Comment by abtinf
6 hours ago
I’m a little unclear on the usage of the word “fake” here.
Going by article, these are real people doing actual real work, they often use stolen identities to conceal information about themselves, and they get help from outside sources to do their jobs better.
Whatever the right word is, it’s not “fake”. Maybe fraudulent? Or ulterior motives? Or deceptive? Or pretext? Or threat actor? Or foreign agents?
I agree - this is closer to bonded labor though the paying employer doesn't know it. Instead most of their earnings go to their actual employer (which is the North Korean state). "slave" maybe is more appropriate? "prisoner"?
most of my earnings go to my employer too... we bill clients at X and I get a small portion of it
Exactly. As slave as them.
11 replies →
Advanced Persistent Coworker
Advanced Persistent Telecommuter
The implication is that they're pretending to be legitimate employees whereas they are actually exfiltrating IP from a hostile nation state. Seems valid.
You mean like the DOGE team?
"Fake" seems fine. If I buy a fake watch, that might mean that it's a real watch that does its job of telling time, but it says "Rolex" on the front and that's a lie.
In that example it would be more common to describe the watch as a "fake Rolex", for the reason you give (it's a real watch).
The proper term in your example is “counterfeit”.
I believe that in this context they are referring to their fake personalities.
I agree that fake is an odd word to describe this. Most likely much of our IT infrastructure is extremely compromised. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the major password/healthcare/etc... leaks in the past 6 years were the result of someone "accidentally" setting a cloud bucket to public.
I actually turned down a fly-to-texas for an in person interview about a year back, but I do think in the age of the internet if we don't sacrifice some of the things we have taken for granted in the past, we're going to lose our country. Perhaps there should be a law that requires a picture of any employee standing next to their boss for continued employment - at some point in the future. (this is just an idea, not to start a flamewar, don't attack the specific idea, but attack the idea of some kind of extra checking if you don't agree with it)
I don't think we have a word for this. At best, it is disingenuous work.
we have many words for this Con, Fraud, Secret, Poseur, Imposter .. and after googling for more terms "Pseudonymist" seem a better fit
Labeling the actual worker negatively seems harsh - they are probably being forced into it by the state. You might say they can willingly underperform and not be used this way - but if the alternative is a much harder life, could you blame them for playing along?
Spies, at the end of the day they are spies.
Who cares what they're called. Main concern in this case is that the result of their work poses danger to the US. Like a spies. They often do legit work and meanwhile some "extra"
"the result of their work poses danger to the US"
I doubt it.
It's North Korea though and they're all eViL. Imagine a world where the U.S lifted sanctions on N.K. traded with them and stopped crying about losing a war 70 years ago. Ah well a boy can dream.
Edit: Lol saying anything positive about North Korea on hacker news and people instantly freak out. This fucking website man. North Korea isn't what I would call a free society but it's also not the hell on earth that most liberals want you to think it is. So much of the misery that normal North Koreans have to face is because of western imposed sanctions. We've tried punishing them for 30 years now, it hasn't destroyed the regime if anything they double down. I guess it's easy for a bunch of overfed over paid tech workers to not feel any kind of solidarity for a North Korean though and insist on punishing them even more. Hell the North Korean government would even be open for this kind of agreement if we would actually guarantee their sovereignty, sadly trusting the United States of America to hold up any kind of deal you make with them is fucking impossible.
Here is a quote I came up with but is attributed to Henry Kissinger
Having the United States as your enemy is dangerous, but having them as your friend is fatal.
That old bag liked it so much he had no problem taking credit for it.
Lot's of people have tried trading with North Korea, but they're politically unreliable. China and Russia both try obviously, but so has South Korea. These cooperations usually work for a while but eventually the unreliable reality of the North Korean government wrecks it for them. If it were all America's fault, as these sort of regimes always claim, they'd be able to get on well enough with their neighbors, but they can't.
The United States plays a large role in destabilizing them I went to a lecture at my university where a South Korean professor said as much. He was hardly a fan of the North Korean regime. At this point the regime has zero interest in cooperation, I'm sorry but your government is slowly becoming an authoritarian state in its own right and is currently causing chaos at the behest of Israel a country which just commuted a genocide with the blessing of both parties in your country. Imagine trying to get along with your neighbor when they have billions of dollars of military hardware on your border. No country is to willing to cooperate with North Korea because being in the good graces of the United States is 100x more beneficial. You claim that North Korea can't get along with its neighbors please remind me which country invaded and artificialy divided Korea when they elected some one The United States didn't like.
10 replies →
Sure, let's prop up a communist dictatorship so the leftists can run their concentration camps more efficiently.
Brilliant idea, comrade.
Even other communist dictatorships are pretty sick of North Korea's shit!
6 replies →