North Korea is researching ways to use the powerful computer-aid design, manufacturing and engineering software Siemens NX in local industries, Daily NK has learned.
The latest edition of the school paper on the homepage of Kim Il Sung University (Issue 3, Volume 68, 2022) ran papers entitled, “A Way to Produce Materials for Iron Plate Piston Assembly Frames in the CAD Software NX” and “A Way to Maintain the Surface Color Information of Models Disassembled in 3D Modelling Design Using NX.”
NX is a widely used piece of software around the world for designing, managing, simulating and analyzing products. Even North Korea appears to be trying to use it for industrial applications.
One of the papers says designers can use NX to reduce workload and develop materials four to 15 times faster.
However, the international community classifies software, technology and other supplies that could be used to manufacture, develop, use or store conventional weapons, WMDs or missiles as “strategic items,” banning North Korea from importing them.
So, North Korea might be using NX illegally rather than formally purchasing the right to use the software. It costs anywhere from tens of thousands of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars to legally purchase NX.
The same school paper included more material on research using software and hardware other than NX, including one on ways to improve query execution capacity on MongoDB lesson history databases, and another on estimating the speed of moving objects using the Kinect motion controller.
MongoDB is a US-based database software manufacturer, while Kinect is Microsoft’s motion controller.
FOREIGN SOFTWARE USED EXTENSIVELY IN VARIOUS FIELDS
In fact, North Korea is reportedly using foreign software and hardware in all sorts of fields.
North Korea’s state-run media such as the KCNA and Rodong Sinmun use Nikon and Sony cameras from Japan, and edit the photos with Adobe Photoshop. The North Korean media also uses DJI drones from China for aerial photography, equipped with Swedish-made Hasselblad cameras.
There are images everywhere of North Koreans conducting research using particular Intel CPUs, or using NVIDIA graphic cards to develop AI. North Korean media have shown images of even North Korean leader Kim Jong Un using Apple computers and iPads.
Thus, North Korea is using overseas electronics and software for industrial and research purposes.
North Korea also makes liberal use of open source materials. In fact, North Korea is creating large-scale, 3D geographic data environments using Linux clients such as PuTTY and KiTTY, as well as geographic information systems, or GIS.
Nevertheless, North Korea is also embedding malicious code into open source technology used across the world to launch cyber attacks.
Microsoft said last month that a North Korean hacking group used open source software to launch a massive social engineering attack. According to Microsoft, North Korean hackers embedded malicious code into open source programs available to all such as TightVNC and Sumatra PDF Reader to launch attacks on infrastructure facilities in the US, UK and elsewhere.
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