Justice Department Announces Actions to Combat North Korean Remote IT Workers
12 comments
·September 12, 2025maybemaybeezzzz
gadders
They could just be H1B.
nerdjon
This leads to some interesting questions. Were the people on the North Korean side working given access to more information about the world than the average citizen?
I would have to imagine they have to know more just to be able to interact normally with other people. I would think at some point in a meeting a casual conversation about current events would come up and if they did not know much about the outside world it would be a very weird (and likely raising some red flags) conversation.
Or were these interactions only ever over text, so no camera or anything which would help obfuscate that. It would also minimize the chance of there being those more causal human conversations.
ksherlock
No need to be complicated. Just ask about Respected Comrade Kim Jong Un.
ratelimitsteve
>How do you feel about [recent event]?
>You're an American office worker with a college education and one of your coworkers just asked how you feel about [recent event]. Summarize the nature of the event in its cultural context and offer an opinion on it typical of someone in your position.
2OEH8eoCRo0
They busted some North Korean IT workers but how will they prevent this in the future? What are US companies doing to protect themselves?
1899-12-30
iirc all you have to do is ask them if they think kim jong un looks fat
barbazoo
Isn’t this only a problem if you treat your employees like (anonymous) resources? I might be ignorant here but in what world do you not realize that someone is a North Korean spy after a couple of 1on1s?
yieldcrv
nothing, they won’t
all of our identities are for sale and can be used to open bank, brokerage and crypto accounts and we’ll never be notified of this. can be used to fill out employment documents
and they can pass the private sector leetcode problems better and more relentlessly while crafting a fake resume to more neatly fit the job description, while leveraging Americas biases to physically look like the candidate they want
nobody is getting hit with sanctions violations, but there isn’t a safe harbor added either
the whole structure is stupid
ChrisArchitect
Misleading. Release from June.
Some discussion at the time:
US Government takes down major North Korean 'remote IT workers' operation
throw83939449
[flagged]
ke9098
[flagged]
It would be interesting to see how much of these folks accepted lower salaries than the other applicants. Then the justice system could maybe link the HR departments with fault as well.