Evading sanctions, as reported by Wired. Very irritating North Koreans Secretly Animated Amazon and Max Shows, Researchers Say In December, Roy discovered a misconfigured cloud server on a North Korean IP address containing thousands of animation files. Included in the cache were animation cells, videos, and notes discussing the work, plus changes that needed to be made to ongoing projects. Some images appeared to be from an Amazon Prime Video superhero show and an upcoming Max (aka HBO Max) children’s anime. The findings and security lapse—detailed in a report by the Stimson Center think tank's North Korea–focused 38 North Project, which helped analyze the findings along with Google-owned security firm Mandiant—provide a glimpse at how North Korea can use skilled IT and tech workers to raise funds for its heavily sanctioned regime. It also comes as US officials increasingly warn about North Korean IT workers infiltrating companies and their outsourcing. Inside, the files contained editing comments and instructions in Chinese which were translated to Korean, the researchers write in their report. “For a lot of the animation files, we would find things like spreadsheets with details of the workflow,” Williams says. A sample of the files shared with WIRED show detailed anime images and video clips, with notes for the authors and date stamps on various files. In one instance, the report says, an animator was “asked to improve the shape of the character’s head.” Sanctions placed upon the North Korean regime, for its ongoing human rights abuses and nuclear warfare programs, prohibit US companies from working with DPRK companies or individuals. However, the researchers say it is highly unlikely that any companies involved would have a clue about North Korean animators working on the shows, and there is nothing suggesting the companies violated any sanctions or other laws. “It is likely that the contracting arrangement was several steps downstream from the major producers,” the report says.
As a child watching T.V. cartoons on Saturday mornings in the 1950's I recall seeing brief subliminal commercial images in children's cartoons. While watching an episode of "Master's of the Universe" with my young son in the 1980's I was amazed to catch a very brief sight of Warner Sallman's portrait of a caucasian Jesus. My 8 year also glimpsed it and commented on its unexpected appearance.
That's interesting. There was no suggestion that is happening here, and I would imagine it would be detectable. I was disturbed by the fact that they're outsourcing what is essentially slave labor as part of the constituting something so innocent as children's television although, as you point out, I don't know that it's ever been completely innocent. Plus allowing DPRK to avoid sanctions and bring in hard currency, although I suppose that's preferable to their usual preferred avenue of massive cyber theft
