I've always been a little curious how North Korea is able to produce hackers that are competitive on a global scale. It's not only that an average North Korean would grow up with access to fewer resources compared to many countries, but you'd also think that the same information embargo used to keep the population in line would also compromise the ability of the best technical people to educate themselves. Extremely limited access to internet, current books, a creative community (either in-person or virtual), software, tooling, etc.<p>I guess the answer is the same as how the country is able to win gold medal at the Olympics [1] – money (and lots of it) sunk into state-sponsored training programs — but I'm a little surprised that it's effective. Even in the US, a school that would consistently produce A-grade hackers would be pretty hard to build.<p>---<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea_at_the_Olympics" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea_at_the_Olympics</a>