U.S.-North Korea analysts got a surprise when poring over the latest satellite photos from North Korea's nuclear test site: they saw 3 locations where North Koreans were playing volleyball games instead of engaging in nuclear test preparations, per Reuters.
Getting in your head: It's an illustration of the absurd head games that factor into international standoffs. One independent North Korea expert told Reuters that it either shows the facility dipping into "standby mode" or the North Koreans' idea of a joke as they're aware of the constant surveillance of the facility.
An Obama-era cyber intrusion program could have been responsible for the failure of North Korea's missile launch on Sunday, according to cyber, nuclear and North Korea experts.
The abortive outcome of the launch, disintegrating within seconds, bore uncanny resemblance to the description of an Obama-era cyber intrusion strategy described in a March 4 article in the New York Times.
The likeliest scenario: The missile was not sabotaged with the flick of a switch, experts say. If this was a cyber intrusion, the U.S., over a number of months or years, figured out the components that North Korea needed for its missile program, and where it would acquire them, and planted malware along the supply chain, according to a former cyber expert with the National Security Agency who did not want to be identified. When that malware detected "certain circumstances," such as flight or ignition, it would be coded to sabotage the operation, the former official said.
