North Korea sent him abroad to be a secret IT worker

[baxtr]

> Jin-su spent most of his time trying to secure fraudulent identities which he could use to apply for jobs. He would first pose as Chinese, and contact people in Hungary, Turkey and other countries to ask them to use their identity in exchange for a percentage of his earnings, he told the BBC.

"If you put an 'Asian face' on that profile, you'll never get a job." He would then use those borrowed identities to approach people in Western Europe for their identities, which he'd use to apply for jobs in the US and Europe. Jin-su often found success targeting UK citizens.

"With a little bit of chat, people in the UK passed on their identities so easily," he said.

Interesting. I was under the impression that most large employers perform basic background checks on new employees?

[apwell23]

> basic background checks on new employees?

yes background check is done on UK person's identity and then Jin-su shows up to the job.

This is a happening a lot for regular tech jobs. Person who interviews and person who shows up for job are completely different ppl. we had to start taking screenshots of faces in interview so we can compare. This is happening big time.

[ManuelKiessling]

Over the past years I was approached multiple times with innocent sounding emails that clearly had the goal to use my identity in the way described here.

I‘ve always simply ignored these.

Is there a better way?

[carstenhag]

Germany: I don't know of anything a normal company could do as a "background check". Some sectors can ask for a criminal record which the future employee has to provide. Of 3 companies I was at, 0 required (or were allowed to require) this.

Military/government jobs with secret data have their own, through clearance checks of course, but a random IT company would never have this.

On the other hand, you have to submit so many tax, social security, insurance-related IDs which are cross-checked, I don't think it's feasible to impersonate someone here. It's also a reason why over-employment is not possible.

[yapyap]

Odd that he was sent abroad to do it, I always assumed they just did it from NK instead of abroad.

Also only having to give 85% to the regime seems pretty weird to me, it’d seem more logical to give 100% to the regime and have them provide the workers with a very cheap bed and food

[_mlbt]

They probably hoped that the remaining 15% was just enough to keep the workers from defecting. That combined with the threat to brutally torture and kill their family that remained in North Korea were probably pretty effective motivators to stay loyal to the regime.

[tdeck]

Every regime needs some way to encourage people other than "we'll kill you if you don't". Letting them keep 15% makes the work more attractive.

[dizhn]

Maybe it's not so bad in North Korea? :)

[forinti]

But are they any good? I suppose they must be, as they seem to retain their jobs, but how do they rank overall?

Also, I tend to think that maintaining these interactions going might be a way to let more information into Naughty Korea and might actually have a positive influence in the long run.

[kibwen]

The risk is not the quality of the work that the person might do. The risk is that you now have a state-controlled North Korean asset operating inside your security perimeter.

[throwaway290]

I interviewed one guy who probably was one of them and he was not a genius enough that I could ignore the aura of confusion and sus. I didn't think it was NK until way later but now it makes sense

Probably got lucky otherwise I would have no work myself because I think the client isn't that rich, they would go out of business from ransomware attack

[charlieyu1]

If you’re picked from the top of a country with 26 mil population you are probably good

[vinceguidry]

They're very good. They get training directly from the regime.

[deadbabe]

perfect example of why you shouldn’t bother hiring these cheap offshore engineers.

you’re hiring an engineer thousands of miles away in another country for a fraction of the cost of an American engineer and you just assume they can be trusted with access to your most sensitive data and systems? And that they even are who they say they are and not just a frontman for some cabal?

[jfengel]

How trustworthy is that American?

You know that the North Korean is untrustworthy, but that's kind of a special case. Is a random American more trustworthy than a random Bangladeshi or Slovakian?

I suppose that you have a bit more ability to do background checks on US citizens. But those background checks aren't so great, either.

[miki123211]

They thought they were hiring American engineers, though.

The only way to prevent this is to do in-person only, but that's another can of worms.

[lathefarger]

my wages fund the american regime

[horns4lyfe]

[flagged]

[dang]

"Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[crop_rotation]

I doubt these North Koreans are getting hired due to wage disparities (these are roles supposed to be in the US where they have a contact person in the US), more like they have perfected the interview process as the most important thing in their life.

[kotaKat]

+1 vouching this one, lol. The flaggers, downvoters, and moderation comes from YC bootlickers sucking up to their masters.