all) governments in the world are, in some way or another, engaged in it.
In the end every horrible deed done for gain by people who have people they care for can be said to be done for ‘feeding families’ in this sense. The powerless being oppressed certainly have more real concerns to worry about than the persons harming them possibly justifying it by doing it for feeding their families, and even I do not particularly see any merit in it.
This isn’t equivalent to people getting rich by doing bad stuff, this is literally people who would be starving otherwise, like many others in NK are. And doing remote tech work isn’t a “horrible deed”. You have to actually apply nuance. You can’t run to “anyone who works for the NK government for any reason is bad.” This is the same logic that Israel uses to call the Gaza Health Ministry and other civil services “combatants”.
The people who suffer due to not making that decision will feel otherwise.
And it is nothing alike. Health Ministry and civil service are nothing like being employed in a military government where funds go directly to the government which aids in putting the systems of both suppression and oppression in place.
It isn’t quite in the level of North Korea but I live in a pretty bad place and pretty much on the opposite side of those who made the decision to join up. Those people might complain but the ones who have made the decision not to aid anyone who harms everyone else have it much worse. In my situation it is their fight for luxury against my, and others’, need for basic sustenance and protecting our basic dignity (which usually isn’t respected) due to that one choice. In a place like North Korea the difference will be much worse, however incomprehensible it may seem.
Then your situation is not the same. They’re not fighting for “luxury”, they are also fighting for basic sustenance.
Frankly, I’m not going to take anyone but other North Koreans’ opinion on condemning this. We can both (clearly) converse on Beehaw without being arrested or killed. And no matter how you keep avoiding the point, doing illegal remote tech work and handing the paycheck directly to the government, is not any different than doing legal remote tech work and handing taxes directly to the government.
Governments get money, governments build weapons.
Do not worry. People like me know to work around that, even with restrictions in place to stop doing basic work. The thing I ‘do’ is to write books which will be free to read and download for all. The plan was to make it CC BY, but the option of CC BY NC is becoming increasingly attractive. In either case I cannot monetize it, and will provide no ‘exclusive’ offerings behind paywalls on places like patreon. It is legally not the sale of goods in any way, and any earning will be extremely low. I’m not avoiding any topic. There are no taxes to be paid unless I make a substantial earning (even in an excessively taxed land for the not wealthy), which I say right now is less likelier than any work a thousand times worse with some marketing has a better chance to do. I’ve accounted for this already because I care about it—and the bitterness of such words does not go away.
On the other hand, the oppressed in North Korea who have not made that choice to join up with legitimacy at the cost of other people sure as hell have no way to complain to you about it. Just because they cannot be heard doesn’t make their lives but worse them the people who contribute to it for any reason whatsoever.
And about being arrested or killed is a bad topic to take up with me.
For 3 years I faced regular starvation, sexual harassment supported by the whole family and no good person gave an eff, and unbearable pain which made me want to die everyday. Because I was born in a house of religious fanatics in a place where there is not really interest in stopping these things rather than making a political headline after death. No one gives an eff because it is common. It is normal here. Such things are ‘fine’. This is after being emotionally and mentally abused for around 15 years without retort from the time I was a toddler (as far as I can remember is when I was a toddler), which increased till I was purely suicidal for years from around 10 years old. My mother tried to stab me dead when I was a toddler (which was revealed much later but I do not remember personally), tried to prove me legally crazy when I wasn’t an adult yet and handed me over to religious fanatics with the reason of me being possessed by demons—after I was forced into religion, which caused a number of issues I couldn’t deal with, since before I was in nursery school. Despite having good grades I couldn’t secure employment because of the issues I had—issues I have fixed in time by facing everything, no thanks to ‘good people’—which meant no employment and many attempts to, smugly, push me towards ‘living for myself’. No employment. No shelter. No preparedness. It is not absolute death but back then it more or less would’ve meant death to me. I couldn’t even get my own service offering of cheap books going because of regulation which is meant to stop solo businesspersons rather than aid them. The playing field of business is not levelled for those with nothing, it is set to crush those with nothing for those who have everything. The way I have survived, is by literally adapting to require less. For the sake of survival I eat around one meal every 24 hours—or more—these days. Nothing fancy and things I prepare with basic vegetables myself to ensure no nutrition is lost. I basically made a way to work in a profession in which I had no skill by developing the skill myself, because ‘support’ is a luxury in this endeavour I cannot rely on.
There is a person behind every comment and post you see. I have faced death for years now. In fact the lifestyle I live with the meal for an entire day is much safer than what I had in the past, even with more food to sustain myself back then. You could’ve done better than assume I have not faced death—or my situation is stable enough that I won’t face it in the next few years.
I attempted to DM you, but Lemmy is not allowing this. I did not want this public, and I scanned that wall of text and understand you’re suffering. This is an incorrect forum to talk about this. Chat is the right place.
But here’s what follows, which is admin approved:
Reporting everything you disagree with has gotten old. You’ve been here for less than a month and account for the vast majority of reports I’ve received since the community was created in mid-2023. If you don’t like what’s going on, disengage. I’m not here to tell others to back off every time you don’t like what they have to say. You are abusing the reporting system.
You clearly see bad faith in everything stated in this thread, when the ethos of Beehaw is to assume good faith. And crossed the line several exits back into harassing mods. That’s not a great look. Consider this a warning that if you cannot handle an online discussion, perhaps stop visiting the thread.
I welcome and encourage you to continue participating here, but dealing with everyone who responds to you is not my role. I’m not entirely certain why you are so worked up over North Korean spies; if you have a valid reason, please share it by responding inline, not reporting everything. As it stands, you seem to have an axe to grind, which can be done somewhere else.
I’ve seen you present thoughtful, cogent, relevant responses elsewhere here, so this is honestly baffling. I’m not going to cast aspersions, nor am I taking any action at this time, but you’ve had plenty of opportunity to show you know when to simply stop responding to others, and you’ve not chosen that route. I would suggest a different approach.
… and yet, North Koreans did this work, and I addressed the money issue from the regime-level down.
Stealing Identities to get work does not imply the ruined the credit of those people. Getting worked up over this is NOT all that far off from getting worked up over immigrant laborers stealing identities so they can work and feed their families, or recieve food stamps or medical care. At least those last two kinda-sorta have victims, and yet I still prefer immigrants be able to eat.
Sorry, you’re not going to be able to get me to buy into the fear-mongering hysteria-machine by apeing thier narratives. I’m not saying your arguments are invalid, just addressing them from the same surface-level reading you gave mine.
These people didn’t work to ‘feed their families’. Their families likely didn’t benefit at all from this scheme.
The presence of remote working itself exposes the flaws with the arguer’s chain of comments. It is (and it is funny that I can actually make this conclusion) impossible that the money does not go directly to the North Korea regime. North Korean civilians have no internet.
How do you know?
It is directly in the article. It is impossible for civilians to do this. In an absolute sense.
Lastly, the aggressive countering nature of this comment was unnecessary if you were merely seeking clarification.
I know of nothing whatsoever that proves this. The article certainly doesn’t clarify anything to that effect.
It was four words, without any emphasis. I deliberately wrote my comment to be simple and calm. Any aggression you’ve interpreted is on you, not me, and I suspect you only read it that way due a to a pre-existing negative opinion of me.
Yet you dispute things which reference it without trying to learn more about it yourself. Instead you ask others and dispute them like it is owed to you.
It is not anyone’s problem in particular that someone doesn’t know something. You could’ve ignored the post and comments, or you could’ve genuinely sought to know more if you cared. While putting in your own effort to supplement it.
Perhaps I could plaster everything you say with ‘how do you know’. Not that I’m going to do it because I know how malicious doing so would be. The lack of elaboration in dispute is anything but ‘simple and calm’ because your question puts the obligation on the person saying anything to absolutely answer to you without the assurance that you actually care about the topic and want to know more, and not that you do not care about the topic regardless. Elaborate more. That would be simple and calm, if the elaboration were put in a simple and calm manner.
Repeating the same tired gibberish with no elabbration, much?
These aren’t ‘common’ IT workers seeking a job but spies working for North Korea as the article says. What should I elaborate here?
Removed by mod
From the article
Correct me if I’m wrong, but North Korean civilians have no access to internet.
Rather spies, soldiers, whatever, work remotely for western companies than whatever other bull their government wants them doing.
There’s a height of feigned ignorance. There’s no chance the money goes anywhere than directly to the military government. Not to “families”.
… and? Yeah, welcome to the thread. At what point do I say otherwise?
Starving the regime is not an excuse to starve the country. The regime doing anything that brings in more money than it spends is a better use of its time than other things it tries to do, and will continue attempting regardless of cash-flow.
Call me when you’re ready to impiment a no-fly zone and mass air-dropping/smuggling of Starlink, Cell Phones, Cell Towers(stand-alone, like the Stinger, only in reverse), weapons, and most importantly, food.
Are you ready to do something about the problem of starving North Koreans, or do we just continue blaming it entirely on their government?
… yeah, that will show them. Meanwhile, do you even begin to understand how food is distributed within North Korea?
India and Pakistan, circa 1998 … You’re telling us the world ended because we didn’t starve them all out.
Depending on the validity of the article, they also did a little extortion in addition to just working, so not just having a job. Not saying that wasn’t part of their job on the NK side, but the salary wasn’t the only money involved.