Kim Jong-il has hackers farming MMOs for in-game coin (and, we assume, Aviators)
by Jessica Conditt 
on Aug 7th 2011 6:00PM
It all makes sense now -- North Korea's infamously deluded dictator, Kim Jong-il, wants to be king of the castle in NCsoft's MMO
Lineage, completely explaining his fetishes for extravagance and
naked discos. Kim has hired a team of hackers to farm Asian MMOs for in-game coin, which they sell online for cash IRL, according to South Korean officials. Kim's hackers hail from North and South Korea, and work with operatives in Northern China, four of which were arrested last week in Seoul for organizing a hacking squad of 30 people, authorities said.
In less than two years, the organizers made $6 million, 55 percent of which went to the hackers, and some of that to Kim's agents in Pyongyang, Seoul police said. Officials believe the hackers report to a mysterious Communist Party agency named Office 39, which earns money for Kim through drug trafficking, arms sales and other illegal activities. Kim's slush fund is worth billions, American and South Korean officials said, and he uses it, in part, to fund a nuclear weapons program. This is truly upsetting, because the only thing more depressing than a nuclear attack is a nuclear attack funded by MMOs.
