As you may have heard, North Korea is just weird, on about every level possible. It’s ruled by an insane midget with a pompadour who tends to be, well, starved for cash, and is involved in all sorts of crazy schemes to raise money (such as expertly counterfeiting American money) and he’s apparently now created an army of hackers who specialize in rigging games with cash payouts — a scheme known as “gold farming” — specifically popular South Korean online games.
No, seriously. The New York Times reports that North Korean hackers broke into the games and figured out how to make computers automatically play them, then sold the resulting gold and gear for $6 million in profit.
Despite its decrepit economy, North Korea is believed to train an army of computer programmers and hackers. The police in Seoul said Thursday that four South Koreans and a Korean-Chinese had been arrested on charges of drawing on that army to organize a hacking squad of 30 young video gaming experts.
Working from Northern China, the police said, the squad created software that breached the servers for such popular South Korean online gaming sites as “Lineage” and “Dungeon and Fighter.” The breach allowed round-the-clock play by “factories” of dozens of unmanned computers.
And why, precisely, is North Korea doing this? Two reasons: To mess with South Korea, which it technically is still at war with, and to raise money since the whole “selling guns to terrorists” and “moving drugs” industries have dried up. Or maybe the North Korea team just got their asses handed to them at Starcraft and wanted revenge. Either way, get in line, guys, they beat up just about everyone else.