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DPRK moves up a point, but still worst for press freedom
DVDs being smuggled into the DPRK have gained the country a point in an annual ranking of press freedom. [Updated, see below] The ranking, by Washington, D.C., -based Freedom House was published on Wednesday and this year gave North Korea a score of 96. That still leaves it at the absolute bottom of the survey,…
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DPRK inventors receive WIPO awards
Last week, the Korean Central News Agency reported that seven local inventors received awards from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The awards were handed out last Wednesday and were part of events to mark world intellectual property day on April 26. I was intrigued at how WIPO had found these inventors, so I contacted…
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The importance of data security
When South Korean workers began leaving the Kaesong Industrial Zone a couple of weeks ago, they returned across the border in cars and trucks laden with as much finished merchandise as possible. Plastic-wrapped packages and boxes didn’t just fill the interior of cars but were stacked high on the roof, sometimes even covering the car’s…
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Koryolink nears 2 million subscribers
Koryolink, North Korea’s sole 3G cellular service provider, is close to hitting the 2 million subscriber mark. The news was disclosed this week by the Koryolink CEO Ezz Heikal in Pyongyang and later confirmed by the company’s head office in Cairo. It means that Koryolink will have roughly doubled its subscriber base in the last 15 months.…
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Choson Sinbo reacts to user database hack
Choson Sinbo, the newspaper of the DPRK-affiliated Korean community in Japan, has apologized to its readers after its user database was leaked over the weekend by hackers. The Tokyo-based newspaper ran an apology on its website in both Korean and Japanese in which it acknowledged the Saturday attack resulted in the disclosure of private information about registered users…
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Possible evidence of DPRK’s February nuclear test detected
A nuclear monitoring station in Japan has recorded what could be the first detection of radioactive noble gases from February’s nuclear test in the DPRK. The station is in Takasaki, about 100 kilometers northwest of Tokyo and about 1,000 kilometers from North Korea’s Punggye-ri nuclear test site, and is operated by the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban…
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Eric Schmidt and the North Korean Internet dilemma
Google Chairman Eric Schmidt has said a little bit more about his January trip to Pyongyang. [Updated: see below] The “private, humanitarian” mission, as Schmidt termed it, surprised many and saw him turn up in Pyongyang with his daughter Sophie Schmidt, Jared Cohen, head of the Google Ideas think tank, former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson and Kun “Tony”…
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Thousands more DPRK-related website account details published
The personal details of thousands of users of three North Korean-related websites have been published by hackers. The details include names, email addresses, user names and in some cases addresses and phone numbers of people to the three sites: the Japan-based Choson Sinbo (????, ????) newspaper, the China-based Ryomyong (??) site and the U.S.-based Korea American National Coordinating…
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KCTV gets more connected
Korean Central Television, the DPRK’s main nationwide TV channel, appears to have received another technology upgrade. New satellite images uploaded to Google Earth show four satellite dishes on the roof of a building at the TV and radio broadcasting center. They weren’t there a few months ago. It’s interesting because previously the TV and radio…
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Hackers leak more user details
A fresh batch of user names and personal details of people subscribing to North Korean-related websites has been published by hackers. They are the result of weekend attacks on the websites minjok.com and paekdu-hanna.com, two U.S.-based websites. Links to the information were posted on Twitter by accounts associated with the loosely coordinated hacker group “Anonymous.”…