> we're supposed to to believe that a country which cannot properly Photoshop a picture (to make believe they've got military hoovercrafts!) and where there are still people eating roots, and where they're best computing feat is to change Red Hat Linux's background wallpaper is...
That's a 1990s and early 2000s image of North Korea.
Sanctions are way less biting in NK now that China, Vietnam, and Russia have become much more affluent compared to back then.
It's fairly common for the North Korean government to send their top talent to study CS in China, Russia, and Vietnam, and work as unofficial contractors as well as conduct attacks from abroad.
Vietnam used to be a very common source of attack for that reason, due to it's permissiveness for Chinese and Korean (North and South) visitors, and why Vietnamese IP blocks tend to blocked by most western WAFs, and North Korean MSPs have been caught operating in Vietnam a lot.
Also, poverty never stopped a country from building a strong MIC. Look at China, India, and Pakistan's domestic MIC capabilities which began being built in the 1970s-80s.
To quote former President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan - "We will eat grass, even go hungry, but we will have our own atom bomb" (early 1970s).
I also wouldn't judge technical prowess based on inability to use Photoshop or other basic tech correctly. Lots of Chinese and Indian government websites are riddled with misconfigured access controls, open ports, and unpatched stacks yet it doesn't mean these countries don't have the ability to innovate military technology.