How not to hire a North Korean plant posing as a techie(theregister.com) |
How not to hire a North Korean plant posing as a techie(theregister.com) |
- NK secret service (or whatever you call it) is more sophisticated than this. They will act as proper company from Turkey, India, China or even EU countries...
- if you actually manage to get some North Korean who escaped to West, they are 10x more dedicated than anyone else. China, or South Korea (usual target countries) do not offer many opportunities, they need money for relatives.
- NK secret services do not attack west infrastructure, or steal info from small fish. They are too small to do that! Most money is from drugs and guns.
- if you hire US only, you eliminate 99.99% of issues. US borders are not ideal, but they do repeal unwanted Asians.
Edit: * stitching, working with cloth, it was textile factory in East Europe
Today there is most likely trade with China (I am not familiar with that). I would go through Russia, there is direct border and regular trade. NK building companies operate in captured parts of Ukraine for example.
Or just use bitcoin. NKs do have access to internet, it is good store of value (better than diamonds) and highly liquid asset!
I am surprised about the request for drug tests. Is this common in the US?
Except for high-security jobs, which are never possible remotely anyway, I have never heard of a client or employer asking for a drug test. If I got a request for a drug test, I would quit immediately. Even if I am sure it is negative, my private life is my business. Any attempt to control my private life I see as a personal attack.
In practice it varies heavily on how it’s implemented, generally a company isn’t really keen to spend the money and time on that shit until after they’ve been burned by incidents.
- Could be once on hiring, then only if you really fuck up. This is what my company does.
- Could be “random” testing that just so happens to “randomly” catch the obvious fuckwit who walked in after driving to work while probably blitzed and now wants to hop in a sprayer.
- Could be genuinely random testing.
I work in Agriculture, and my company provides me a work pickup truck (funny enough, my ATV in the back is my actual “work” vehicle if you consider time spent driving) along with fuel, which I can make reasonable personal use of. The tradeoff is they demand the ability to get notified of tickets/points added on my license, and if I start repeatedly getting speeding tickets and ignore the “hey, stop that shit” talk they give me, they’ll ultimately rescind the free vehicle they’ve provided me. Getting a DUI would very likely result in immediate termination. Which I consider fair enough
If I worked a desk job and don’t have a situation where altered states of mind would present a massive danger to myself, others, and company equipment, then yeah drug tests can fuck right off.
Very much so. An ex-coworker worked for a cardboard factory, attempted to unionize the workforce by providing lunches to workers during talk shops. He was taking liquid cannabis, had a doctors permission, script to get his medical card, only dosed enough for his aliment, and HR was aware.
Management had him take a urine analysis, supposedly workforce wide, of course failed due to the cannabis use, fired him the same day.
Never missed a day he scheduled, good guy.
Working for the city we do routine tests, especially CDL drivers, but from what I understand, they don't look for positive tests for cannabis, so I'm unsure if we're seeing a shift due to the legalization across nearly half the US, or they're specifically looking for opioids.
Just figured I'd share a perspective.
The employer was completely incredulous I would refuse to submit to the background check and thought I had stuff to hide. I was laid off in short order. I do t regret anything, this was invasive and unnecessary. I’ve never had to do a background check again beyond providing an extract of my police file that says I have no convictions.
Some companies have contracts with the Federal Government and even if you won't be working on those projects or won't have to get the security clearance, there are certain clauses in the contracts which requires the company to not have employees drink at work, to drug test employees and other stuff like that.
I once was asked to do a drug test as the offer was contingent on the drug test to clear because of this kind of contract. I rejected the offer from other reasons, but the recruiter told me we can schedule the drug test weeks in advance, to make sure 'everything is out of your system, just in case'. It was a urine test, and I got the feeling that the company was trying to make sure the test was going to clear regardless of my lifestyle outside of work, no questions asked.
Also, the recruiter told me it was a one-time thing for me and other 'general purpose' employees, but persons directly involved in the whole security clearance government stuff were subject to random testing.
The previous company won their case in Colorado Supreme Court to fire someone using medical marijuana even while off-duty.[0]
Additionally, even though we passed a law (constitutional amendment) allowing recreational use in Colorado, employers are still allowed to test and fire you for it.
[0] https://ogletree.com/insights-resources/blog-posts/colorado-...
Does the C-suite also get regular, supervised piss-in-a-cup tests, or do they actually not have as much impact on the success of the firm as they claim to?
Ye that sounds both illegal and pointless.
For software jobs? No, they aren't very common. But they are not unheard of.
Many jobs give you lots of warning. So it isn’t so much “are you doing drugs” as “can you stop doing drugs.”
Not everyone has that privilege.
This is "a sign"? In what company is that not grounds for immediate revocation of all access, termination?
[x] Phone, laptop.
> working odd hours,
[x] Delayed sleep phase insomnia.
> Repeated requests for prepayment followed by “anger or aggression when the request is denied”;
[x] Previously ripped off by shitty employers.
> Evading in-person meetings or requests for drug tests;
[x] Social anxiety, medical cannabis user who is aware that even though legal (in AU) it is stigmatised.
> Having multiple online profiles for the same identity with different pictures, or online profiles with no picture.
[x] Average privacy enthusiast.
I await further instructions from Glorious Leader.
if you're flagged, then here is your plane ticket, come to HQ and let's prove your a real human. showing up, looking more or less like your ID and zoom call, and being able to speak generally about what you're working on is enough.
like even if the job is 100% remote, fly em to the office at least once or twice.
And there's still the "man-in-the-middle" problem.
Why would they evade drug tests and meeting in person? Do the "techies" claim they are not Korean at all? Surely, a North Korean would pass as a South Korean to (at least) any non-Korean colleague?
Additionally, drug testing locations examine government IDs all the time, so the NK workers are not likely to actually have one that matches the name they are working under. Otherwise, people who use illegal drugs could hire "clean" family or friends to give the hair/urine/blood required for the tests.
People who have escaped from Scientology report being treated similarly - guarded at all times when they leave their compounds, ID documents seized.
Typically freelancers work from wherever they want, on any random starbucks wifi.
> Back in 1937 Comrade Stalin pointed out that as long as the Soviet Union existed amid capitalist encirclement we would have wreckers, spies, saboteurs and murderers sent to our home front by foreign states. [1]
Just change the names and the years and the professions around, and we'll be good to go. The actual existence, non-existence, or prevalence of spies, saboteurs and wreckers is second fiddle to the perception thereof. :)
[1] https://soviethistory.msu.edu/1947-2/xenophobia/xenophobia-t...
> infiltrate organizations they work for to steal secrets
Do you worry about this as a random company? You are gonna steal source code for 4 out of 12 micro services required to run some random online shopping website, or a video game? what is North Korean gov. Going to do with it?
And if you give random people access to customer data, then it’s already being sold on the dark web.
> suspicious behavior such as working odd hours and inconsistencies in name spellings
every autistic or dyslexic or socially disfynctional techy is a spy now?
A: Insert code for backdoors, then leverage those backdoors to hack defense systems and systems that can track where defense personnel and equipment are. Traffic cameras and delivery services come to mind.
Why would they ask for prepayment?
- North Korean: Uh-oh. I can’t physically do either of those.
- Bay Area: I’m not taking bus-to-BART-to-bus from Berkeley to the city for some meeting that could’ve been a Zoom. Drug test? Is there a minimum level I need to pass? Not doing it.
Drug tests are dehumanizing af. What I do outside my work hours is my own private time.
Perhaps these slaves are being doped up to focus on the work?
It's common all among the working class in Asia and the Asian Diaspora (Bayswater Basic if you've ever been to London). It's dirt cheap and keeps you awake while. doing any monotonous or manual labor.
In this specific case, a drug test for a remote job requires ID verification. It's a simple redundancy to verify that the person you hired is that same person.
If you're a white person on a freelancer website, you may get approached by someone who wants to buy your account.
And why? If they can’t do the job you fire them.
It’s very dumb. Scheduled-in-advance piss tests aren’t great for catching much other than weed. Most other things aren’t detected in urine after 2-3 days. Weed metabolites, which is what they test for, stick around for potentially weeks. The whole exercise will be practically pointless if weed ever gets removed from the set of things they’re testing for.
[edit] what I’d love to see replace this junk is some kind of probably-computerized attention and reaction test, for jobs where it actually matters. Which is only a subset of the ones that currently test, but, when it comes to truck drivers and heavy machinery operators and such, I don’t care if they like to do drugs off hours, but I do care if some straight-edge driver is too tired to drive, and that’d catch those cases, too. Maybe open to cheating, but piss tests are routinely cheated anyway.
Why? Depending on the work, it might be a legal requirement. But for the purposes of these guidelines, it doesn't matter. The point is, if they are evading in-person tasks, it could be because they're misrepresenting their location.
You'll find a number of NK operated companies and restaurants in Saigon and Hanoi to help bring in foreign currency.
Also, Vietnam has one of the largest Korean diasporas outside of Korea, as South Korean companies moved all their operations in China to Vietnam in 2013-17 after the THAAD fiasco.
Just about every single product and conglomerate in Vietnam is Korean (specifically Lotte Holdings). Walk down the street and you'd find 3 Lotte Marts. Then go grab lunch at the Lotteria next door. Then call a Grab and ride in a Hyundai back to your apartment in D2 built by Lotte while the driver is playing KPop produced by Lotte Cultureworks, and then watch some KDramas or Vietnamese shows at home produced by Lotte Cultureworks and maybe chill out while drinking some Chum-Churum Soju. Then, next morning, drink some Chillsung Cider to fight the hangover and go to your company, who will end up exporting products back to Korea via Lotte Global Logistics with financing from Lotte Capital. When you end up getting vacation, you'll end up flying to Seoul and maybe take your family to Lotte Hotel World.
in most cases no one cares if you did it last year, but you gotta be clean while on the gub'mnt / contractor payroll.
unofficially after the drug test i don't think anyone asks too many questions. just make sure you don't have to lie on the background check cuz I've seen people upgrade from a Secret to higher, and the higher clearance investigations went deeper and found stuff. RIP job in that case.
but seriously tho, knew a dude who did GIS work for the DIA and he was ripping a bong the second he got home. he eventually got really into the cult-y motivational speaker world, not sure where he is now, but was making fat stacks while blazing for a while
Plus you'd be surprised (or maybe not) as to the number of DNS queries we get from employee workstations that are to questionable websites. I couldn't tell you all of my coworkers that are gay, but I can tell you a few that are hitting gay porn websites from their work laptop.
For VPNs, I think they mean non company provided VPNs. So if they're needed, the company should provide them. I can se a scenario where your ISP throttling your traffic or you want to secure traffic and your employer has no VPN. Idk how I'd solve this one.
Verified working locations: I work usually from home or my office, but when I travel, it's usually not a secret where I am, I don't actively try to hide it, it's visible during zoom calls, etc. It's about the level of trust you build with your employer. I have stopped by HQ once or twice while on vacation but that is not required. Overall don't have shady patterns?
But...I am certain companies are not reasonable and some will conflate RDP with any remote thing. Others have no idea how to setup vpn infra, and others simply can't fathom that a remote employee can/should travel while working. So they will have policies that will make remote workers ineligible for hiring.
Can you provide a source for this? Google results provide only articles that suggest the claim, no real confirmations.
It is probably the most direct admission you can get right now. Why? Because there are UN Security Council sanctions against North Korea prohibiting the procurement of services from North Korean companies, including building services. Also, just a week ago, Russian denied violating the sanctions related to North Korea, stating something along the lines of "Russia being a responsible member of international society" [2].
As far as I know from my personal experience, when Russia makes claims denying involvement in something, it is usually involved in that thing.
There are also statements about North Korean workers being sent to Ukraine on South Korean website about North Korea [3]. Just "we have information about that", but it looks plausible and completes the picture.
[1] https://tass.ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/15427835
[2] https://ria.ru/20231015/kndr-1902858034.html
[3] https://www.dailynk.com/english/north-korea-orders-trading-c...
This article mentions NK workers posing as Americans by paying for VPNs into people's home wifi https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/fbi-thousands-remote-wor...
Say you have an office in South Korea. A South Korean developer starts working for you as a remote employee, and their IP looks like it's connecting from South Korea. You say "cool, awesome, but you need to come to our office in Seoul once every two months for our regular all-hands meeting," and they keep skipping out on it, claiming family emergencies or whatever. That's the warning.
That was my understanding.
Probably things have changed, but back in the mid 90s we had our first government contract, and one thing was that we were required to have a "drug testing policy".
A couple of team suggestions were "you bring 'em we'll test 'em" and "employees have access to private ceramic urine collection devices. After collection, other employees do not have access to the results of processing".
In the end we sent in "Our policy is not to test for drugs" and we got our contract.
(I agree with you that what matters is actual functional risk, not paranoia)
The civil surgeon is required to perform specific tests for tuberculosis, syphilis, and gonorrhea. The medical examination also requires the civil surgeon to evaluate for other sexually transmitted diseases and Hansen’s disease (leprosy).
Furthermore it suggests that physical and mental disorders may be grounds for disqualification. Finally, drug addiction and substance abuse generally must be disclosed.
https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/forms/i-6...
Canadian immigration wanted my full medical history for Permanent Resident status, and there was a medical check, blood work, and a chest xray for TB. I was in the US military with injuries from that, and they asked for all of the paperwork.
But getting around that is stupid easy and simple, it is laughable.
This is not correct. When I held a clearance (which I don't anymore and won't again) the Department of Defense never made me take a drug test. I did, however, work for a publicly-traded government contractor that made me take one both times that they hired me as a matter of course. I worked for three other such defense contractors that were happy to have me without such a test.
I thought it was just a mild inconvenience until I developed a sinus infection and started taking pseudoephedrine and diphenhydramine two days before I was scheduled to take the test. Because these OTC drugs can cause false positives for methamphetamine and marijuana respectively (depending upon whether the test is reagent-based or GCMS) I had to quit taking them and suffer through two days of an upper respiratory infection to pass the test and placate some HR drone in Alabama.
I'm sure that there's a policy or exemption process for this situation but the same company also almost pushed my start date because their background verification service couldn't verify my past employment _at the same company_, i.e. their onboarding team was grossly incompetent. I decided not to chance it as I didn't want to go weeks without a paycheck while they sorted out a false positive. Needless to say I don't waste my time dealing with this class of employers any longer.
https://www.rkpt.com/business-and-corporate-law/employment-a...
You can't say it's okay to use marajuna and then later say, I had no idea he would test positive for marajuna. They should have reasonably known that he would test positive for marajuna.
Maybe it's not a medical discrimination case, but it's definately a case.
The employer constructed the other evidence as an excuse (which is what basically any employer knowledgable of the law does), but the previous approval would undermine the validity of that evidence.