The Hacker Factor Blog

There is a phrase that has been popping up in the media for the last few weeks. "Stop interfering." The accusation has come from Iran and North Korea, and has been directed at the United States, UK, and most European nations.

If you believe the Western media, then our only interference has been on reporting actual events and not the fiction that the Iranian and North Korean governments keep spouting. However, neither country has actually specified the type of interference... Maybe the interference really does exist.

Twins

If you look at the timeline of events, there are a number of interesting similarities between North Korea and Iran. And the alignment of events is far too coincidental.

• Missiles. Both North Korea and Iran have both been testing missiles. Both have had missile failures, and both reported the failures as if they were successes. (I still like that "subaquatic orbit" comment concerning North Korea's satellite. Although, Iran's launch that never happened is also a good one.)
  
  
• Old Photos. Both countries use media manipulations to support their official government statements. In particular, both use undated and provably old photos to support false statements about alleged recent events. I've been reading many news articles from official, government-operated Iranian news outlets. Most stories support the text with old photos. In many cases, photos are timestamped days, weeks, or months earlier. Don't believe me? Look at Iran's Fars News Agency, IRIB, and Tehran Times. The same goes for North Korea's KCNA. The only time the pictures seem current are when the media is seen in the audience.
  
  
• Nuclear Power. Both countries want to be nuclear powers, both claim to not be making weapons, yet both have facilities for refining (weaponizing) uranium. In the case of North Korea, they occasionally threaten using nuclear weapons.
  
  
• Transferring power. Both countries are in the midst of a power struggle. In Iran, there are protests about election fraud, mistreatment of constituents (beating and killing protesters), and threats to crush any uprising. In North Korea, Kim Jong Un has been named the successor to Kim Jong Il.
  
  
• Fake votes. By now it should be obvious to everyone: The Iranian election was a sham. Nobody can count that many votes that quickly. Strong contenders do not lose in their hometowns by a landslide. And the election counts that were eventually released were statistically improbable -- these were fake numbers "randomly" generated by a human and not real vote counts. Why, I haven't seen an election this fake since... North Korea. Last April, Kim Jong Il was re-elected with nearly 100% of the votes.

Common Ground

North Korea and Iran have much more in common than just media manipulations, oppressive governments, hostility toward neighboring countries, and voter fraud...

Iran always wanted nuclear weapons. Eventually they made an offer: they will give oil to any countries that helps them achieve this goal. In the 1980's, North Korea stepped up. Guess who is a major oil provider to North Korea? You got it: Iran.

For example, in October 2006, North Korea demonstrated nuclear capabilities by doing a test explosion. By early 2007, the oil began to ship from Iran to North Korea. 2007 was also when North Korea shut down one of their nuclear reactors and Iran increased their uranium refinement. (Anyone want to guess where Iran got the parts from? I'm guessing a closed-down facility from North Korea.)

Just to make sure this is clear: North Korea wanted oil, Iran wanted nuclear capabilities. In October 2006, North Korea demonstrated a working facility. In Feb 2007 they closed the facility, and sent the parts to Iran (April 2007). In return, Iran began shipping lots of oil to North Korea in early 2007.

But it did not start there...

North Korea needed help making missiles. Who helped them? Iran. According to a 2003 report from the LA Times:

North Korean military scientists recently were monitored entering Iranian nuclear facilities. They are assisting in the design of a nuclear warhead, according to people inside Iran and foreign intelligence officials. So many North Koreans are working on nuclear and missile projects in Iran that a resort on the Caspian coast is set aside for their exclusive use.

And which countries keep telling the US, UK, and EU to "Stop interfering"? North Korea and Iran.

Can you hear me now?

So what is this interference? The US, UK, and other EU nations have taken a stance to police the waters. As sanctions are levied against North Korea, it becomes more difficult to transfer anything between North Korea and Iran.

Adding to their concern, the United States, UK, and EU have amassed a significant number of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. If you look on a map, then you will see that this effectively surrounds Iran. They cannot easily ship over the water, and secretive land-based shipments between Iran and North Korea are almost certain to be intercepted. "We're fighting terrorists..." uh, yeah, that's one reason to be there.

Are we interfering with North Korea and Iran's ability to work together and work secretively? Yes. Should we continue? Definitely. Together, they have managed to share weapon technologies and are increasing their threats against neighboring nations. Both nations are rapidly progressing beyond saber rattling toward all-out-war.

Finally, neither North Korea nor Iran give specifics about how we are interfering. For example, Ahmadinejad recently told the US to "stop meddling" in their affairs. The claim is that we are interfering with their election protests. However, they don't specifically say how we are interfering. I believe this is because they don't want to admit that we are hindering their abilities to construct nuclear missiles and attack their enemies.

Considering that both countries are actively testing missiles and North Korea keeps testing nuclear explosions, I kind of think that they are planning for the post-development phase. Think about it: first you make the weapons, then you use the weapons to remove all interference.