On Wednesday, the organization posted messages in Mandarin, Farsi, and Korean on social media, providing consumers with secure contact information.
This most recent attempt comes after an enlistment drive for Russians following the CIA-deemed successful invasion of Ukraine.
A CIA spokesman stated in a statement, “We want to make sure individuals in other authoritarian regimes know that we’re open for business.”
The recruitment letters requested people’s names, locations, and contact information. They were posted on the dark web and on social media sites like X, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Telegram, and LinkedIn.
Users were instructed to use trustworthy encrypted Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) or the Tor network, an anonymous web browser that is frequently used to reach the dark web, to contact the CIA via its official website. The instructions were quite detailed.
Mason Richey, an associate professor of international politics at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul, stated that he was unable to recall having seen a recruitment attempt of this nature use social media or YouTube, at least not in Korean.
He told the reporters that it appeared they were modeling this after their success in Russia, but given that the majority of North Koreans lack internet connection, I would doubt how successful this will be.
