PHd Student Uses Google Maps To Uncover N. Korea Secrets | Hacker News Reader

PHd Student Uses Google Maps To Uncover N. Korea Secrets

gadling.com

32 pointskeltecp1124 comments

The first-person narrative linked at the bottom of the article is really worth a read : http://www.gadling.com/2007/12/06/infiltrating-north-korea-p...

Do y'all consider this a ballsy move by the creator (and collaborators), or are there enough people working on this project that anonymity and risk of persecution are very low?

Just because you're paranoid...

This sort of validates their point, doesn't it? They let one guy in to look around, and next thing you know he's back in the US, annotating satellite maps in his spare time. Looking at it from their point of view, the rest of the world really is out to get them.

I guess this student is not going to travel to North Korea again, at least with this name.

The world is not safe with this brutal, cash-strapped country building nuclear weapons (and imprisoning its own people in concentration camps).

Too bad the cowardly U.S. government does not do anything but "negotiate".

Why is it up to the US government (only)?

I didn't say other countries weren't also being cowardly.

Where were you the past 8 years? Just curious.

In the U.S. Why do you ask?

There's been a little war in Iraq. A war which practically nobody wants. Why the hell would anyone start another?

Plus Kim Jong-il (and the military leaders) would have to be clinically insane to even dare launch a nuclear weapon at another country. US/UK/France/China/Russia have enough nukes to flatten the rest of the world...it'd be suicide!

The war in Iraq ended years ago. What we've been doing is /occupying/ - in this case, a self-sacrificial and utterly terrible action.

Too bad the cowardly U.S. government does not do anything but "negotiate".

Grab an M-16 and go get 'em!

Easier said than done, right?

"Never get involved in a land war in Asia"

"Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events."

-Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

Gulf War? Civil War (from the Union side)? Lots of US wars have been straightforward and successful. And an attack on NK would not even qualify as a "war".

To show how committed you are, why don't you volunteer for that attack!? If you talk the talk, you must be willing to walk the walk...

Actually, my current employment does relate to maintaining U.S. air superiority, though I'm a civillian computer science guy.

I would enjoy being a military pilot, and if I were, I'd volunteer for this mission.

USAF pilots have it easy. Until they're shot down over enemy territory, that is...

I know nothing about NK's nuclear capabilities, but I doubt a few well-place JDAMS would do the job. Bombing nuclear facilities is not trivial. Israel did it successfully once, though.

A pre-emptive attack on NK could be a great idea, or it could be a disaster. There are thousands of U.S. soldiers in South Korea. An attack on NK would give them the motive they want to attack SK. I don't know if you've read about NK's elite troops. Those guys are savages... cold-blooded killers... they would eat U.S. Army babies for lunch if the combat took place on the ground.

No - we could easily, totally dismantle NK's nuclear capability using aerial bombing. It's literally that easy.

Yeah, we all know how effective the bombing of Serbia in 1999 was. The USAF cannot blow up hardened bunkers deep underground. You need boots on the ground to get the job done. And U.S. soldiers and marines would be brutally punished by the North Koreans as soon as they set foot on NK territory. You could count on thousands and thousands of flag-draped zinc caskets. Better keep negotiating until the only option left is the military one.

It's not necessary to destroy all deep bunkers to effectively dismantle NK's nuclear weapons program.

I would be stronlgy opposed to a ground invasion. Your post appeals to the straw man fallacy by implying that I support a position I do not.

The point I am trying to make is simple: bombing a country is an act of war. If you start a war, you must be ready to face the consequences, including using ground forces to supplement the air raids. NK can't send bombers to attack the U.S. but they can cross the border and engage U.S. forces in SK. This would have to be carefully thought out... I don't have the intel to assess whether an attack on NK would be effective or not, and fortunately I don't have the power to send thousands of kids in harm's way.

I'm pretty disappointed by the votes down on all of javert's comments on these posts.

Political opinion is welcome on this site in other threads, this just seems to be suppression of an unpopular point of view. It's also disingenuous to ask the poster questions about their POV and vote them down at the same time. If the questions are more than rhetorical (and if they're only rhetorical, then that's a waste of a post), then you should be willing to listen to the answers.

If you'd like HN to be a place w/o political discussions at all, then vote down the OP and the link--not the comments that follow.

The problem is that North Korea has thousands of conventional artillery placements along their southern border. I'm not sure there are any viable attack strategies that don't include Seoul being mostly destroyed.

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