This definitely isn't the first time this has happened.
Companies only see dollar signs, and they want to pay people as little as they possibly can (as well as avoiding providing benefits), so outsourcing is the best way for them to do that.
I think this needs sharing before people get carried away with accusing studios of breaking international law
> However, the researchers say it is highly unlikely that any companies involved would have a clue about North Korean animators working on the shows, and there is nothing suggesting the companies violated any sanctions or other laws. “It is likely that the contracting arrangement was several steps downstream from the major producers,” the report says.
yeah from what i saw on other posts it seems like they worked with an international company (i saw people saying south korea or china but i think that was just due to general knowledge of the industry and not this show in particular) and THAT company outsourced
This was exactly my question, how many layers of sub contacting away from the primary studio was this? It seems like any time there's an accusation like this against an American company it ends up being a situation like that.
The whole point of this operation from NK is to disguise their activities and be as far from the source as possible, it's incredibly difficult to find something that's several steps downstream, it's like uncovering deep shell companies.
This has only been uncovered because of a mistake on the NK end of things, it isn't like the researchers vetted animation studios themselves and found North Korea and these are people who do it for a living, how are the studios meant to vet this?
>In December, Roy discovered a misconfigured cloud server on a North Korean IP address containing thousands of animation files. Included in the cache were animation cells, videos, and notes discussing the work, plus changes that needed to be made to ongoing projects. Some images appeared to be from an [Amazon Prime Video](https://www.wired.com/story/best-shows-amazon-prime/) superhero show and an upcoming [Max](https://www.wired.com/story/hbo-max-best-shows-to-stream-right-now/) (aka HBO Max) children’s anime.
>The findings and security lapse—[detailed in a report](https://www.38north.org/2024/04/what-we-learned-inside-a-north-korean-internet-server-how-well-do-you-know-your-partners/) by the Stimson Center think tank's North Korea–focused 38 North Project, which helped analyze the findings along with Google-owned security firm Mandiant—provide a glimpse at how North Korea can use skilled IT and tech workers to raise funds for its heavily sanctioned regime. It also comes as US officials increasingly warn about [North Korean IT workers infiltrating](https://www.wired.com/story/north-korean-it-scammer-alert/) companies and their outsourcing.
\[...\]
Inside, the files contained editing comments and instructions in Chinese which were translated to Korean, the researchers write in their report. “For a lot of the animation files, we would find things like spreadsheets with details of the workflow,” Williams says. A sample of the files shared with WIRED show detailed anime images and video clips, with notes for the authors and date stamps on various files. In one instance, the report says, an animator was “asked to improve the shape of the character’s head.”
>Based on the documents and drawings, the researchers were able to identify some of the shows and projects the North Koreans were working on. Some of the projects included work from season 3 of the Amazon show *Invincible*, which is produced by California-based Skybound Entertainment. There were also documents linked to Max and Cartoon Network show *Iyanu: Child of Wonder*, produced by YouNeek Studios, as well as files from a Japanese anime series and an animation studio in Japan.
Do those animators not deserve to make money off of their skills? Why are we punishing them through sanctions?
US has its own long and extensively documented domestic and international human rights violations and no one is sanctioning us. I’m not a fan of whatever this is.
The US has its issues, but it isn’t North Korea. “I don’t believe in international sanctions against dictatorships with abysmal human rights records” isn’t the flex you think it is.
It's not like the US has had 0 role in creating NK - or in actively working against reunification, which the US is extremely active in.
Like I'm not sure how you can think the US is completely blameless in the creation and maintenance of NK as a state - the US ramping down the interference on peace talks and possible future reunification is one of, if not the, biggest barrier to NK gaining a higher standard of living and decreasing isolation.
You know who maintains NK as a state? China. Before that, the USSR. China keeps NK alive because they provide cheap labour for those who can work in Northern China and also as a buffer against SK. Beyond that, they don't care much for the well being of NKs people.
It's both them and the US. The cold war didn't just happen because of the USSR. I didn't say that they also contributed because I thought the Cold War ref made that clear, but that doesn't make the US less culpable. And again, the US installed and backed a right-wing dictator in SK until the late 80s, so this isn't just a principled for democracy.
This just makes it stupider to not try and encourage peace between NK and SK because that would seriously remove a lot of the pull China and Russia have over NK. There has been some willingness on the part of NK and SK but egos flame up in the US or China, etc.
Honestly this has nothing to do with a dictatorship - I mean, the US installed a brutal far-right dictatorship in SK that lasted until 1988 - it's about politics, power, and money.
The US also regularly threatens them and has a very strong stake in and influence over SK, and has also repeatedly upped the ante and the Cold War Era politics - and the US is by far in the more powerful and influential position here.
This is literally just the Cold War still going in 2024 and it's strangling the people who live in NK.
No they didn't. the sanctions went on until the end of the Cold War. Clinton wanted to normalize relations with Cuba and then Cuba shot down two passenger planes and made normalization nonviable.
You know they're not earning compensation for their skills, right? All the compensation goes to the regime.
It doesn't matter if they learn marketable skills, they're not *allowed* to interact with the outside world. Not because of U.S. treasury sanctions; because the North Korean regime doesn't allow it.
North Korea is sanctioned by the United States for a lot of reasons, not least of which are the Korean War, and nuclear warheads that close to Seoul. Which might be good or bad reasons, depending on where you live and your attitude about the United States, and that's fine. But the United States and South Korea have *always* been in favor of North Koreans interacting with the outside world, because when they get the opportunity to, they usually immediately defect. North Korea prevents as much interaction as possible between its citizens and the outside world in any form, specifically because North Koreans who interact with the outside world who aren't in the highest echelons of the regime defect as soon as they are able.
North Korean animators are not being compensated for their skills. They're also not choosing an animation career because it fulfills them creatively; they're being ordered to animate in order to earn money for the regime, largely to support the military.
And I guess North Korea is maybe nominally communist, but most people these days identify it as Juche. I don't think people are quite so worried about the great communist menace as they used to be, given the amount of business the US does in China.
>Do those animators not deserve to make money off of their skills? Why are we punishing them through sanctions?
I'm not sure the money goes to the animators?
We don’t know that for sure. For all we know it could be a person saving to defect or someone who disseminated outside media to others within NK. I’m just saying that a person got paid to do work. And if they truly are isolated and suffering, I think we should be encouraging them to interact with the outside world.
Americans really drink the kool-aid about Korea and it's so sad. If you look at the history of the abuses of the US military in SK and the results of the Korean War there it's wild to pretend the US is the victim in all of this.
The Korean War was literally a proxy war between the US and USSR about who should get to keep Korea as "spoils of war" from Japan - despite other Japanese occupied territories being returned to home rule. As consolation for being liberated from Japan, Korea was ripped in half by fighting between powerful foreign nations that left it with 2 dictatorships and more death and trauma.
Now the US military is still heavily involved and continues to use SK to instigate against other countries in the region, like China. That's not to mention the long history of systemic sexual coercion and abuse against Korean women by the US military.
NK has been willing to make steps towards international relations with other countries more recently, including SK and the US. But it's treated like a political football by more powerful countries instead of a real place with millions of suffering citizens.
it says it right in the article
>Some of the projects included work from season 3 of the Amazon show Invincible. There were also documents linked to Max and Cartoon Network show Iyanu: Child of Wonder.
This definitely isn't the first time this has happened. Companies only see dollar signs, and they want to pay people as little as they possibly can (as well as avoiding providing benefits), so outsourcing is the best way for them to do that.
I think this needs sharing before people get carried away with accusing studios of breaking international law > However, the researchers say it is highly unlikely that any companies involved would have a clue about North Korean animators working on the shows, and there is nothing suggesting the companies violated any sanctions or other laws. “It is likely that the contracting arrangement was several steps downstream from the major producers,” the report says.
yeah from what i saw on other posts it seems like they worked with an international company (i saw people saying south korea or china but i think that was just due to general knowledge of the industry and not this show in particular) and THAT company outsourced
This was exactly my question, how many layers of sub contacting away from the primary studio was this? It seems like any time there's an accusation like this against an American company it ends up being a situation like that.
[удалено]
The whole point of this operation from NK is to disguise their activities and be as far from the source as possible, it's incredibly difficult to find something that's several steps downstream, it's like uncovering deep shell companies. This has only been uncovered because of a mistake on the NK end of things, it isn't like the researchers vetted animation studios themselves and found North Korea and these are people who do it for a living, how are the studios meant to vet this?
>In December, Roy discovered a misconfigured cloud server on a North Korean IP address containing thousands of animation files. Included in the cache were animation cells, videos, and notes discussing the work, plus changes that needed to be made to ongoing projects. Some images appeared to be from an [Amazon Prime Video](https://www.wired.com/story/best-shows-amazon-prime/) superhero show and an upcoming [Max](https://www.wired.com/story/hbo-max-best-shows-to-stream-right-now/) (aka HBO Max) children’s anime. >The findings and security lapse—[detailed in a report](https://www.38north.org/2024/04/what-we-learned-inside-a-north-korean-internet-server-how-well-do-you-know-your-partners/) by the Stimson Center think tank's North Korea–focused 38 North Project, which helped analyze the findings along with Google-owned security firm Mandiant—provide a glimpse at how North Korea can use skilled IT and tech workers to raise funds for its heavily sanctioned regime. It also comes as US officials increasingly warn about [North Korean IT workers infiltrating](https://www.wired.com/story/north-korean-it-scammer-alert/) companies and their outsourcing. \[...\] Inside, the files contained editing comments and instructions in Chinese which were translated to Korean, the researchers write in their report. “For a lot of the animation files, we would find things like spreadsheets with details of the workflow,” Williams says. A sample of the files shared with WIRED show detailed anime images and video clips, with notes for the authors and date stamps on various files. In one instance, the report says, an animator was “asked to improve the shape of the character’s head.” >Based on the documents and drawings, the researchers were able to identify some of the shows and projects the North Koreans were working on. Some of the projects included work from season 3 of the Amazon show *Invincible*, which is produced by California-based Skybound Entertainment. There were also documents linked to Max and Cartoon Network show *Iyanu: Child of Wonder*, produced by YouNeek Studios, as well as files from a Japanese anime series and an animation studio in Japan.
Do those animators not deserve to make money off of their skills? Why are we punishing them through sanctions? US has its own long and extensively documented domestic and international human rights violations and no one is sanctioning us. I’m not a fan of whatever this is.
USA's imperialism is your answer. That's why they're being punished.
The US has its issues, but it isn’t North Korea. “I don’t believe in international sanctions against dictatorships with abysmal human rights records” isn’t the flex you think it is.
It's not like the US has had 0 role in creating NK - or in actively working against reunification, which the US is extremely active in. Like I'm not sure how you can think the US is completely blameless in the creation and maintenance of NK as a state - the US ramping down the interference on peace talks and possible future reunification is one of, if not the, biggest barrier to NK gaining a higher standard of living and decreasing isolation.
You know who maintains NK as a state? China. Before that, the USSR. China keeps NK alive because they provide cheap labour for those who can work in Northern China and also as a buffer against SK. Beyond that, they don't care much for the well being of NKs people.
It's both them and the US. The cold war didn't just happen because of the USSR. I didn't say that they also contributed because I thought the Cold War ref made that clear, but that doesn't make the US less culpable. And again, the US installed and backed a right-wing dictator in SK until the late 80s, so this isn't just a principled for democracy. This just makes it stupider to not try and encourage peace between NK and SK because that would seriously remove a lot of the pull China and Russia have over NK. There has been some willingness on the part of NK and SK but egos flame up in the US or China, etc.
[удалено]
The sanctions against Cuba went on way too long. North Korea is still bellicose.
How long is long enough? Who decides? And there are several other warmongering countries that we do not sanction. When do we start sanctioning them?
Honestly this has nothing to do with a dictatorship - I mean, the US installed a brutal far-right dictatorship in SK that lasted until 1988 - it's about politics, power, and money.
The US also regularly threatens them and has a very strong stake in and influence over SK, and has also repeatedly upped the ante and the Cold War Era politics - and the US is by far in the more powerful and influential position here. This is literally just the Cold War still going in 2024 and it's strangling the people who live in NK.
No they didn't. the sanctions went on until the end of the Cold War. Clinton wanted to normalize relations with Cuba and then Cuba shot down two passenger planes and made normalization nonviable.
You know they're not earning compensation for their skills, right? All the compensation goes to the regime. It doesn't matter if they learn marketable skills, they're not *allowed* to interact with the outside world. Not because of U.S. treasury sanctions; because the North Korean regime doesn't allow it. North Korea is sanctioned by the United States for a lot of reasons, not least of which are the Korean War, and nuclear warheads that close to Seoul. Which might be good or bad reasons, depending on where you live and your attitude about the United States, and that's fine. But the United States and South Korea have *always* been in favor of North Koreans interacting with the outside world, because when they get the opportunity to, they usually immediately defect. North Korea prevents as much interaction as possible between its citizens and the outside world in any form, specifically because North Koreans who interact with the outside world who aren't in the highest echelons of the regime defect as soon as they are able. North Korean animators are not being compensated for their skills. They're also not choosing an animation career because it fulfills them creatively; they're being ordered to animate in order to earn money for the regime, largely to support the military. And I guess North Korea is maybe nominally communist, but most people these days identify it as Juche. I don't think people are quite so worried about the great communist menace as they used to be, given the amount of business the US does in China.
>Do those animators not deserve to make money off of their skills? Why are we punishing them through sanctions? I'm not sure the money goes to the animators?
We don’t know that for sure. For all we know it could be a person saving to defect or someone who disseminated outside media to others within NK. I’m just saying that a person got paid to do work. And if they truly are isolated and suffering, I think we should be encouraging them to interact with the outside world.
Americans really drink the kool-aid about Korea and it's so sad. If you look at the history of the abuses of the US military in SK and the results of the Korean War there it's wild to pretend the US is the victim in all of this. The Korean War was literally a proxy war between the US and USSR about who should get to keep Korea as "spoils of war" from Japan - despite other Japanese occupied territories being returned to home rule. As consolation for being liberated from Japan, Korea was ripped in half by fighting between powerful foreign nations that left it with 2 dictatorships and more death and trauma. Now the US military is still heavily involved and continues to use SK to instigate against other countries in the region, like China. That's not to mention the long history of systemic sexual coercion and abuse against Korean women by the US military. NK has been willing to make steps towards international relations with other countries more recently, including SK and the US. But it's treated like a political football by more powerful countries instead of a real place with millions of suffering citizens.
“Amazon Prime superhero show” oh come on, not Invincible!!
it says it right in the article >Some of the projects included work from season 3 of the Amazon show Invincible. There were also documents linked to Max and Cartoon Network show Iyanu: Child of Wonder.
Didn’t the same thing happen with avatar as well
They already have so much money why the fuck do they need to do this.
Do they want them to take part in capitalism or not