Search Results for “cyber”

January 31, 2016

CSIS: Deter North Korea with subversive information (Update: You had one job!)

Penetrating outside information into North Korea questioning the legitimacy of leader Kim Jong-un should be considered as a key means to retaliate against and curb the communist nation’s cyber attacks, a U.S. think tank said. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) made the suggestion in a report on policy suggestions on how to counter the North’s cyber operations, saying reponding to cyber attacks with cyber attacks won’t be effective because the North isn’t as dependent on networks as...

Propaganda/Subversion

January 27, 2016

Meet the assassin/killer/hacker/terrorist Kim Jong-un just put in charge of relations with S. Korea

With all recent movement on sanctions legislation in the House and Senate, I’ve skimmed over the developments in North Korean Kremlinology, reports about which often read like the dossiers in a lost, bad-acid fueled manuscript for a “High Castle” sequel. If you believe that personnel is policy, however, Kim Jong-un’s choice of a replacement for Kim Yang-gon, who ran Pyongyang’s so-called United Front Department until he died in a car-maybe-not-accident recently, is a dark omen about Kim Jong-un’s policy instincts....

Cyberwar/North-South/Terrorism (NK)

January 21, 2016

WaPo: Senate Foreign Relations hopes to mark up N. Korea sanctions bill next Thursday.

Via the Washington Post this morning, we’re still pretty much where I said we were last week, but at least we have an expected date for a committee markup. The Senate is still trying to work out a bipartisan compromise between Senator Bob Menendez’s (D, NJ) weaker S. 1747 and Cory Gardner’s (R, CO) tougher S. 2144, rather than voting on the House bill that passed last week “with huge bipartisan support.” While the House and Senate bills contain generally the same...

Sanctions/U.S. Law

January 14, 2016

North Korea, sanctions, and the argument to impotence

With support for the Obama Administration’s North Korea policy collapsing in Washington, the White House desperately needs a win at the U.N., by showing that it can get the Security Council to pass tougher sanctions and make sanctions work. Let’s review what we know about the substance of a potential resolution: Two administration officials said the United States was now drafting a proposed resolution for United Nations Security Council approval that would impose sanctions on North Korean trade and finance,...

Sanctions

January 8, 2016

Dems & Republicans join forces to support North Korea sanctions legislation

When it comes to North Korea policy, Washington’s most influential lobbyist has never been to Washington. He’s in his early 30s, never finished high school, chain smokes, likes to ski, loves the NBA and , favors dark suits and mushroom haircuts, has an explosive temper and a small nuclear arsenal, and weighs as much as a village full of his malnourished subjects. Tuesdayâ€™s nuke test may have come just in time for Congress to act before dispersing for a long...

Sanctions/Washington Views

January 6, 2016

North Korea says it just tested an H-bomb. Here’s how we should respond.

North Korea has just announced that it tested a hydrogen bomb. The announcement came shortly after the U.S. Geological Survey measured an artificial earthquake in the vicinity of North Korea’s Punggye-ri test site (Google Earth images of the site, and the gulag next to it, here). Events are moving faster than reporters can type right now, but the most comprehensive reports at this moment are at NK News, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Washington Post....

Proliferation/WMD

January 4, 2016

North Korea and Sony, one year later: An op-ed in the Wall Street Journal

Just over a year ago, President Obama publicly blamed North Korea for a cyberattack on Sony, and for cyberterrorist threats against American moviegoers. Last January 2nd, he signed an executive order authorizing new sanctions against North Korea, part of a promised “proportional response.” A year later, we’re still waiting to see what President Obama will do to defend freedom of expression here in America. Professor Lee and I have an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal, making the case for a stronger response.

Cyberwar/Terrorism (NK)

December 11, 2015

At the U.N., China shields Kim Jong-Un from prosecution, but not isolation (updates)

In February, two years will have passed since the U.N. Commission of Inquiry released its historic report on human rights in North Korea, finding “human rights abuses on a scale ‘without parallel in the contemporary world,’ comparable to the atrocities of Nazi Germany.” The bad news is that we’re still just talking about this. The good news is that America, and most of the world, are uniting around the importance of holding Kim Jong-Un accountable for those crimes. [Samantha Power addresses the...

"United" Nations/Human Rights

December 9, 2015

Treasury plays catch-up on North Korea sanctions, designates 10 proliferators & shippers

Yesterday afternoon, the Treasury and State Departments designated ten more North Korean targets: six individual North Koreans for involvement in WMD-related financial transactions, three shipping companies, for being fronts of Ocean Maritime Management, and one entity, North Korea’s Strategic Rocket Forces. From Treasury’s press release: OFAC designated six individuals pursuant to E.O. 13382, which targets proliferators of WMD and their supporters. Kim Kyong Nam was designated for acting, or purporting to act, for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly,...

Sanctions

December 7, 2015

Defectors: PUST is training North Korean hackers

Not for the first time, the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, a showpiece for academic engagement between North Korea and the Outer Earth, stands accused of teaching its elite students to work as hackers in Kim Jong-Un’s notorious cyberwarfare units. North Korea is reportedly recruiting graduates from Pyongyang University of Science and Technology for cyber warfare. North Korean defector Jang Se-yul, who worked in the North’s electronic warfare command, and another defector Yi Chol claimed on Wednesday in a news conference...

Cyberwar/Engagement

November 23, 2015

Scott Snyder: increase sanctions, including secondary sanctions, on Pyongyang

In a new paper for the Council on Foreign Relations, Snyder has called for increasing pressure on Pyongyang through sanctions, to persuade it that it must disarm or perish: Since defecting from Six Party negotiations on denuclearization in 2008, North Korea has pursued nuclear development unchecked by international constraints. Barack Obama’s administration has demanded that Pyongyang make a strategic choice to denuclearize and tried to build a regional consensus opposing North Korea’s nuclear efforts, but it has been unable to halt the...

Diplomacy/Sanctions/Washington Views

November 16, 2015

Treasury blocks assets of North Korea’s ambassador to Burma

Although I suppose it’s probably a complete coincidence that Treasury finally blocked the assets of four North Korean proliferators in Burma last Friday, I’d like to think it stung a bit when, a few weeks ago, at this conference at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, I said this: Here’s a link to Treasury’s announcement of the designation of four individual North Koreans, including Pyongyang’s Ambassador to Burma: HWANG, Su Man (a.k.a. HWANG, Kyong Nam); DOB 06 Apr 1955; nationality Korea, North;...

Proliferation/Sanctions/Southeast Asia/WMD

November 11, 2015

House Subcommittee Chair calls for re-listing North Korea as a terror sponsor

Last month, I posted video of a hearing before the House Subcommittee on Terrorism, Non-proliferation and Trade, where Chairman Ted Poe of Texas and Ranking Member Brad Sherman of California grilled a hapless State Department official about North Korea’s sponsorship of terrorism, and why North Korea wasn’t listed. State’s performance at the hearing wasn’t just bad, but exceptionally so. Poe and Sherman were both visibly exasperated with State’s stonewalling, and seemed convinced that State was ignoring the law. Now, Poe has put his...

Cyberwar/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Law

November 3, 2015

China helps N. Korea nuke up & break sanctions, then says sanctions don’t work.

Two weeks ago, the Obama Administration’s point man on North Korea policy told Congress that sanctions are hurting Pyongyang. I must confess to some skepticism. [Ski lift made in China.] Instead, the evidence suggests that North Korea’s rich are getting richer, and its poor are staying poor. Materially speaking, the capital’s elites have never had it better, and openly buy imported consumer goods with dollars. Marcus Noland also sees evidence that, whatever the official statistics tell us, Pyongyang’s palace economy...

Anju Links

October 7, 2015

Sens. Gardner, Rubio & Risch to introduce new North Korea sanctions bill (updated)

The new bill was revealed in this column by Josh Rogin, and includes a link to the full text. The bill, which still has no number, will be the Senate’s second version of the North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act, following the introduction by Senators Menendez and Graham of S. 1747 in July. Both bills follow the lead of Ed Royce and Elliot Engel, the Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who introduced H.R. 757 in January. H.R. 757,...

Anju Links/Sanctions

October 5, 2015

Arsenal of Terror, 2d Edition: N. Korea accused of hacking into Seoul subway control center

North Korea is suspected of hacking into a Seoul subway operator last year for at least five months, a ruling party lawmaker said Monday citing a report submitted by the country’s intelligence agency. After hacking into two operating servers of Seoul Metro, which runs Subway Lines 1 through 4, the hackers allegedly broke into more than 210 employee computers and infected 58 with malicious codes, Rep. Ha Tae-kyung of the ruling Saenuri Party said, quoting a report by the National...

Cyberwar/Terrorism (NK)

September 1, 2015

For Pyongyang, Korean War II is a war of more limited objectives

To Kim Il-Sung, Korean War I was a principally conventional and unlimited war whose goal was the unitary domination of the entire Korean Peninsula by force. To Kim Jong-Un, Korean War II is a war of skirmishes, whose less ambitious aim is hegemony over a supine and finlandized South Korea. Korea has changed dramatically since 1953. It should not surprise us that Pyongyang has adapted its strategy and objectives to fit this new reality. For Pyongyang today, survival is the...

Korean War II

August 27, 2015

Can Hollywood still make movies about North Korea? We’re about to find out.

Via Deadline Hollywood: Hawaii Five-O star Daniel Dae Kim and his CBS-based production company 3AD are partnering with Sriram Das’ Das Films (November Man) to develop Mike Kim’s Escaping North Korea: Defiance And Hope In The World’s Most Repressive Country, as a feature film. Rosalind Ross (Matador) is attached to pen the adaptation, and the South Korean-born Daniel Dae Kim will star as Mike Kim (no relation). The 2008 memoir chronicles a first-hand account of a high-risk mission to lead...

Books & Films/Censorship

Search Results for: cyber