It's not particularly hard to get some software people. You may notice they've trained and hired enough people to run their nuclear program. That's a lot harder than cobbling together some software exploits.
Suddam Hussain used a Canadian to build his supergun for example.
> Bull then started work on the "real" PC-2 machine, a gun that was 150 meters long, weighed 2,100 tonnes, with a bore of one meter (39 inches). It was to be capable of placing a 2,000-kilogram projectile into orbit.
Also noticed you were downvoted, can't figure why anyone would do that. Maybe they disagree that NK can employ black hats, but why not just comment on that in a reply...
The critical problem with using a gun though, is the sheer amount of force applied when firing the gun. They couldn't even get dummy payloads to work correctly, the rockets motors warped due to the forces involved.
Although ridiculously difficult and inefficient, it's possible to achieve orbit with just a gun, and another body's gravitational field. It doesn't need to be captured by said field, it can just be influenced enough to stabilise it's orbit.
> In a three-body or larger system, a gravity assist trajectory might be available such that a carefully aimed escape velocity projectile would have its trajectory modified by the gravitational fields of other bodies in the system such that the projectile would eventually return to orbit the initial planet using only the launch delta-v [1]
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_gun#Getting_to_orbit
The Iraqis didn't have the rocket technology (of course, that's why they hired Bull!), which would probably have looked like the US "Sprint" missile, and at the very raw edge of what was feasible at the time.
Interestingly, though, you can get from the Moon back to the Earth using only a gun-type launcher, IIRC. Some lunar mining concepts use this as a way for mined minerals to get back home without uneconomical use of rocket fuel -- typical schemes I've seen tossed around use various electromagnetic launchers with solar panels or nuclear reactors providing the juice. I've never run the numbers myself -- maybe some Kerbal Space Program junkie can figure it out though?
Probably the best use case for gun-type launchers is for orbital transfers of unmanned cargo. There were some neat ideas tossed around in the 80s of having a big satellite or space station with a nuclear reactor serve as a launch platform for small cargo pods, which would lack their own engines. As long as you balanced the number of "up" and "down" pods, you could keep the launch platform in an approximately stable orbit, supposedly. Very hard to do without a big honking nuclear reactor though.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureau_121
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_border_incidents_invol...
Incidents ranging all the way up to shelling South Korea and torpedoing their ships.
The country has literally been at war since 1950.
You forget that NK is still technically at war with South Korea. It's been non-stop conflict for 60+ years.
[0] https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7174-lifting_the_fog_on_red_star...
There's an awesome book called "Mig Pilot" by John Barron that details the story of a Soviet defector in the 80s. He talks about how he believed everything from the US was actually propaganda. He didn't even believe the grocery stores were real. It's a fascinating read.
If you're a North Korean hacker, you're probably living better than 95% of the country. You and your family probably get to live in Pyongyang and get good food, housing, healthcare, opportunities for your children, and so forth.
Why would you risk that? What could you, as one person, possibly do that would have any chance of success in fixing your country? The only thing you would get is your whole family thrown into a labor camp for the rest of your lives.
What's the implication here? That the US is somehow unjustified in being alarmed by NK becoming a full nuclear power, soon with worldwide ICBM range?
Think about the situation in that country. A small cabal of crooks lives like kings while the rest of the country suffers a never ending reign of terror, involving public executions in school yards, horrific labor camps, total surveillance, punishment of whole families, etc. The guy in charge is a sicko who executed his uncle with an anti-aircraft gun, and probably had a good laugh throughout the whole thing. The previous leader, his father, did such things as kidnap South Korean actors to force them to put on shows for him. These are deeply deranged people.
Now imagine that regime on the verge of collapse, for one of the many possible reasons that could happen. The cabal of crooks know that they will all be executed by the North Korean people for their crimes.
How sure are you that, when that moment comes, the regime won't launch nukes against all of their longtime enemies, just for the hell of it as a parting fuck you to the world?
That North Korea is justified in building up their arsenal to protect themselves from a country that has actively sought to topple other governments it simply just doesn't like.
That vast majority of threats North Korea makes are "If America does this, we will retaliate." Meanwhile, American politicians endlessly call for preemptive strikes on Iran and North Korea because they've allegedly been on the verge of wiping out humanity for decades now. I've stopped buying the bullshit, but the "Kim Jong Un got gout from cheese and died but only before killing his uncle with an antiaircraft gun" headlines keep rolling.
See: Libya, Vietnam, Iraq.
Every few years Americans say "never again", until the media sells the same lies as before and people forget.
They also have perhaps the most controlling state in history and they are disciplined, if poor. In fact, according to a holocaust survivor who was subsequently a judge at the International Court of Justice at The Hague, North Korea's political prison system is as bad as or worse than the Nazis'. [2] They have zero human rights, no real justice system, gays and lesbians are put to death, mixed-blood children are murdered by the state (the government is openly and bone-chillingly racist).
As for "zero conflicts" you can thank geography and Pax Americana for that as there has been no one for the North Koreans' to attack, though have been constant int'l abductions and assassinations (incl an attempt on the South Korean president), the destruction of a passenger jet, the torpedoing of a South Korean navy vessel, the shelling of a South Korean island, constant drug sales and arms sales by the government including the sale and construction of a nuclear plant to and for Syria, the sale of chemical weapons (those kids killed in gas attacks in Syria, yep, North Korean gas), the overseas sale of hard drugs by the government to raise foreign revenue, and most important and egregious, the wholesale murder and enslavement of their own citizens, if the word "citizen" can be used. In the 1990's during the "Arduous March" the government allowed up to a million people, 5% or the population, to starve unnecessarily while food aid was diverted to the military and funds were used to build up their nuclear program. Malnutrition was the norm. Since being established by the Soviet Union, the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea -- and the only honest word that name is "Korea") have consistently threatened their neighbors, once invading South Korea with full force after receiving Stalin's approval (a fact which can be read in the Soviet archives). If they haven't attacked again, it's purely because they don't have the means. Oh yes, and they have been hacking, and are considered one of the world's seven cyberpowers along with the U.S., Russia, China, the U.K., Iran, and France. [3]
I don't mean to say that nobody ever has a happy life in North Korea. And I don't have time to go on and on about North Korea, but to pretend that they are mere victims is ludicrous. They inherit some of the worst aspects of the old Joseon Dynasty, the Japanese Empire, and Stalin-era Soviet Union, and manage to add to that.
This isn't to say that the U.S. is without significant blame, of course not. For example the U.S. punished and traumatize North Koreans with an unbelievably destructive wartime bombing campaign after the North invaded the South. But despite serious mistakes the overall aim of the U.S. has been to create a world of growth and stability. During this Pax Americana, with and because of the help from allies and the creation of a global community of states, the world has indeed grown faster than ever before, despite everything that's gone wrong, and there has been less violence.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15480571
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh_Bank_robbery
[2] https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/north-korean-prisons-na...
[3] https://www.vox.com/world/2017/10/13/16465882/north-korea-cy...