North Korea 'launches massive cyber attack on Seoul'

Times Online (U.K.) ^ | 8 July 2009 | Richard Lloyd Parry

[Abathar]

Kind of hard to commit a DOS attack when your IT department has rows of these hooked to modems...

[VanDeKoik]

Michael Jackson at this moment looks healthier than that!

[VanDeKoik]

Somewhat similar, they are.

[Boiling Pots]

I’ve read where they’ve spent hundreds of millions of dollars developing their IT sector.

[meyer]

Is NoKo even connected to the rest of the world? I can’t imagine a fiber optic trunk line spanning the DMZ! Though, I suppose, they could be connected through their good friends in China.

[meyer]

",...the Nasdaq stock market,..."

Could they really damage NASDAQ any more than the commies in Washington already have?

[TopQuark]

The fact that they have internet access is almost impossible for me to conceive of. This was a common misconception about the former Soviet Union, too. The key here is to understand that there WAS one perfectly functioning machine there: the interior ministry and the KGB. Those had the latest computers, whether bought or stolen. The latter reminds me of a computer that the Russians produced in 1970s and which they called ES 1020 but was an exact replica of IBM 360. It was stolen during the exhibit somewhere in Yugoslavia. They couldn't even translate it into Russian without introducing too many bugs, so all of its messages remained in English --- an unheard of thing for the Russians, who did not encounter ANYTING in a foreign language in their everyday lives. That was the first computer they allowed into the economy-wide use, but the interior ministry and the KGB had powerful computers even before that.

If you think of it for moment, there is no mystery here. A society devoted to only one goal --- policing and suppressing its own people --- is good at what it is devoted too (and may fail in EVERYTHING else, including feeding those people). It is no surprise, then, that police states such as Russia a North Korea are good at all things military and devious.

[popdonnelly]

Now, what would the reaction have been if this happened during the Bush Administration? Both the Democrats and the news media would have been in an uproar.

[Lurking in Kansas]

Looks like the left side of his face has melted...

[Shaun_MD]

Never had a Tandy. My first was the old IBM 8088 PC XT with the expansion unit for the 10 megabyte hard drive. Thing was a monster. I’ll go you one even better: It came loaded with PC-Dos on it.

[Flint]

You got it envisio, Shut down our defensive computer systems at the same time they launch a nuclear tipped missile and the game is over.

[envisio]

You've seen the movies,,,,
The killer always cuts the phone lines before he goes in the house.
But I would think that this would be such an amateurish move that contingencies would be in place.

[DoughtyOne]

I wonder what the TOTUS will have to say about this?

[MindBender26]

This is not a picture of a man who should be buying un-ripe fruit.

[b4its2late]

China is prolly behind it and they can blame it on their lapdog.

[angelcindy]

kin jong mentally ill

[Dubya-M-DeesWent2SyriaStupid!]

The TOTUS is too busy overseas singing kumbaya I’m a fool and knocking America so the loon from Nkorea is taking full advantage as he knows Obama wants everybody to love everybody is anti-war and he will do nothing.

[rdl6989]

It still is.

[GourmetDan]

"Is NoKo even connected to the rest of the world? I can’t imagine a fiber optic trunk line spanning the DMZ! Though, I suppose, they could be connected through their good friends in China."

Don't kid yourself. Cyber warfare is dirt cheap and easy to do. Just the kind of weapon an impoverished country would use.

They could create a worm that would make the entire internet functionally useless, distribute it and just wait to turn it on. Send the entire world back to the dark ages, it would.

Somebody will do it if NK doesn't.

[DoughtyOne]

Sure seems like it.