'What's Brewin': Bob Brewin’s Take on Defense Information Technology

Bob Brewin, the author of the site What's Brewin, wrote a column last week on the most recent round of cyber attacks on the US and South Korean government and commercial sites.

In his column he cited a paper that was published only a month or so earlier about the North Korean cyber warfare threat and capabilities. Here's what he said:

North Korea's Hackers in a Luxury Hotel

By Bob Brewin 07/08/09 03:14 pm ET

News reports pin the recent spate of cyberattacks against government Web sites in South Korea and the United States on North Korea.

And an internal paper published in May by an intelligence analyst at U.S. Forces Korea said North Korean hackers penetrated U.S. military networks and Web sites with greater frequency than any other country in the world, including China.

The paper, written by Army Maj. Steve Sin, a senior analyst at the Open Source Intelligence Branch of the Directorate of Intelligence at U.S. Forces Korea, said North Korea operates two cyber warfare units: the State Security Agency's electronic communications monitoring and computer hacking outfit, and Unit 121, which is part of the Reconnaissance Bureau. The bureau's staff works directly for the General Staff Department of the Ministry of People's Armed Forces.

Unit 121's staff of about 100, Sin said, has the capability to launch "moderately advanced" Distributed Denial of Service attacks, the kind that took down South Korean and U.S. government Web sites this week. The attacks this week, though, sure give a new meaning to the word moderate. Unit 121 also has moderate ability to infect target computers with viruses and malicious code, Sin added.

North Korea has cyber warfare capabilities that could damage the military networks of the U.S. Pacific Command and those located in the continental United States and networks operated by South Korean and U.S forces in South Korea, Sin reported.

Sin traced North Korean activities back to at least 2004, when he said the country "tapped into 33 out of 80 military wireless communications networks used by 14 different ROK [Republic of Korea] units during the Corps level field exercises and the ROK-US combined Ulchi-Focus Lens exercise."

While the cyber warriors at the North Korean State Security agency labor away in the Korean Computer Center in the rather grim capitol of Pyongyang, Sin said at least some of the Unit 121 personnel work in a luxury hotel owned, he said, by the North Korean government in Shenyang, China, about a three-hour drive north from its border with North Korea.

I'm not going to name the hotel here (you can find it in Sin's report), but Web sites for the 160-room, four-star establishment portray it as quite a spiffy place, decorated in a "traditional Chinese theme that is stimulating, while comforting at the same time. The pastel hues and new furnishings are ideal for travelers that want calm surroundings."

Based on what I have read, this does not sound like standard North Korean housing. The Shenyang hotel, which houses the North Korean hackers, also features wireless Internet access, a must for anyone in their line of work, as well as a restaurant that serves Chinese food, the favored grub of hackers worldwide.

In his column, Bob Brewin says the paper was an internal document, but actually, the paper he found online was the English translated version of a Korean language article that was published in the June 2009 edition of Defense and Technology Monthly, No. 364 (pp. 28-33) as a part of the US Forces Korea Professional Writing Program.

Anyway, I was very surprised to see someone actually quote something that was published in a not very well known Korean language magazine....I guess people do read stuff....who would have thunk it....

Perhaps the last tournament as a semi-competitive fencer

This year's 4th of July was personally very special. Well...OK...there were some North Korean missile launches (again) on the 4th...but that's not what I had in mind - after all, it would not be like the North Koreans if they didn't do something outrageous to "commemorate" the American Independence Day.

This 4th of July was special at a very personal level - I participated in the 27th Annual Seoul Mayor's Fencing Tournament. Why is this anything special other than it was held on 4th of July? Well, I won the men's individual epee event (a first sanctioned tournament [Korea or US] win for me) at what was the last fencing tournament as a competitive fencer in Korea (that is for sure); and the tournament could also have been the last tournament for me completely (we'll see about that after I finish my physical therapy and rehab, but I doubt that I will ever compete again at any level...I'm pretty bad off...).

Don't worry...I am not hanging up my mask and weapons for good...I just won't be competing anymore. I will continue to fence (for fun) and teach.

Anyway, this may not be anything big for everyone else, but I thought it was somewhat memorable for me to mark my last tournament with a gold medal.

As for my current club - Seoul Fencing Club (SFC) - we came away from this year's Mayor's Cup with a gold and a silver in men's individual epee, a gold in men's team foil, and a gold in men's team epee. Here's a photo of the men's foil and epee teams (The first photo - or the one on the left - the the foil team) that represented the SFC at this year's Mayor's cup.

Oh, and what made the event really special for everyone from the club was that we got to take some photos with Nam Hyun-Hee, the silver medalist in women's individual foil at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Corporal 'Punishment' in Korean Schools?

A good friend and a fellow blogger Gypsy Scholar wrote about status of corporal punishment in Korean schools a few days back and I thought it was worth sharing it with everyone.

I usually don't respond to others' blog postings, and I usually stay very much in line with posting just the facts on my own blog as well...staying away from offering any opinions...but this particular Gypsy Scholar's posting hit me in just the right place....so I offered some comments....below is what I had to say.

At 11:21 PM, Saber Fencer said...

Watching and reading about this took me back to my elementary and middle school days....when I went to school here in Seoul before moving to the US.

Although this post was about corporal punishment in Korean schools, it also brought two points forward for me: 1) asking the question "why"; and 2) shaking things up in Korea.

1) Korean school system not only tell the very young students not to ask "why," but this "culture of blind acceptance" persists all the way to the very highest level of education.

Allow me to give a specific example. My wife is a Ph.D. student at S university right now, where the professors constantly remind their students that they are the selected lucky few because they can attend this "prestigious" institution of higher learning (I hate to say it, but I think my alma mater, which is a state university, actually was ranked ahead of this school last time the top 100 universities in the world list came out -- and we know how much Koreans love to rank things). Anyway, this is what happens at that school when a graduate student asks the professors "why." The answer is usually either 1) Ah, that is because you do not understand correctly the subject of *fill in the blank*. You would know that what I said is true and would not have asked that question if you understood it correctly in the first place; or 2) You didn't understand what I said because you did not go to this school for your bachelor's degree. If you had, you would not be asking such an idiotic question.

What any of these really have anything to do with the original question of "why?" Simple...the professors have no idea themselves, but they reply using personal attacks so that other students would not ask the same question. Who can blame them? I, for one, would not want to be personally attacked and humiliated in public like that for actually wanting to understand things.

The other reason for these professors' reactions, I think, are simple laziness -- mentally, I mean. My experience is that the question "why" is actually the most difficult question to answer and requires a lot of thought.

Finally, I am willing to bet that a large number of these professors actually never learned to ask and think about a questions this way either. After all, they are also products of the same education system where the student who asks "why" is the abnormal one.

Of course, according to my wife, there's not a lot of students in the graduate school who actually ask "why." Two reasons - 1) The question will not be answered; and 2) Students themselves do not know how to think, even at graduate level, to ask the question "why."

Sad...I thought one of the things we humans differ from other organisms living on earth is because we are the ones who could ask "why."

OK...before I get flayed for saying what I said about the professors above...I am not saying all professors in Korea are like that...just the majority of the ones I know at the S university in Seoul. So, I suppose that my observation and my hypothesis why this phenomenon occurs is limited to that specific school. :)

Moving on to 2) making waves in Korea.

Interesting thing...in the US, if you make waves and point out something that is wrong in the school or the university (especially about a faculty member), usually the faculty member is either asked to leave or gets reassigned. In Korea, usually it is the student that gets asked (sometimes not so nicely) to leave the school.

Again...my examples goes back to the famed S university. A faculty member there published a paper in the journal in his name. A student protested, and showed the school authorities a paper that he wrote for a class (and the paper was graded and everything). Although the student's paper was written much earlier than the paper the faculty member submitted to the journal (and upon comparison, the two papers were exactly the same...word for word), the student is no longer a student at the university. What happened to the faculty member? he's still teaching at the university. Oh, if you want to know why the student is no longer at the university...it is because other faculty members of the department refused to allow the student to register for their classes following this incident. Since this meant that the student could not take core classes required for his degree, he had to seek other options...actually, only one practical option for him...leave the university.

So, with this kind of mentality, who would want to make waves? I suspect that the parents of Jeffery's daughter's friend are not saying anything precisely because of this reason. They don't want their kid to be the one that gets ostracized because they stood up for something that is right and just.

As I tell my wife all the time:
I look at South Korea as a country and I see that it has all the right conditions and the ingredients to become a regional leader and one of the global leaders. Somehow, however, South Korea always falls short of its potential (almost at all things). South Koreans usually blame the external factors (or the other political party) for falling short. I would like to offer another view point.... first try fixing the things like the ones I mentioned above before blaming everyone else for your problems.

Well, that's my two cents worth of rambling....sorry if I just rambled on, Jeff.

Saber Fencer

Well, I tried not to be emotional, but couldn't help it this time.

134 Billion Dollars worth of Fake US Treasury Bonds in a Suitcase

On June 20th, Jiji Press, a Japanese media outlet carried a report stating that two people carrying Japanese passports were arrested in Italy on June 3rd attempting to smuggle 134 billion dollars worth of US government securities out of Italy. The US Treasury Department spokesman has verified that the securities are fakes.

Today, YTN (South Korean version of CNN) reported that an Italian news paper Il Messaggero's carried a story on June 22nd that the Italian investigators are working with three theories surrounding the two men who were arrested.

The Italian investigators believe the men could be: 1) terrorists attempting to purchase WMD; 2) Japanese currency smugglers; or 3) North Korean agents.

The Il Messaggero also reported that the fake bonds were not of high quality.

I thought this was a very interesting news that's been gone fairly unnoticed. Below is the Jiji Press report that I mentioned at the beginning of this post.

U.S. Bonds Seized From "Japanese" in Italy Found Fake (Jiji Press)

Washington -- U.S. government securities seized in Ital yearly this month from two people who declared themselves as Japanese have been found to be fake, a U.S. Treasury Department spokesman said Friday.

The two people, in their 50s, were detained by Italy's financial police near the border with Switzerland on June 3 after being caught attempting to sneak bearer securities with a combined face value of 134 billion dollars out of Italy by hiding the securities in their baggage.

But the Treasury spokesman said the department has issued 105 million dollars in bearer securities.

The case has been drawing attention because of the duo's alleged attempt to smuggle out such a large amount of fake securities certificates in a sloppy way. There is even speculation that the two might be North Korean agents.

An official of U.S. law-enforcement authorities told Jiji Press that the United States is keeping in touch with Italy's financial police and prosecutors regarding the case at request of the Italian side. But the official declined to disclose details.

According to the official, it is still being investigated whether the two people, who were carrying Japanese passports, are actually Japanese citizens.

The official declined comment on any possible involvement of North Korea in the case.

A fencing tournament with a different meaning

On the rainy, hot, and humid Saturday afternoon of June 2oth, about 50 men and women got together at the Yonsei University's student gymnasium for the 5th Annual Yonsei University Fencing Club Invitational Tournament.

My current club, Seoul Fencing Club (SFC), participated in the tournament with four men's foil fencers and two men's epee fencers (one of the epee fencer was me).

The tournament only had individual events (this invitational has always only had individual events) and the club came away with a gold and a silver in men's epee, and a bronze in men's foil.

I thought everyone from the club did very well, regardless of how they finished. I am especially proud of two of the foil fencers...why? Because I taught them how to fence. These two fencers are beginners and did not know how to fence when they came to the SFC about 9 - 10 months ago. Of two, one of them participated in the last year's Seoul Fencing Association President's Cup in December 2008, and for the other this was his first tournament.

To every one's surprise (especially me), when the dust settled, the person for whom this tournament was his second tournament came in third. The person for whom this tournament was his first did not qualify to advance to the direct elimination rounds, but he still did better than everyone expected.

For me, this tournament had a very different meaning than any other tournaments I've participated in the past (and I suspect from tournaments that I will participate in the future). It was great that our club did well at the tournament, but for me, this was the first tournament where students of mine participated and finished with very successful results. I don't think I will ever forget the moment when the tournament official called one of my students up for him to receive his bronze medal. Now, I know this was a very small invitational tournament tucked away far....far....far away from any serious fencing venue, but I was still very proud of my student and it DID feel so good to have had the honor and opportunity to help someone achieve...

Well, what's a post without a picture, right?

So, here is a photo of our club's medalists from this tournament as well as the photo of the club members who were at the tournament.

North Korea Contracted Abu Nidal Organization for the 1986 Kimp'o Airport Terrorism Incident?

Here's a very interesting report I found yesterday while doing research on North Korea.

Chosun Ilbo (original in Korean)

02/19/2009

The March 2009 edition of Monthly Chosun reported the Abu Nidal Organization (ANO) committed the 1986 bombing of Kimpo Airport, and received 5 million USD from North Korea. The Monthly Chosun said, "A record showing that Abu Nidal confessed to have executed the terrorist plot upon a contract with North Korea" was discovered.

Abu Nidal, who died in Iraq in 2002, was known to be the most brutal terrorist among the Islamic circles, before figures like Osama Bin Laden made their appearances.

The Kimpo Airport bombing was an incident in which an explosive device was detonated a week (14 Sep 86) before opening ceremonies of the 1986 Asian Games was to take place in Seoul, leaving five dead and 29 wounded. At that time, the South Korean government was not able to catch the culprit, but announced that a North Korean agent probably had committed the act in order to interfere with the Asian games with the ultimate end-state of thwarting the 1988 Olympics.

According to the Monthly Chosun, a reporter of a newspaper outlet in Bern, Switzerland, Murata, discovered a "STASI (former East Germany's governmental organ) records" on the investigations into the Kimpo Airport bombing among the Special Federal Government Records Management Center archives. This report is about how one of the sections (22nd Bureau) under the STASI, commanded by an East German colonel by the name of Franz, investigated the Kimpo Airport bombing incident. The report contained the interrogation records of internationally infamous terrorist Abu Nidal by one of the staff members of the 22nd Bureau, as well as Abu Nidal's confession during the interrogation process -- that he ordered a member to commit the terrorist act based on a contract with North Korea.

According to the STASI investigation, the ANO received the "Kimpo Airport contract" from North Korea at the end of 1985, Abu Nidal ordered his second-in-command, Sulaiman Samrin to carry out the plot. Samrin, in turn, ordered Abu Ibrahim, an expert bomb-maker [and the leader of the "15 May" Organization] for terror purposes, and Ibrahim entrusted the transport of the bomb to his live-in girlfriend Frederika Krabbe, an agent of the Red Army Faction.

Krabbe entered Kimpo Airport posing as a British citizen. She placed the bomb in a garbage can between gates 5 and 6 and departed for Hong Kong. After the successful bombing at the airport, the North Korean government wired five million USD to Abu Nidal's secret account in a bank in Vienna, Austria, from one of its accounts in Switzerland.

This kind of contractual transaction was possible due to Abu Nidal's acquaintance with Kim Il Song [Kim Il-so'ng]. Born in 1937 near Tel Aviv, Israel, Abu Nidal's birth name was Hasan Sabri Khalil al-Banna. While working for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) under Yasser Arafat, he met Kim Il Song sometime between 28 Mar and 08 April 72, following Arafat's orders to solicit support from communist nations.

The two became close due to their similar views on "partizan"; thereafter, Kim Il Song supported the PLO and believed Abu Nidal as his "vicar planted in the middle east." Their friendship was to the point that Nidal had an office in Pyongyang and sent terrorists to North Korea to receive military training.

North Korean Endgame: Working toward Full Political and Economic Relations

A continuing leitmotif of North Korean regional foreign policy is to establish full political and economic relations with the US – including a peace treaty between the two countries.  This goal has been a centerpiece of North Korea’s foreign policy with the US since the signing of the Agreed Framework on 21 Oct 94.  North Korea cites Paragraph II of the 1994 Agreed Framework as the basis of its argument whenever it claims that the US is not living up to “agreed” commitments regarding North Korea.  Recent North Korean events such as the missile launch, withdrawal from the 6PT, and threats to extract plutonium from spent fuel rods, conduct a 2nd nuclear test and additional ICBM launches are all designed to cajole the US into bilateral negotiations, paving the way for an eventual normalization of bilateral relations.

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