back to article Crashed NORKS drones discovered by South Korea

South Korean has recovered two crashed drones over the past week which it suspects have been used by Pyongyang spooks to spy on key locations including president Park Geun-hye’s official residence. The Korean army is currently examining a UAV fitted with a digital camera which was found on Baengnyeong island in the Yellow Sea …

COMMENTS

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  1. Vociferous

    I pity South Korea

    Having a border to North Korea must be like living next door to a violent and psychotic drug fiend.

    1. Don Dumb
      Boffin

      Re: I pity South Korea

      "Having a border to North Korea must be like living next door to a violent and psychotic drug fiend."

      What's worse is that it is more like the violent, paranoid and psychotic fiend next door is your ex who insists that you've not broken up, refuses to recognise any divorce procedings and constantly proclaims that all of the violence is really your fault.

      Sad thing is I've known a few friends who have had to deal with people like this. Someone once told me about an abusive relationship she was in, every time he got mad and lashed out he would say to her "look what you made me do".

    2. Psyx

      Re: I pity South Korea

      I was watching a programme about 'neighbours from hell' last night. But at least they just used electric drills to annoy people, rather than artillery barrages.

      1. 404

        Re: I pity South Korea

        well, ya know.... I've been contemplating tearing the house down, surrounding the property in razorwire, and putting up a windchime farm *just* because of the grief I get from my neighbors... best of all? They're family so I feel South Korea's pain lol.

        ;)

    3. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

      Re: I pity South Korea

      South Korea isn't an entirely innocent party in all of this; always ready to invite her American friends round for a bit of war game posturing and banging on the wall fun.

      Of course it's never provocation when the west does it.

      1. El_Fev

        Re: I pity South Korea

        I'm sorry but what drugs are you on? The reason why the SK invites the Yanks in is that if the North thought the Americans would not back em, they'd be charging across the DMZ within a week.

        Don't remember South Korea kidnapping people to help them teach their spies, this is the worse kind of Liberal whataboutery

      2. Psyx

        Re: I pity South Korea

        "Of course it's never provocation when the west does it."

        The difference being that we inform them of wargames in advance, don't fire across their border and don't threaten them with thermonuclear annihilation.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I pity South Korea

      The DPRK is a gang of pirates rather than a government.

    5. Michael 28
      Happy

      Re: I pity South Korea

      True. Although it might also explain why they're moving their embassy out of Ealing . :-)

      Karma's a bitch.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "The resolution was poor" you say? Undoubtedly a North Korean drone then. Another giveaway would be the design of the engine that powers the drone, and if said engine turns out to be a really, really long rubber band.

    North Korea is increasingly turning out to be the short tempered, retarded cousin of the international community. Always getting into petty arguments and near fistfights at family get-togethers, mostly due to his short fuse and intellectual shortcomings. But everyone tries to tolerate him, because he's family and because it's not his fault that his IQ is at near idiot levels.

    And while nobody minds giving him a couple of quid or a pack of fags every now and then, since he lives in perpetual poverty, everyone secretly dreads the day he gets evicted, and shows up at their doorstep to crash on the couch.

    1. MJI Silver badge

      "Near idiot levels"

      That high?

    2. Charles 9

      "North Korea is increasingly turning out to be the short tempered, retarded cousin of the international community."

      Problem is this retarded cousin still managed to wrap himself with dynamite and grip a detonator switch. Meaning we don't want to tick him off since if he hits that switch, regardless of the circumstances, things are bound to get mighty ugly.

  3. hammarbtyp

    Navigation Error

    It is now clear that LOHAN's December 2012 test flight was even further off course than expected.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/04/spears_flight/

    Maybe a Inmarsat repeater would be a useful addition in the next flight in case of a encounter with worm holes or playmonaut mutiny

    1. Mtech25
      Alien

      Re: Navigation Error

      I doubt any Playmonaut would ever willingly defect to the Norks, we could be looking at a possible hijacking here.

      1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
        Devil

        Re: Navigation Error

        Perhaps the playmonaut simply heard Norks, and missed the rest of the sentence. Selective hearing and all that...

        These kind of mistakes so often happen.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Return to sender

    with an additional payload of doctored "Kim-Jong Un with some farm animals" photos loaded into the camera, then wait for a coup!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Return to sender

      That might be a thought. If the device itself isn't of value, give it a slapdash repair, allow it to come back, but fill the camera's memory with naughty Kim-Jong Un pictures (you mentioned farm animals, I was thinking a dress, perhaps an ugly beach bod with a speedo, perhaps some little girls or--even better--little boys *wink, wink*).

      1. DF118

        Re: Return to sender

        Given NK's laughably low standards when it comes to Photoshop you wouldn't even need to go to much effort either.

  5. Mtech25
    Boffin

    Auntie Bee has pictures of the drone

    Marvel at the NORK technology

    1. frank ly

      Re: Auntie Bee has pictures of the drone

      I thought you meant Sarah. My heart beat a little faster for a few seconds. (But, you meant 'Beeb'.)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Auntie Bee has pictures of the drone

        Sarah's book 'The Yes' came out a couple of weeks back.. its for children... so should be suitable for most of us El Reg readers.

        1. earl grey
          Unhappy

          Re: Auntie Bee has pictures of the drone

          I miss the sweet Moderatrix.

      2. Hollerith 1

        Re: Auntie Bee has pictures of the drone

        We liked Sarah.

    2. MrMur

      Re: Auntie Bee has pictures of the drone

      I saw that already.

      You say drone, I say model aeroplane.

      1. Peter Simpson 1
        Black Helicopters

        Re: Auntie Bee has pictures of the drone

        Some bright Nork spark has figured out how to get the state to pay him to build and fly model airplanes.

        1. Tom 7

          Re: Auntie Bee has pictures of the drone

          "Some bright Nork spark has figured out how to get the state to pay him to build and fly model airplanes."

          And some bright spark in the US has got them to do the same and buy the builder several tropical idyls at the same time!

      2. Tom 35

        Re: Auntie Bee has pictures of the drone

        I like how they painted the top sky blue. Guess they were not sure what side was up.

    3. Jan 0 Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Auntie Bee has pictures of the drone

      The Paju drone looks like a control line model aircraft. Just how wide is the DMZ?

      Does N Korean 'Health and Safety' let them use nitrobenzene in the fuel mix?

      1. Stoneshop
        Mushroom

        Re: Auntie Bee has pictures of the drone

        Does N Korean 'Health and Safety' let them use nitrobenzene in the fuel mix?

        Insofar as that organisation may exist, they would probably wholeheartedly bless the use of unsymmetrical dimethyl hydrazine, chlorine trifluoride, and most of the rest of the stuff mentioned in 'Ignition!', as long as it won't kill too many of those who know how to build things that fly across the border and go boom there.

    4. Vociferous

      Re: Auntie Bee has pictures of the drone

      Aww, it's painted blue so it'll be invisible against the sky.

    5. Pookietoo
      Facepalm

      Re: Marvel at the NORK technology

      What sort of eejit puts fixed landing gear on a drone that presumably needs to optimise speed and range?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Pentagon revealed in a report to Congress that North Korea has developed UAVs capable of attacking ground targets, likely to be based on a stolen US Raytheon MQM-107 Streaker."

    And Saddam Hussein has nuclear weapons that can be deployed in 20 minutes.

  7. Blackbird74

    Additional closer pic here (and cropped version of the one linked in the article)

    http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2014/04/02/2014040201064.html

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Er, camouflage error

    Isn't the blue paint supposed to go underneath?

    1. andy gibson

      Re: Er, camouflage error

      Nah, it supposed to blend in with the sky! North Korean stealth technology at its best - they send a black one up at night and a grey one when its cloudy.

  9. squigbobble
    Facepalm

    "North Korea has developed UAVs capable of attacking ground targets"

    They obviously stole the design from somewhere, probably Tamiya.

  10. Rustident Spaceniak
    WTF?

    Just what are they droning on about?

    They photographed the SK president's blue house? A quick google search reveals hundreds of decent-resolution pictures! Or are they really looking for another blue place that's not altogether a residence as such?

    1. squigbobble

      Re: Just what are they droning on about?

      Yes but it would be treachery for any Comrade of the People's Republic to use the decadent West's search tools.

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