Also, it's all one "company" - the Communist State.
I would have to imagine they have to know more just to be able to interact normally with other people. I would think at some point in a meeting a casual conversation about current events would come up and if they did not know much about the outside world it would be a very weird (and likely raising some red flags) conversation.
Or were these interactions only ever over text, so no camera or anything which would help obfuscate that. It would also minimize the chance of there being those more causal human conversations.
>You're an American office worker with a college education and one of your coworkers just asked how you feel about [recent event]. Summarize the nature of the event in its cultural context and offer an opinion on it typical of someone in your position.
or other variations of it. Good enough for a few months.
That proves the person you know was in the country you expect them to be, and eliminates the whole "local person pretends but the work is done by remote". The meetings mean they are available when you expect them to be.
Now sure they could have somehow got to the expected country to do that original laptop pickup, but you've got bigger problems if they are a spy and living where you expect them to be, and things like turning up to office every day for 8-6 isn't going to stop them.
all of our identities are for sale and can be used to open bank, brokerage and crypto accounts and we’ll never be notified of this. can be used to fill out employment documents
and they can pass the private sector leetcode problems better and more relentlessly while crafting a fake resume to more neatly fit the job description, while leveraging Americas biases to physically look like the candidate they want
nobody is getting hit with sanctions violations, but there isn’t a safe harbor added either
the whole structure is stupid
Some discussion at the time:
US Government takes down major North Korean 'remote IT workers' operation
[1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-07-24/north-kor...